The Bundled Doonesbury: A Pre-Millennial Anthology

1998, first edition, from Andrews McMeel
G. B. Trudeau
The Bundled Doonesbury: A Pre-Millennial Anthology
Original price $22.95, purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
C+

As I noted in my review of Recycled Doonesbury (1990), the comic declined in quality-- writing, not art (which is arguably better than ever)-- some time after Trudeau's hiatus.  This collection has a few nice moments, especially when B.D. and Boopsie buy the old commune, and Zonker comes along.  (He's now live-in babysitter to their daughter Sam, rather than to Mike and J.J.'s equally androgynously named daughter Alex.)  But I didn't like the further character-assassination of J.J., and the way that Mike's new girlfriend-turned-wife Kim is idealized at her expense.  Also, Alex's nicknaming of her dad and Kim got annoying, as did Trudeau's inability to remember her age.  (Although very bright, she's in third grade about a year after she's 10.)  I sort of liked the opposites-attraction of Mark and his conservative boyfriend Chase.

And Clinton works as a waffle, in the sense that Quayle is plausibly represented as a feather.  Amazingly, Duke (now with a son) didn't annoy me as much as usual, but I think it's because there were no longer far better characters he was pushing off the page.  Doonesbury in 2013 is apparently on hiatus again, but I've long since stopped caring.  As far as I'm concerned, the strip would've been best retired back in '83. 

Recycled Doonesbury: Second Thoughts on a Gilded Age

1990, first edition, from Andrews and MacMeel
G. B. Trudeau
Recycled Doonesbury: Second Thoughts on a Gilded Age
Original price $12.95, purchase price $6.95
Worn paperback
C+

I don't have the post-hiatus collection from 1987, Doonesbury Deluxe, so it was a big shock to see how much the series had declined after (for me) a five-year gap.  Things do pick up around '88 (Quayle of course helps) but it's borderline shark-jump at first.  The two biggest problems I had were, one, too much of characters I don't care about (no, please, no Duke & Honey wedding!), and two, OOC characters I do like.  With the latter, the decline and reconciliation of Mike & J.J. was the worst.  You've got Mike (already unhappily married) considering an affair with Nicole (who's lost her H as well as her glasses), and then J.J. leaving him, while pregnant, when she finds out, and then them getting back together after she gives birth on cable.  And then Zonker becomes their almost criminally neglectful babysitter.  (Meanwhile, Mike's future wife Kim is ironically foreshadowed when he makes up some names of women he could've cheated on J.J. with during their estrangement, while the real Kim, who should be about 15 now, is shown graduating as high school valedictorian.)  Incidentally, J.J. and Honey used to be college roommates, but they meet on Trump's boat as if for the first time, sloppy.

Also, I always found Max Headroom annoying, so I wasn't amused when Trudeau crossed him with Reagan.  Mr. Butts (product of Mike's guilt over a cigarette campaign) is more successful.  With Butts, and some of the U.S.A. Today humor, you can definitely see a change in Trudeau's art style, a bit better, though not enough to balance the decline in writing. 

The '80s revival party Mark (still ostensibly straight by the way) hosts is a nice bit of nostalgia, including for the revival parties for the '60s and '70s, back in the day.  The '80s were hard on a lot of people, and Trudeau and his characters are no exceptions.  I skipped 1993's Portable Doonesbury, and ended up getting 1998's Bundled Doonesbury used.  Shark-jump or not, the fun was starting to end for me.

Doonesbury Dossier: The Reagan Years

1984, first edition, from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
G. B. Trudeau
Doonesbury Dossier: The Reagan Years
Bought newish for $12.95
Worn paperback
B-

Although the "Reagan years" were far from over, the last Sunday page of this collection shows the "set" of the White House exterior being "struck," with this exchange.
REAGAN:  Oh, boy, another vacation!
STAFFER:  No, no, Sir, not you.

The strip was going on hiatus, Trudeau was going on paternity leave, in January 1983 because wife Jane Pauley had twins.  I think this is why he has middle-aged Joanie and Rick have a baby soon after their marriage.  Two of Joanie's children have been retconned out of existence, with Joan Jr. her only child till now.  Meanwhile, Joan Jr. has started seeing Mike, who, along with a very reluctant Zonker, finally graduates from college.  Zonker is somehow only 20 in 1981, but the gang is growing a bit older now.  Joan Jr.'s roommate Honey still carries a torch (and now a student debt) for Zonker's Uncle Duke, who, alas, is released from Iran soon after the other hostages.  Mark seems to have abandoned politics, except to shake his head over his father's corporate greed.  Bernie becomes Zonker's tanning coach, which gives him more to do than Nichole, Boopsie, and B.D., if less than two of Joanie's former daycare girls, who are now 6 and campaigning for the ERA.  A few of Joanie's ex "boyfriends" show up, Rev. Scot and Andy the gay guy.  Joanie's employer's husband Dick Davenport gets some plots of his own as James Watt's threats to the environment upset this normally apolitical (though Republican) man.

So, yeah, the strip should probably have been retitled Joanie and Zonker five to ten years before this point.

The People's Doonesbury

1981, undated later edition, from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
G. B. Trudeau
The People's Doonesbury: Notes from Underfoot, 1978-1980
Bought newish for $12.95
Worn paperback
B-

Again, there's far too much about Duke in this collection, including Chinese translator/coed Honey's inexplicable unrequited crush on him, but luckily he disappears into Iran for awhile.  I most enjoyed seeing the introduction of "Joan Caucus, Jr.," at this point engaged to Duke's caretaker Zeke.  Joan's future ex-husband Mike is still unable to get a date for New Year's Eve, though he tries until literally the last minute.  Zonker gets a few plot threads, although the tanning thing gets old.  Mark is comparatively apolitical these days, with his most frequent radio guest a writer on "Mellow."  (It's a noun as well as an adjective, and maybe a verb.)  Bernie gets a Sunday page, but Nichole only merits one Christmas card appearance.  On the other hand, Boopsie poses for Playboy at the ripe old age of 20 [sic], and it's fun to see the characters' reactions to that.  (The photographer uses a backlash ploy that would become increasingly common, accusing Zonker of sexism for not letting naive Boopsie choose to be exploited.)

This volume gets partially through the 1980 campaign, with Mike an enthusiastic supporter of John Anderson.  The best political moment is when Bush tells a group of Preppies that after a year or two in various positions, such as head of the CIA, he thinks he can go the distance of the "big four" as President.

Doonesbury's Greatest Hits: A Mid-Seventies Revue

1978, undated later edition, from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
G. B. Trudeau
Doonesbury's Greatest Hits: A Mid-Seventies Revue
Original price unknown, purchase price $7.95
Worn paperback
B

As with the earlier collection, Doonesbury remains more interesting and likable than funny.  I could've done without so much of Zonker's "Uncle" Duke, but at least his adventures in Samoa and China give him good foils.  Joanie continues to be the most changeable character, finishing up law school and then going to work for the winner in a congressional campaign that Joanie's roommate runs in.  She also finds love with reporter Rick Redfern, after a false start with a gay friend.  As elsewhere, Trudeau handles gay issues with respect and humor.  Zonker, Mike, Mark, and B.D. continue to be perpetual college students, which Trudeau lampshades a bit.  Interestingly, Mike's second wife, Kim, is introduced as a Vietnamese baby orphan adopted by L.A. Jews in 1975, although retcon would later reduce their age difference.

As I noted in my earlier review, this "mid-seventies" collection (actually covering 1975 to '77) is more pop-cultural, with not only Rick humiliated by his stint at People magazine, but Mark shifting to lighter topics on his radio show, such as jogging.  Still, such issues as racism and feminism are further pursued, sometimes in tales of Zonker's 18th-century ancestors, tying in with the Bicentennial.  There's no question that Mr. Harris is the star of the strip at this point, with not only the front cover but illustrations introducing each year, as well as being either focus of his own plot threads or support in the plot threads of others, including his talking plants.  The title character doesn't seem to do much beyond answer the phone and watch TV.  Not only is Nichole fading out as a character, but B.D. and Boopsie are given very little to do, separately or together.  Rock star Jimmy Thudpucker and his pregnant wife Jenny are much more prominent than many of the original characters.  Luckily, at this point anyway, the second team is equally interesting.  We'll see how I feel about the next collection, which finishes off the Carter years.

This is my 500th review, so it's time to update the stats.  As of A Child's Garden of Graffiti (1971), we had

1 F
3 F+s
2 D-s
5 D's
10 D+s
15 C-s
21 C's
73 C+s
126 B-s
101 B's
37 B+s
6 A-s

We did get a new F+, but no more D-s or D's.  There's a new D+, another C-, and 5 more C's.  There are 30 more C+s and 38 more B-s, but only 17 more B's and 6 more B+s.  I said at the time, "I haven't seen an A- since Right Ho, Jeeves (1934).  Hopefully that will change as we get deeper into the 1970s."  And indeed in 1973 there was another A-.

The Doonesbury Chronicles

1975, undated later edition, from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
G. B. Trudeau
The Doonesbury Chronicles
Bought newish for $10.95
Worn paperback with stains
B

The first large collection of the newspaper strips shows Trudeau improving his artwork (soon the non-speaking characters no longer lack mouths, as in the era represented in Just a French Major) and broadening his scope.  Trudeau not only moves off the campus at times, he follows regulars, semi-regulars, and guest stars to Washington, D.C., Berkeley, and Saigon.  Such major characters as Zonker and Joanie make memorable entrances.  There's a definite irony to B.D. thinking Mike is going for some "Mrs. Robinson" action, since Joanie's daughter will years later become Mike's first wife.  Zonker is a mostly asexual hippie "freak," who does wacky things like scuba-dive in Walden Puddle.  It's implied that protestor Mark dates girls, but we never actually see it.  (Years later, he'll have a neocon boyfriend.)

Just in the four or five years that this collection covers, the characters change, most dramatically with Joanie, who goes from runaway wife to daycare worker to law school student.  And of course, we see the country move from the might-as-well-still-be-the-1960s to the post-Watergate era.  Not surprisingly, this is the first book I own to mention President Ford.

Reading it this time, I remembered that I liked Nichole, partly because I identified with her as a young sarcastic feminist with brown hair and glasses, and I was disappointed that she was phased out after a few years.  I was surprised this time to see how much Doonesbury uses child characters, most notably Ellie at the daycare, but also a few short-lived characters during a school-busing thread.

There seems to be less pop culture in this collection than later, just a few music references (including a Sunday spread from the POV of Gladys Knight's Pips) and some morphing Calder art.  As I recall, as Doonesbury moved into the later 1970s, there was more about things like disco and jogging, while still including deeper social and political issues.  Reading this comic is usually a painless way to revisit the past.

I just wish it were, um, funny.  It makes me smile but it rarely makes me laugh.

The Fireside Watergate

1973, possibly first edition, from Sheed & Ward
Nicholas von Hoffman and Gary Trudeau
The Fireside Watergate
Original price $4.95, purchase price $2.95
Good condition hardcover with worn dustjacket
C+

This obviously is the first of my books to mention Watergate, and while it was written before all was revealed, there's certainly enough here for a satire.  Unfortunately, it's just not that funny.  Oh, Trudeau's cartoons (some of which we'll see again in the next Doonesbury collection) are fine, but von Hoffman somehow manages to turn the comedy gold of political scandal into tinsel.  Only his pun of "Impeach Melba" and the discussion of all the IIs, IIIs, and Jrs. in the Nixon White House made me grin.  He's very mean-spirited, which would be OK if it didn't feel pointless.  I also found his misogyny, particularly towards Dean's "Castro convertible" (wife), to be gratuitous. 

As I recall, Schell's The Time of Illusion and Lukas's Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years, which we'll get to in '76, are both not only more insightful but funnier.  Still, let's give von Hoffman credit for turning in his assignment early, and look forward to Trudeau getting a whole book to himself again soon.

Just a French Major from the Bronx

1972, possibly first edition, from Popular Library
G. B. Trudeau
Just a French Major from the Bronx
Original price 95 cents, purchase price 75 cents
Slightly worn paperback
B-

Very early look at Mike Doonesbury and friends, although not the earliest, as these are from the first syndicated newspaper strips rather than The Yale Daily News.  This means that there's no nudity, and the drug humor has been toned down.  There's of course quite a bit of political humor, including Mike meeting Nixon (not shown) and Humphrey (illustrated).  There's also a higher proportion of black characters than later, most prominently radical Calvin and Mike's ghetto teen tutee Rufus.  Female characters are only in a strip or two each, no Joanie or Boopsie yet.  The title comes from a hockey game Mike plays.  Overall, a mildly amusing slice of its time, the still-very-'60s early 1970s.  I'll say more when we get to the lengthier collections.