Random Comics News Story Round-Up * I consider this white-cover series of mid-1970s Doonesbury paperback books one of the perfect presentations in comics history. There's something about it that's muted and modest and even classy -- later versions get ugly, weird, dark colors and swell a bit -- while the narrowness of the format means the strip itself is broken up into cascading panels rather than run as strips, which I think is a fine way of reading Trudeau's unique pause-beat endings. This book has maybe the cartoonist's best run: not so much the very funny and still awesome bedroom scene that is featured on the cover but the entire congressional campaign storyline that preceded it. I'm one of those that prefers Doonesbury when it uses its own characters to dig at truths about politics and life as opposed to employing real-world characters, and this run is one of the better arguments for that strategy. I think it's right up there with the Schulz "Mr. Sack" storyline as one of the great comics of the 1970s, any format.
* I consider this white-cover series of mid-1970s Doonesbury paperback books one of the perfect presentations in comics history. There's something about it that's muted and modest and even classy -- later versions get ugly, weird, dark colors and swell a bit -- while the narrowness of the format means the strip itself is broken up into cascading panels rather than run as strips, which I think is a fine way of reading Trudeau's unique pause-beat endings. This book has maybe the cartoonist's best run: not so much the very funny and still awesome bedroom scene that is featured on the cover but the entire congressional campaign storyline that preceded it. I'm one of those that prefers Doonesbury when it uses its own characters to dig at truths about politics and life as opposed to employing real-world characters, and this run is one of the better arguments for that strategy. I think it's right up there with the Schulz "Mr. Sack" storyline as one of the great comics of the 1970s, any format.
