"Doonesbury is one of the most overrated strips out there. Mediocre at best." (So-Called President Donald J. Trump, in 1989)

For shame, Mr. Trudeau! Really now, talk about shameless pandering! Some people will do anything to sell a book!

by Ken

I'm afraid I haven't been doing due Doonesbury diligence these last couple of years, since the strip stopped appearing, as if by magic, in my e-mailbox every day. But then, you know the Internet -- the magic disappears as easily as it appears. No, make that easier!

What's more, for ages now while Mr. Trudeau has been, er, otherwise occupied, the daily Doonesbury strip has been in reruns. Glorious reruns, mind you, for strips both fondly and un-rememembered, but reruns nevertheless. And even on Sundays, without that daily browser magic, it has required all that extra effort of conceptualizing in addition to the sheer physical labor -- you know, typing in enough of the URL to get the browser to fill in the rest and then (gasp!) clicking to get there. Whew!

All of which is by way of explaining how it is that it was only while doing some recent noodling on the website that I discovered the existence of this book, which I see was published in time for the conventions. So it seems likely that many of you have already obtained and worn out your copies. And surely, interest in the subject of the book can only have increased since he evolved from the so-called GOP presidential front-runner to our so-called president.


SO, IF YOU RESPOND TO THE SIREN
SONG OF "OLD MEDIA OWNABLES" --

[Click to enlarge.]

In the Doonesbury Store there are links for Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound. Here's the Amazon link, where it's available in paperback for $10.13 new and as little as $4.62 used, and $8.69 for "Kindle & comiXology" ("comiXology"? don't ask, and for sure please don't tell me -- I actually clicked through, but I still don't wanna know), claimed to be suitable for approximately a thousand device formats.


IN THE INTEREST OF DISCLOSURE, I SHOULD
NOTE THAT I HAVEN'T REALLY SEEN THE BOOK

But I don't seen why that should stand in the way of shameless pluggery. So here is one of the free samples, a sequence from February-March 1990, offered promotionally online (click to enlarge):








UPDATE: THE DONALD AND
DOONESBURY OVER THE YEARS

I see that in June 2016, at the time Yuge! was published, the Washington Post's Michael Cavna did an illustrated historical survey of the lovefest between Trump and Doonesbury, "How 'Doonesbury' predicted Donald Trump’s presidential run 29 years ago."

And in early August, Amy Goodman interviewed Trudeau for Democracy Now! (In case there's a problem with the embed, watch the show here. Plus there's a transcript here -- and from a November NPR interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross you'll find a transcript here.)