Trudeau Discusses 'War-Dead' Strip and his Tumultuous Year

By: Dave Astor Why is Garry Trudeau, in the May 30 "Doonesbury," listing more than 700 people who have died in Iraq?

"Because there is power in seeing actual names instead of numbers," he replied. "Honor rolls always help deepen our understanding of what has been lost."

The Universal Press Syndicate cartoonist is certainly getting strong reaction to that Memorial Day weekend comic. Does Trudeau think editors and readers overreact to what he does? "Well, believe it or not, I don't set out to cause grief for editors, because it only creates problems for me," he said during an e-mail interview with E&P.

"I don't know if they overreact -- they just react, I assume because they feel I've crossed some line. I've never courted controversy for its own sake, and am sometimes surprised at what readers find offensive. But grabbing people's attention from time to time isn't such a bad thing if it engages them in the feature and keeps them coming back. It's certainly in the interests of editors."

"Doonesbury" -- which appears in about 1,400 newspapers -- has certainly had a high-profile year. In addition to the upcoming May 30 strip, there has been a lot of response to yesterday's comic picturing a severed head (coincidentally drawn before the murder of Nick Berg), the April-launched sequence in which B.D. lost his leg in Iraq (and yelled "son of a bitch" as he dealt with it), and the February sequence in which Trudeau offered $10,000 to anyone who could prove George W. Bush's alleged 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard. Has this been one of the most tumultuous periods in the 34-year history of "Doonesbury"?

"I''ve had a number of tumultuous periods through the years, although it's hard to know how to compare them," said Trudeau. "I would imagine 1985 was the worst, when 10 or 11 different episodes generated controversies that were noteworthy enough to make the wires. That was the year when I went after Sinatra when he was awarded the Freedom Medal, and the 'Timmy' parody of the antiabortion film 'Silent Scream.' But this has been the most sustained period of strong reaction in recent years, starting with the Bush National Guard strips in late winter."