Why Doonesbury's B.D. Didn't Die

By: Dave Astor Why didn't Garry Trudeau kill off his B.D. character this week rather than have him lose a leg in Iraq?

"It seemed far more useful to look at an extreme sacrifice, short of death," the "Doonesbury" creator told Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention attendees here today. "I want to show the process of recovery and rehabilitation ... and the impact on family and friends. B.D.'s life will never be the same. That's why I took his helmet off after 34 years. He's moving on to a different part of his life."

Trudeau -- who said the sequential nature of a comic makes this kind of story possible -- added that B.D. is representative of the many soldiers coming back from Iraq with serious injuries.

The cartoonist did note that he's not afraid to let his characters die. "I've killed five of them," he said. "They age in real time. They get diseases." But he added that B.D. is his first "central character" to get this badly hurt.

"Doonesbury" runs in 1,400 newspapers via Universal Press Syndicate.