Blowback


Blowback
A clean, well-lit place to vent
Please feel free to contribute to this frequently-updated forum, which posts selected commentary on our favorite comic strip. If you'd like your critique to be posted, please note that civility, if not approbation, counts. Click here to submit a comment.
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BOOPSIE
So, Boopsie solved JFK's murder mystery! Perhaps she should have gone to law school instread of Joanie. GBT could have called the resulting anthology Legally Blonde. Boopsie's development into a less naive, wise and empathetic mother figure has been nice to see.
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THANK YOU!
Thank you thank you thank you! Wow, did I need today's strip. Brutal, and absolutely spot on.
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CONNECTING THE DOTS
Connecting the dots between today's 5-years-ago and 30-years-ago Flashback strips: perhaps Boopsie's suit fits fine but, for medicinal purposes, she could use a hit or two of Z+Z?
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FLASHBACK STRIP
Today's 30-years-ago Flashback strip is one of my all-time favourites (and there are many). Amazing how B.D. keeps his cool in the face of Boopsie's flakiness, and he even manages a bit of sarcasm (unaware, probably).
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THE RUB
Granted, life imitates art in that, like Samantha, I smiled (thank you). The rub is that such theocrats as Palin look to be getting the last laugh. In '09, I saw roughly 2,000 future Trump-eters line up to buy (into) signed copies of her Going Rogue (which spins tales of how she fought "corruption" in Alaska). Seven years on, Donald Trump demonized Hillary Clinton as a "crooked" founder of ISIS. On 1/6/21, under a "JESUS 2020" banner (among other things), Trump-stoked divine righties came close to destroying America to "SAVE" it. Not without comic relief (thanks again), we'll do well to grasp how appeasement of democracy-smiting despots has catastrophically failed -- and to make new plans, post haste.
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SEN. RICK SCOTT
Today's strip brings to mind Florida Sen. Rick Scott. While he is demented, his talk about cutting Social Security now is just evil.
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A MUSEUM
Oof. Today's Classic Doonesbury strip noting that the Senate is "a museum" hits even harder than it did back in '97.
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B.D.'s "ALIVE DAY"
Thank you for the April 24 strip with B.D.'s "Alive Day." I have one too, but it did not have a name until now. I was born 2/9/1944 and shot through the upper left chest 2/19/1967 while in Vietnam as a Marine. Bled out to unconsciousness on the floor of the cargo helicopter that got me to help. Really thrilled to have gotten this extra 55 years and take nothing for granted. I have been a really big Doonesbury fan forever. It always resonates. Thanks again.
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SUITCASE
In today's Classic strip, Mike and Kim are packing up to leave Vietnam. Mike's suitcase is leather with metal-clad corners and felt interior, like my grandparents had. Kim's, from the shape of the latch, is more modern. The symbolic association with the state of their two mindsets must have escaped me in 1997, but it doesn't now.
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FIRST TIME
Seems like today's strip is the first time I've seen Mike with real glasses, not a pince-nez.
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BABY-EATERS
Once again, Mr. Trudeau gets it exactly right. It's easy to understand how many millions of Russians got taken in by such clearly bizarre propaganda, as we have watched so many Americans do exactly the same thing. The belief that Hillary Clinton leads a worldwide satanic cabal of baby-eaters from a pizzeria basement is now mainstream. It is tempting for reality-based Americans to laugh off Q-Anon’s conspiracies, but beware. All aspiring dictators understand the power of the Big Lie. The Big Lie lets the dictator literally get away with murder, and election theft, human rights abuses, and all manner of crimes (including war crimes).
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ANOTHER DIRECTION
...The punchline of Sunday's strip was not funny. Cheap MAGA caricatures are low-hanging fruit for someone with Trudeau's talent. Why not take it another far more thought-provoking direction and have the people watching the propaganda on TV be regular Americans watching the lies the media told 20 years ago that led to the illegal US invasion of Iraq, a crime with far, far less justification than the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
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TRIAL BY COMBAT
Re today's strip: In 2013, Trump longed to be Putin's "best friend." In 2016, he called him "strong" and hence good. Now he admires his "peacekeeping.... genius." Were the media being "liberal" not a tall tale, most voters might know as much. They don't. In keeping with such ignorance, what Rudy Giuliani calls "trial by combat" may turn out not to have ended on 1/6/21; our worst case scenario looks a lot like Ukraine does now...
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ANZAC DAY
I don't begrudge the boys their little celebration - I thought I'd just mention that tomorrow, the 25th April, is Anzac Day down-under when we march and remember the Aussies and Kiwis [New Zealanders] who weren't the lucky ones or who came back pretty shattered. I know you've got your own day for that, I thought I'd just mention the coincidence of to-day's strip. We might have a few beers tomorrow, too.
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COW BELL
It is so hard to get the cowbell right. One of the top five SNL skits ever, right here: RIP Gene Frenkle.
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HEY HEY, MY MY!
Hey hey, my my! How can Alex be such a party pooper? Let's not forget Jeff Blackburn/ Neil Young: "There's more to the picture than meets the eye/Rock and roll will never die." So there.
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LALO ALCARAZ & MASYANYA
I gotta speak up for my favorite editorial cartoonist, Lalo Alcaraz! And, of course, Masyanya. Nothing is complete without her.
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BAM
And BAM, just like that – not even a spoiler alert – and now I know Tom Tomorrow’s given name. So much reality, so little illusion left.
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SYMPATHETIC TOWARD J.J.
I remember today's strip when it first came out, and over the years I've become more sympathetic toward J.J. After all, Mike and Kim are still married, no matter what the reception was like. But J.J. has lost a $200,000 commission for a project that (whatever you may think of it) she clearly poured her heart, soul, and labor into. I think she's entitled to a little self-centeredness.
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JOHN DEERING
In Arkansas, we are blessed to have a good daily newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. They print every day, but deliver actual paper only on Sundays, and we read on our devices each morning. It is basically Republican, but not crazy Republican, and presents a range of opinions as well as Doonesbury--they did hide the daily strip on the second page of the classifieds for a while. They have a first-rate political cartoonist, John Deering, who people should check out. He does first class work.
Editor's Note:Free registry seems to be offered/required, though it's not working for me so far. Here's alternate access to Deering's work. Click on "Read now."