Talk to the Hand: A Doonesbury Book

Another great Doonesbury production! Trudeau continues to keep up imaginative satire on the American scene.Whether you lean to the left or to the right; you just gotta admit Trudeau is a master of satire. Who but Trudeau would think of representing muscle man Schwartzenegger as "The Hand",and then to really drive the satire in a bit more--call him "Herr Gropenfuhrer"? Then there's President Bush with his Roman -style War Helmut.Anyone can associate a Cowboy Hat with Bush ;but it takes Trudeau's genius to come up with this helmut. My one regret about this period is that we didn't get a character of John Dean.Maybe he was just too much for Trudeau to handle without going "TILT". This seemed to be the period of losses all the way around.Walden loses its Football team and coach,it's very raison d'entre,Zonker loses his chance to run for Governor of California,B.D loses a leg , Duke almost loses Honey to an Iraqi and on top of it all; too many good soldiers lose their lives in Iraq. And we call this a Comic Strip. I have been following the strips since I was a kid. I cut my teeth on Dick Tracey and Pogo . I still follow Tracey,but sadly we have lost the satire of Pogo and the swamp. Life was a lot simpler in those days. One thing was ,we knew who the enemy was; "it was us." in Pogo .In Tracey, it was Mumbles,Flattop,Pruneface or their ilk; and we could trust Tess,Junior, Gravel Gertie and the Police Chief. I still have a positive criticism on the Doonesbury books,though. It is a shame that the strips are not all in color. They were all colored in my newspaper .The artwork is an important and extremely good element of this strip and reading it in black and white is like looking at a sunset without its color.Even the sillouettes! Anyway,fans of Doonesbury will love this book.

Doonesbury is a mainstay in my life. Just recently have I become a fan and just recently have I picked up almost all the books in order to keep myself up to date. The political satire involving several major characters over so many years IN REAL TIME is really something to tip your hat to. This book in particular deals with Arnold's reign of governatorship and the farciful laughs behind his groping of women beforehand, hence his Doonesbury Name "Herr Gropenfuhrer." He is shown as a large groping hand instead of the muscle-bound oldie-but-goodie we all know and love him to be. More than anything else, this piece chronicles mainstay B.D.'s final days in Iraq as a militaryman. His last helmet is taken off by EMT's who nurse him after a shell-blast has taken off his leg. Stirring stuff and easily my favorite Doonesbury saga.