Missed It: Garry Trudeau On Voter Access Laws

I totally missed last week's run of Doonesbury strips about voter access laws: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

I found these fascinating for a bunch of reasons. One is that those strips underline how Doonesbury can flat-out function like editorial cartooning when it wants to: this is basically an issue dissection as opposed to a series of strips that happen to be about the intersection of culture and politics. Another thing that intrigues me here is that I don't think these kind of outsized character strips are Garry Trudeau's particular strength; I think he's usually much better off and more insightful when he processes issues through his exquisite and long-established cast of characters. A third is that I see a bit of prescience at work in Trudeau selecting this topic, at least as he explains himself here -- this is a series of strips that could rotate back into importance if these kinds of laws play a major role in this Fall's elections. A fourth is that I wonder how effective they are as commentary and how Doonesbury exists in that world now; I think you could argue that the strip suffers a bit from what Berke Breathed described as operating in a tidal wave of political and satirical commentary. It could be that people pay no attention to the strip, but just as important the idea that the strip might not matter to people is out there and allows for a "Well, who the heck reads Doonesbury?" response, and sometimes the political dialogue only demand that some response be made, not that it be rigorous or convincing. Some specific stings might generate an article, but for the most part an effort like this might not drive a lot of discussion, or that discussion might end quickly. It's good to see that people are still annoyed at the strip more generally, though.

It looks like Trudeau is kicking off a week of much more self-reflective strips this week, or at least the first couple days of the week. That could be cute. Both this week's strips (so far) and last week's rely on the strip's longevity, albeit in very different ways.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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