A new book and probably the first booklength critical study
of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury arrived last fall from the
University Press of Mississippi, one of my publishers (and one of the better
ones, at that). Kerry D. Soper’s Garry
Trudeau: Doonesbury and the Aesthetics of Satire (186 6x9-inch pages, some
illustration, all b/w; $22 in paperback, $50 in unjacketed hardback) is divided
into chapters that discuss the history of the strip, analyze Trudeau’s
satirical methods in the context of the medium, and examine the aesthetics of
the strip. Soper’s is an ambitious project, and his having attempted it — and
Mississippi’s having published it — is, of itself, testimony to the social status
and influence of the comic strip. I haven’t read this yet, but I’m looking
forward to it.
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