Product Description

Since 1968, Garry Trudeau (b. 1948) has brought his brand of political satire to bear on public figures, movie stars, heads of state, and even on himself. Trudeau has also advocated for artists' rights and challenged industry norms while keeping a decidedly low profile. In Garry Trudeau: Doonesbury and the Aesthetics of Satire, Kerry D. Soper traces the contribution of this groundbreaking artist.

Trudeau is arguably the premier American political and social satirist of the last forty years. Amazingly, he achieved this on the comics page, rather than the editorial page. By defying convention, Trudeau has established a hybrid form of popular satire that capitalizes on the narrative continuity and broad reach of the comic strip form, while operating according to the rules of combative political commentary.

Garry Trudeau is divided into chapters that offer a history of Doonesbury; an analysis of Trudeau's effective satiric methods; a discussion of the methods whereby he challenged the business practices of the comic strip industry; an examination of the aesthetics of Doonesbury; and a consideration of Trudeau's significance as a social chronicler through an analysis of his character construction, narrative practices, and documentation of the American zeitgeist. Garry Trudeau is a thorough assessment of one of America's most popular and controversial cartoonists.

Kerry D. Soper is director of the American studies program and associate professor of humanities, classics, and comparative literature at Brigham Young University. His work has appeared in the Journal of American Studies, International Journal of Comic Art, INKS: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and other periodicals.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #524263 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
"Trudeau's notoriety is something to be celebrated. The controversy surrounding his strip has been a sign, perhaps, that he is actually effective at doing his job. The great satirists throughout history - Swift, Voltaire, Hogarth... - were given great license to challenge leaders and criticize the social order; and if they did not annoy political leaders or irk their audiences at times while using this license, then we would not place them in that pantheon of great cultural critics." -from the introduction"

From the Publisher
This work on how a revolutionary cartoonist opened the funnies to political commentary and biting satire

--Offers one of the first critical studies of the acclaimed, popular, and controversial Doonesbury cartoonist

--Covers all aspects of Trudeau's career, including commentary on his aesthetics, politics, and his challenges to the comic strip industry

--Highlights the remarkable of achievements of the artist

--Emphasizes his unique accomplishment, achieving fans and readership on the funny pages for a cartoon strip that seems a better fit for the opinion / editorial pages

--Expands the Great Comics Artists Series

From the Inside Flap
How a revolutionary cartoonist opened the funnies to political commentary and biting satire

Customer Reviews

Insightful and thougthful look at one of the most important cartoonists and cultural critics of the last 50 years...
Kerry Soper makes the case that Gary Trudeau is one of the most important cultural critics of the last 50 years. He does this with a significant amount of sophistication, wit and humor. For fans of Doonesbury, or anyone interested in the complex relationship between humorists and political cartoons and American culture, this book is a must read.

Wonderful
I have been a Doonesbury fan since I was young and read the comics in the local paper.

Over time I gravitated away from the time to read the strips (or had papers that did not have them) so I would pick up various books, including compilations of strips from before I was born (the early days of Doonesbury)

I always found Treadeau's work insightful and funny. Not every stip is perfect, but so many were perfect atire and laughs.

In this book we get to know Tredeau and his works more from a literary perspective and how he really has become a major social commentators and satirists through a few ballons and frames over the last 40 years.

Very highly recommended, and even more so for Doonesbury fans.

The best political commentary around.
Having been a fan of Doonesbury since the very beginning it was good to read an analysis of the work. Very interesting.