The Doones From Yale: 55 years of Doonesbury
“Doonesbury” by Garry Trudeau has been a highlight — or a low point, depending on your political leanings — of newspaper comics or opinion pages for more than a half-century. Along the way, it’s ridiculed politicians, poked fun of pop culture and journalism and ridiculed extremists of all types. One of Trudeau’s favorite and most frequent targets has been President Donald Trump.
“Doonesbury” — adapted from a comic strip that started out in the Yale Daily News — was launched in 26 newspapers across the country on Oct. 26, 1970 — 55 years ago today.
The Origins of Trudeau's 'Doonesbury'
Fall 1966
Garry Trudeau, age 18, starts college at Yale University and begins drawing a comic strip about an awkward freshman who has trouble meeting girls. The strips go unpublished. Instead, Trudeau begins writing occasional columns for the Yale Daily News and becomes editor of the campus humor magazine. He also serves on a social committee chaired by upperclassman George W. Bush.
November 1967
Trudeau draws two illustrations for the Yale Daily News to run with a story about a hazing incident in which a freshman is branded.
Sept. 30, 1968
Trudeau begins drawing a comic strip for the Yale Daily News based on the Yale football team and its captain, Brian Dowling. Trudeau calls the strip “Bull Tales” in honor of the school mascot, the Bulldogs.
At one point, the Daily News spoofs the strip with a cartoon labeled “Bull,” in which the football team attacks the “Bull Tales” cartoonist.
Nov. 28, 1968
The Universal Press Syndicate sends Trudeau a letter telling him they’ve seen his “Bull Tales” strip and asks if he’d be interested in a syndication deal.
“I am not certain as to exactly how a strip of this nature could be of interest to you,” he replies. “You might have noticed the cartoons as they stand now are rather specific to Yale and college life.” Over the next few months, however, Trudeau begins to expand the focus of “Bull Tales” from just the football team to more aspects of campus life.
Garry Trudeau
Spring 1969
The Yale Daily News publishes a book collection of “Bull Tales.” Dowling writes the forward for the book, which sells 2,000 copies. A second collection would come out that fall.
Summer 1969
Still interested in “Bull Tales,” the syndicate asks Trudeau for six weeks of strips for consideration. In July, however, a suitcase containing 36 “Bull Tales” strips is stolen from the trunk of Trudeau’s car while he visits friends in Washington, D.C. By the time school resumes, he’s redrawn the strips and turns them in to Universal Press Syndicate.
Oct. 17, 1969
Worried about the strain syndication would put on his time, Trudeau asks the syndicate to hold off considering his strip until the end of his senior year. The syndicate agrees.
June 1970
Trudeau graduates from Yale. The syndicate asks Trudeau to redraw some of the strips he had submitted — put clothes on some of the coeds, clean up the language and so on. By the end of July, Trudeau has eight weeks of strips, ready to distribute.
Trudeau names the new iteration of his strip “Doonesbury.” The name comes from “doone”: a well-meaning fool, and Trudeau’s former roommate, Charles Pillsbury — heir to the flour company.
Trudeau’s agent negotiates him a syndication contract calling for a standard royalty rate of 50% plus ownership of the strip’s copyright. Most comic strip creators at the time did not own rights to their own work.
Oct. 26, 1970
“Doonesbury” launches in 28 papers, including the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
The first “Doonesbury” strip from Oct. 26, 1970, showed Mike Doonesbury introducing himself to his new roommate, B.D., the quarterback of the Walden College football team. In the original Yale Daily News “Bull Tales” strips, B.D. had started out as the main character and Mike was introduced later.
Fall 1971
“Doonesbury” is now in 150 daily newspapers, plus Trudeau has signed a book deal for collections of his strips.
Trudeau returns to Yale to work on a master’s degree but finds he has trouble staying six weeks ahead of publication schedule. The syndicate helps him find an assistant who will ink his pencil drawings for him.
The syndicate also agrees to cut his deadline down from six to five weeks. Within a couple of years, Trudeau has negotiated that down to 10 days, which helps greatly as he begins covering more topical issues in his strip.
1972
Holt, Rinehart and Winston begins publishing two small paperback collections a year of “Doonesbury.” The first large anthology collection sells 800,000 copies.
May 29, 1973
Trudeau’s Watergate-themed “Guilty, Guilty, Guilty” strip causes a stir. The Washington Post is one of a dozen papers that refuse to run it. The Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal moves the strip to its Op-Ed page. Before a long, a quarter of Trudeau’s clients are running “Doonesbury” on their editorial pages.
This strip from May 1973 kicked off the trend of newspapers moving “Doonesbury” from comics to editorial pages.
May 1975
Trudeau is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, the first comic strip artist to win that award. The Editorial Cartoonists’ Society passes around a resolution condemning the Pulitzer committee’s decision. Assured the award was not revocable, Trudeau signs the petition.
November 1977
Filmmakers John and Faith Hubley — John was one of Trudeau’s art professors at Yale — created “A Doonesbury Special” an animated film broadcast Nov. 27, 1977, on NBC. It later won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.
January 1983
Trudeau take an eight-month hiatus from his strip to work on a Broadway play adaptation of “Doonesbury.”
April 2004
After wearing a helmet as a college and pro football player and as a motorcycle policeman, readers finally saw him without one on April 21, 2004, after he was wounded in Iraq.
September 2013
Trudeau, age 65, halts his daily “Doonesbury” strip but continues his Sunday version.