Doonesbury and the Art of G. B. Trudeau »

Brian Walker organized the first major exhibition of Garry Trudeau’s work, The Doonesbury Retrospective, at the Museum of Cartoon Art in 1983. He has served as curator for more than sixty-five cartoon exhibitions and has written numerous books on comics including The Comics: The Complete Collection, The Best of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy, and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend.

Best known for his wry and incisive takes on American life and politics, Garry Trudeau is among the world’s most widely read cartoonists. Trudeau began shaping Doonesbury as an undergraduate contributor to the Yale Daily News in 1968. Today, the strip is syndicated to a daily readership of nearly 100 million.

Trudeau’s work has been anthologized before, but this is the first book to assess the art of the comic strip and the ways that Trudeau’s iconic style has evolved over the past four decades. Brian Walker, an expert on the history of comics, sheds light on Trudeau’s early influences as well as on his creative process, from research to pencil layouts to finished artwork. In addition to revealing how Doonesbury is crafted each week, the book also examines Trudeau’s magazine illustrations, animation drawings, posters, and product designs, as well as rare and previously unpublished works. Walker’s historical text is complemented by insightful commentary by Trudeau and his collaborators, Don Carleton, George Corsillo, and David Stanford, making this book appealing not only to Doonesbury’s many fans but also to those looking for an approach to the work of a master comic strip artist.