Lately I have taken to reading Doonesbury more regularly. I confess I lapsed for some years -- maybe felt like Trudeau's comic style had fallen into a pattern -- but I have lately been reminded of his unique place in American political commentary.

I also see him as pretty sure-footed.

I looked at today's strip, though, and said "Whoa. Has Gary's footing slipped?" I embarked on a little low-grade Google research, but all I found was "The Independent Women's Forum Condemns Latest 'Doonesbury' Strip" -- what seems like an early reaction, maybe kneejerk.

I am going to guess that whether Gary's footing has slipped or not, there will be many more Google News hits in the AM for "Condoleezza brown sugar". The question is what will those news stories say?

Me? I am thinking that Trudeau *is* pretty sure footed and that he wouldn't have slipped this strip in there without some serious calculation. I could be totally wrong. I'm thinking, though, that we'll hear more from Trudeau. Let's see.

"The Independent Women's Forum Condemns Latest 'Doonesbury' Strip"

Ummm, Jim, this is your Google birdie calling..... try this

IWF's national advisory board .....Lynne Cheney(wife of Dick Cheney) -- Former Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities

So the IWF press release is *hardly* a surprise. Still, I was a bit taken aback at the boldness of that last panel. "Brown Sugar"? Clearly the context is the nicknames that Shrub assigns (to keep track of people???). But has Gary lost his grip?

I'm more confused about why they changed sides between panels one and two.

I'm more confused about why they changed sides between panels one and two.

I'll seccond that. I had to go back and reread the whole thing once I got to the punch line.

Matthew

I'll seccond that. I had to go back and reread the whole thing once I got to the punch line.

Surprised at Bitt's and your comments on this. Trudeau does that pretty frequently -- dialogue flows in sequence left to right -- and i find it easier to hear the dialogue that way.

Well, not sure what to make of the original subject. I can find a small number of editorials blasting Trudeau for penning the "brown sugar" comment, but no comment from him. The implication (to me) was that GWB called Rice by that nickname at some point. If he really pulled that out of his butt, then he could lose 2 respect points from me. OTOH, my dim view of Shrub is willing to leave open the possibility that he *did* say that and I will wait and see before docking Trudeau. 'Course, those critics I could find who assailed Trudeau will, I expect, say "So what's the big deal?" if confirmation arrives that puts the words in Bush's mouth.

On a sad note, I see that ex-football-jock and Republican B.D. has become the first comic strip character I know of to lose their leg in this wrong-headed, dare I say criminal, war.

Yeah, most comic artists draw the dialogue bubbles to follow the conversation, but most don't completely flip the positions of the characters. They'll attempt to place them in a way to clearly show which person is talking and keep it consistent, and that is not what's happening in that cartoon. It's very confusing.

Most cartoonists (and I've been reading comics for a long time) when forced to deal with a similar situation will put the first spoken words at the top with the arrow pointed to the correct speaker (present in panel or not), then put the second spoken words below. Of course, Trudeau painted himself into a corner somewhat with the whole no-lines-around-dialogue thing he decided to use. Of course, he'd have to offset to the left or right to deal with the "arrow"s, so that could help to separate the lines of dialog. I'd say he failed here. Then again, I don't read Doonesbury much, and that may be a device he uses a lot that regular readers would get that non-regular readers wouldn't.

Solely as an example, just because I thought of it this morning when I was reading it:

Penny Arcade example of trading dialogue sides.

I'm sure Trudeau would just KILL to have that kind of real estate for his daily strips...