There’s not a chance that I’ll read Joshua Kendall’s new biography of Garry Trudeau, Trudeau & Doonesbury: The Cartoonist Who Turned the News Into Art—not necessarily a slight on Kendall, I just have little interest in white-washed stories about pop culture “icons,” whether from rock ‘n’ roll, politics or film—but did enjoy Dwight Garner’s New York Times review of the book, even if I found his writing as clunky as he claims Kendall’s is (It’s possible that a “busy-work” Times assistant editor tinkered with Garner’s work; but probably not). That’s evident from the first sentence: “Garry Trudeau is a short guy who grew into a tall guy but never forgot what being a short guy was like.” That’s mush, but maybe Randy Newman, whose single “Short People” from the 1977 LP Little Criminals (that record also included “Baltimore,” which riled city officials in Tinytown), might appreciate it, even though he’s not crazy about the song today. (I saw Newman perform at Princeton’s McCarter Theater in 1973, a rollicking show, with lots of one-liners sprinkled throughout the set, and he’s one of the top songwriters from that era, but I wouldn’t read his biography either.)
Garner, who concedes Kendall’s bio borders on hagiography, nonetheless writes: [I]t has a good story to tell. I devoured it in two or three sittings, as if it were an ideal bag of popcorn. This book will be a many-sided nostalgia trip for anyone who’s read ‘Doonesbury’ in something like real time, and a mind-popping introduction of Trudeau’s oeuvre for tykes who did not.”
Popcorn is never, ever fresh (as I learned at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium when I first worked there as vendor in 1974 and saw the plastic bags of popcorn collecting dust in the commissary and dumped into paper megaphones for fans) and I doubt many, if any, “tykes” have interest in the cartoonist’s “oeuvre.” But I’ll buy the “nostalgia” line since I read “Doonesbury” every day in the 1970s and 80s, before “Nancy,” “L’il Abner,” “Andy Capp,” “Brenda Starr,” “Mary Worth,” “Apartment 3-G,” “The Wizard of Id” and “Gasoline Alley.” Almost all my friends at college and the weekly City Paper did as well, and to lapse into Garner-like prose it was “water-cooler” material.
I never liked Megaphone Mark, but at least in the early years it was hard not to feel affection for stoner Zonker Harris, the befuddled Mike Doonesbury, B.D., Roland Hedley (Trudeau’s clever parody of ABC’s ridiculous Sam Donaldson), the confused feminist Joanie Caucus and later on, Andy Lippincott, “the first openly gay character to appear on the comic pages.” One strip I recall was when Andy, dying of AIDS, said to friends comforting him (and I’m paraphrasing) “I just want to hold out until the CD of Pet Sounds is released. In a frightening time, mostly for gay men (although initially it was panic all around), it was a poignant moment on the comics pages. He began lampooning Donald Trump in 1987 (just behind Spy) and it landed; though, given the material Trump provided it was hard to blow it. (I didn’t care much for, but still read, his criticism of Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush; but by that time I’d mostly checked out of the comics routine.)
My favorite character, like many readers, was Uncle Duke, Trudeau’s send-up of Hunter S. Thompson (who hated it), which was pretty daring, since the cartoonist and Thompson shared the same politics. Maybe Trudeau was put off by HST’s louche lifestyle, or a closet puritan, but his portrayal was hilarious. Thompson said in a 1977 appearance at the University of Colorado at Boulder (he’d lost his juice by then) that he didn’t want to meet Trudeau because “I might set the little bastard on fire.”
Garner—again, I enjoyed the review since I hadn’t thought of “Doonesbury” in decades, even if I have a water-logged first collection of his strips in the basement—can’t help himself at the cliché smorgasbord at the end. He writes: “Trudeau has led a hermitlike existence; he’s fought to not become a national treasure. Yet he’s arguably the coolest baby boomer standing, in part because he’s still on the side of the world’s dark horses, bottom dogs and little guys.” That’s a reach; although thankfully not a wealthy “populist” like Bruce Springsteen, Trudeau and wife Jane Pauley are multimillionaires and own multiple properties.
The picture above is of Hunter S. Thompson on the Johns Hopkins campus decades ago, where, on a tour, he gave a lively speech to a packed house. As the features editor of The News-Letter, I was able to interview him after the “lecture” and it was very amiable and memorable. I’ll leave it at that.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Warren Burger is SCOTUS Chief Justice; the premiere of Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown is a ratings letdown for CBS; Bobby Fischer refuses to play Anatoly Karpov, giving the latter the chess title; Karen Ann Quinlan first lapses into a coma that lasts 10 years; racehorse Ruffian is euthanized; Sarah Gilbert is born and T-Bone Walker dies; Tommy is released; author Colin Dexter introduces Inspector Morse; E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, James Purdy’s In a Shallow Grave and Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation are published; Gary Snyder wins the Fiction Pulitzer Prize; Orioles’ Jim Palmer leads MLB in ERA (2.09) and Ronnie Wood (still the “new guy”) debuts with the Rolling Stones.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023