DOONESBURY - a poll to end all polls

These days it's all about BD, Elias, and the rest of the therapy group.

what's with the joint categories?

I voted for Clyde

Is Didi the adopted infant who sings along with TV commercials? If not who is she? And what's the name of that kid?

How awesome would a 'Complete Doonesbury' set be? I've read everything up through the late '70s, but there are big chunks of the '80s-'00s I've missed completely or only read through theme collections (like the Duke collection that came with an action figure!)

hahaha I remember that that was awesome

i want like 5 votes

I'm torn between Alice & Elmont and Rufus.

Aren't the smaller books basically an uninterrupted year's worth of strips?

where is Mac? Dr. Whoopee?

The adopted infant grows up to be Mike's wife Kim.

Ha! Is that speculation or a joke or what?

no its true!

totally true - she was the last baby out of Vietnam

Wow. Learn something new every day.

So who's Didi, then?

From Wikipedia - Didi Robins - One of the members at the Walden Commune. Her hair is so long she resembled Cousin Itt from the Addams Family. She helped found a lesbian magazine, but is straight. She was also J.J.'s art assistant when she lived in New York in the 80s.

totally true - she was the last baby out of Vietnam

Yup. She also appeared a few times in the 80s strips as a kid achieving well in elementary school/middle school and thus the focus of attention over model-minority claims (which Trudeau wanted to debunk via the fact that she was, after all, being raised by adoptive parents).

I wish I had a working scanner, I'd scan in the series when Roland comes to Walden and the crew convinces him it's still the summer of love. "Peyote and clam dip!"

She was also J.J.'s art assistant when she lived in New York in the 80s.

wait, waht? did she actually appear, er, on-panel?

I voted Zonker, but now that I think about it, I should've voted for Zeke.

I hope Zipper gets a couple of votes

Ah, thanks. Some of these characters that haven't appeared for decades are not so easy to recall.

I've occasionally wondered what Mike's brother was up to.

The Elias/B.D. stuff is so good these days that I'm voting Elias.

PHRED PHOREVER
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/Phred.jpg

I'm all about some Honey

Puddle-era Zonker - HEEEEE-WACK!

"I just get high on life ... and America!"

I love the judge's response to the DA after he dismisses that case - "you HAD him, son, you HAD him."

I voted for Phred, but honestly, B.D. has really come a long way for me.

i rly only read for the mike/kim/alex storyline...

Has there ever been a good Jimmy Thudpucker strip?

The one where Jimmy Carter was getting him to write a campaign song? I admit it's a reach.

The Dylan/Thudpucker ones were not bad. Though I think that's the same one PP might be talking about.

How awesome would a 'Complete Doonesbury' set be?

I dunno, come to my house and see.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i was trying to decide between rick and bernie

Duke???!? There are six of you who are out of your freaking minds.

Uh, like Duke, I guess.

does anyone else think honey is marcie from peanuts all grown up?

Hair-wise, yes. Lesbian-wise, no.

Good to see the Phred love though.

how did i not see this?? phred all the way

best terrorist ever

Search: Duke, the late Phil Slackmeyer, Lacey Davenport, Joanie Caucus. I think Trudeau is/was really at his best with people a little older than himself - without the generational rah-rahing of the Boomer cast, his sympathetic eye comes through even with fairly loathsome characters. I just now reread most of the late 80s and there's some great Phil stuff. Something really kind-hearted about him trying to escape his problems with the SEC by going ballroom dancing with Alice. Trudeau was happy to send him up the river as a slimy 80s insider trading creep, but he still saw him as basically a person.

Destroy: on the opposite end, all of the Generation X characters except maybe Kim Rosenthal (redeemable mainly by her appearances as an infant and teenager). Alex, Sal Doonesbury, and especially ZIPPER who serves no purpose at all besides "Crap, I want to do stories about kids in college these days, but Zonker is too old!" At least the others were long-developed relations of the other characters; Zipper came out of nowhere and became quickly inescapable, like Poochy or something.

Ron Headrest is also unbelievably tedious - were those strips funny at the time? Big skippers for me now.

"a little older" above should probably just be "older," since Lacey Davenport was born in 1910 or so!

Reading further into the 90s, though, I gotta say, he way he handles Mike Doonesbury is a really fantastic portrayal of a nebbish whose principles get worn away by circumstance. 70s campus leftie, forced in the 80s to work for the promotion of cigarettes, Reagan, and Big Oil, then cramped completely out of relevancy by unemployment, he ends up making it big in dot-com land and slumping right into being a Forbes voter - and even in his newfound comfort he can't take on the moral crisis of having to either fire his girlfriend or another innocent bystander of his choosing. Setting aside all the wish fulfillment in these stories, it's a pretty pathetic life story, made bearable only by his status as a loving father (highlighted by JJ, who sells out just as hard and ditches the family for the strip's most irredeemable lowlife)....

Yeah, I like Doonesbury a lot.