just thinkin\u2019 bout Doonesbury, the iconic boomer parapolitical newspaper cartoon
which started as an injokey and football-centric Yale student paper strip
then broke out and eventually tracked the generation
for a while it addressed the compromises, the \u201880s were the stand-in character as a yuppie ad man torn about selling cigarettes in a divorce-bound marriage, in stuff that in style and ambition tracked with contemporaries Zippy the Pinhead or Life in Hell
also the peace-loving pastor dealing with the New Age flight from the church and then the \u201cseeker-sensitive\u201d return when they had kids
I think the turning point might have been Gulf War I, Niedermeyer-type quarterback B.D. was called up from the reserves and there was this Sunday strip where the throwaway panels, or maybe more, were ditzy fuckbunny Boopsie in a bikini untied in front, like an old \u201cfor the troops\u201d pin-up
which was kind of tongue-in-cheek about the low stakes of the war but also kind of a reunion/apology for his generation after how Vietnam went?
in his Vietnam strips B.D. was an arrogant clueless butter bar who got lost and captured by good-natured V.C. Phred
who maybe, because artist Trudeau was so economical with recycling his characters, was related to the Jewish Vietnamese orphan who then got reused as stand-in Mike\u2019s younger co-worker turned second, wiser-choice Asian gamer geek gf/wife in the \u201890s-2000s
then in the 2000s the plots started to center around his daughter from his first marriage who looked like the Cory Kennedy version of him just saying
oh, but not before figuring out what to do with Gulf War II and doing an \u201cadventures in military trauma care\u201d plot FOUR TIMES, with B.D. losing a leg and his black sharp-jawed buddy getting PTSD and some new NCO girl getting sexually abused and his daughter\u2019s boyfriend recovering from IED brain trauma it was ridiculous
BOOMERS, MAN
oh this is all before bringing up the Hunter S. Thompson stand-in