Garry Trudeau: 'Doonesbury quickly became a cause of trouble'

The creator of America's first and best satirical daily newspaper cartoon talks about 40 years of upsetting politicians and editors

The Guardian

October 26, 2010

The first Doonesbury strip, published 40 years ago today, seems naive looked at through modern lenses. It begins with a character so sparsely drawn he barely exists, though you are intrigued immediately by the American football helmet he is wearing while sitting in an armchair.

He is joined by a scraggy-haired young man with a pencil for a nose and the letter O to represent his glasses. This is Michael Doonesbury and the helmeted football player is his new college roommate, BD. Little did their creator Garry Trudeau know when he sketched out that first awkward encounter between them, published on 26 October 1970, that he had just made comic history. Nor did he have any idea that he was embarking on a journey that would stretch into the indefinite future and that those scratchy beginnings would turn into a chronicle of modern times.

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