Criticism
Charles M. Schulz of Peanuts called Trudeau "unprofessional" for taking a long sabbatical. Nor was the return of the strip itself greeted with universal acclaim; in 1985, Saturday Review voted Trudeau one of the country's “Most Overrated People in American Arts and Letters,” commenting that “The most publicized return since MacArthur’s has produced a strip that is predictable, mean-spirited, and not as funny as before.”
Some conservatives have intensely criticized Doonesbury. Several examples are cited in the Milestones section. The strip has also met criticism from its readers almost since it began syndicated publication. For example, when Lacey Davenport’s husband Dick, in the last moments before his death, calls on God, several conservative pundits called the strip blasphemous. The sequence of Dick Davenport’s final bird-watching and fatal heart attack was run in November 1986.
Doonesbury has angered, irritated, or been rebuked by many of the political figures that have appeared or been referred to in the strip over the years. A 1984 series of strips showing then Vice President George H.W. Bush placing his manhood in a blind trust—in parody of Bush’s using that financial instrument to fend off concerns that his governmental decisions would be influenced by his investment holdings—brought the politician to complain, "Doonesbury’s carrying water for the opposition. Trudeau is coming out of deep left field." There have also been other politicians who did not view the way that Doonesbury portrayed them very favorably, including former U.S. House Speaker Tip O'Neill and former/current California Governor Jerry Brown.
The strip has also met controversy over every military conflict it has dealt with, including Vietnam, Grenada, Panama and both Gulf Wars. When Doonesbury ran the names of soldiers who had died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, conservative commentators accused Trudeau of using the American dead to make a profit for himself, and again demanded that the strip be removed from newspapers.
After many letter-writing campaigns demanding the removal of the strip were unsuccessful, conservatives changed their tactics, and instead of writing to newspaper editors, they began writing to one of the printers who prints the color Sunday comics. In 2005, Continental Features gave in to their demands, and refused to continue printing the Sunday Doonesbury, causing it to disappear from the 38 Sunday papers that Continental Features printed. Of the 38, only one newspaper The Anniston Star in Anniston, Alabama, continued to carry the Sunday Doonesbury, though of necessity in black and white.
Some newspapers have dealt with the criticism by moving the strip from the comics page to the editorial page, because many people believe that a politically based comic strip like Doonesbury does not belong in a traditionally child-friendly comics section. The Lincoln Journal started the trend in 1973. In some papers (such as the Tulsa World and Orlando Sentinel) Doonesbury appears on the opinions page alongside Mallard Fillmore, a politically conservative comic strip.
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