Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for September 09, 2010

Well, yeah, some would say he should be shot for that, but still….

It’s an opportunity for a dialogue. They can learn from each other about Rock and Iraq.

As far as Toggle is concerned, “Nothing Else Matters.”

So half-way through the arc, GT makes light of Toggle’s having “lost it,” and the loveable vet’s homicidal rage is “fixable” after all.

Ordinarily we wouldn’t expect a comic strip to take murder or war seriously, but some readers’ responses to this PTSD arc have sounded as anguished as any Moslem’s response to the infamous Mohammed cartoons.

Politically what counts is not the cartoonist’s subject but his attitude towards it, and GT shows a disarming humility in making B.D.—-a jock he once ridiculed—-the voice of hope.

Ps. @ Coyoty: They can talk about how it feels to be caught between Iraq and a hard pace.

Oh, man, Drome, your typo blew your pun (unless you really wanted to write “a hard pace”).

Doonesbury is not making light of Leo’s having “lost it”. Doonesbury is merely ending each day with a joke—it is a comic strip, after all, and if you want an in-depth, serious discussion of P.T.S.D., then you’re in the wrong place—and reminding us of where this story began. Rest assured: Tomorrow will have at least three panels taking Leo’s situation seriously. It is foolish to criticize a sophisticated strip like Doonesbury in medias res. Wait until these strips are in a book; then criticize.

I agree that it is heartening to see B.D. as the voice of reason & optimism & to hear him counseling therapy, considering his resistance to it. Although the strip has ridiculed B.D., he has been a complex character for a long time.

Finally, your simile in your second paragraph is painfully stretched. Why did you use it?

BRIAN Ordinarily you post against religious fanatics. Why this change of pace? Oh, supporting certain fanatics is liberal PC Also ordinarily you poke at the VA, the people who wrote the book on the care and treatment of PTSD. Has this issue made the VA liberal PC also? Are you serious? Hard to tell with a post that begins “Oh man”

Lew, your comment makes no sense. You address me, but the person you characterize is certainly not I. I may have written comments against religious fanaticism, but such comments are hardly ordinary for me. Besides, are you in FAVOR of religious fanaticism?

As for the V.A., I would love to see where I have “poke[d] at” it. If you can find a comment of mine that does so, then please show it here.

You claim to teach people how to read, yet you do not read well yourself. Keep trying, Lew, and get some sleep. It’s past 4:30 in Connecticut, and you have thirty more comics on which to comment.

^I was wondering about Lewreader’s comment myself. It’s as if it were directed at a different comment because I didn’t see anything he was talking about in Brian’s comment. Am I missing something?

BTW, I’m in trouble! Metali-who?

This kind of problem during my college years [69-72] was handled by good natured ridicule from friends and liberal amounts of beer.

Edcole, as far as Toggle’s concerned, the iraqui are “Unforgiven”…

Metallica killed Napster. Nuff said.

I think the Iraqi is a terrorist sent here by Reverend Jones.

Why are so many religious zealots named Jones?

@Justice22 : Webster Online:

Definition of JONES 1) slang : habit, addiction; especially : addiction to heroin

Maybe that’s why..,. substitute “God” for “heroin”. Even nuns who are addicted to God have a difficult time breaking the habit.

Napster deserved to die. So does any teacher who uses Bach and Metallica in the same sentence.

who is joe strummer?

Isn’t metallica a relic of the cultural void known as “The 80’s”? Kind of a poor mans Depeche Mode

It might have made a difference if the classmate been a Metallica lover and Toggle had known this before he mentioned being Iraqi.

If Toggle had first put the man in the ‘us’ box of sharing his music preference, he might have been less ready to consign him to the ‘them’ box of ‘nationality of the terrorists who blew me up’

Us and Them - maybe the two words in the English language responsible for the most grief?

Palin drome is showing off a bit which is ok but setting his expectations for this ‘toon too high.

GT is merely keeping the issue of PTSD alive in the American mind (or as much as he can through the use of his medium). He made a commitment to the vets and he is honoring that by keeping you all talking and think about it.

GT’s responsibility is not to cure it, solve it, or take responsibility for it. He function is awareness

He took the extreme step of blowing of the leg of one of his original characters and making him central to the theme. BD’s leg will never come back and therefore neither will his trauma disappear.

Toggle and his PTSD won’t disappear because GT gave the vets his guarantee when he “married” him to Alex (the next generation, and incarnation of GT himself).

Awareness is all GT can do. Give him credit for that and lighten up

Glenardis,

That sounds about right. Thanks.

BrianCrook,

Every Metallica work I’ve heard, band or synthesizer, sounds hard-paced to me—-more strenuous even than Beethoven, coming after Mozart’s graceful flow. But I’m not an afficionada of the stuff.

@glenardis

As you say, awareness is all GT can do, so when he then also sits in judgement of what he chooses to make us aware of, then that judgement may be questioned.

As Brian notes, the personalities that GT creates are often very complex, as all people are. However, when he creates personalities whose viewpoints differ from his own, he often tries to pass them off as moronic simpletons. At times, he’s done that to his own creations, such as BD, and then evolves them as his own life outlook changes.

Nemesys, Doonesbury’s title character, Mike Doonesbury, began voting Republican in 1994. The strip hardly portrayed him as a moronic simpleton. Indeed, he met Kim—one of the strip’s best characters—outside of a sparsely attended rally for Steve Forbes.

Panel 3 - anyone think that maybe Toggle was poking fun at himself? Decompressing just a bit and realizing what BD said was true.

Toggle’s a smart kid - everything we’ve seen GT write about him indicates this.

My 2 cents.

rather - panel 4

The term “Heavy Metal” itself is old British Navy slang for a warship with a formidible arsenal. You see the term mentioned a few times in Forester’s “Hornblower” novels, especially in situations where the captain is challenged by ships of the line which severly outgun his own. Lt. Bush (no relation, Brian) will turn to Hornblower and say things like “They’ve got 60 12-pounder cannons… heavy metal for a frigate, Captain”.

Not making light but getting beyond the moment. The crisis was averted and emotions and thoughts need to be processed and understood. Trying to be up beat is how we (Vets/Active Duty) deal with this crap.

What better way to make peace with Iraq than to teach them about Metallica?

Have to admire BD taking on this role - he’s matured a lot since the football days!

Ran through the comments today, a little to much politics for me. BD was saying that the Iraqi could learn about Metallica mayybe with Toggle talking to him abou it.

Runs with Beer: You are easily Best Poster of the Month…no matter who writes what.

RICKMAC1937: Wonderful idea. You make us all so proud. We hope and pray you’ll run for office on the teabaggers ticket. Rilly.

If you don’t expect a comic strip to take war seriously, you shouldn’t read Doonesbury.

Even though each and every strip ends with a joke, I cried when BD lost his leg to an IED. Yucks or no, I can’t think of anything more serious. I cringed when Mel told about being sexually assaulted by a superior officer, and GT has been doing these types of stories clear back to Vietnam.

Fortunately, his storytelling skills have been, and are today, heads and shoulders above most (if not ALL) of his critics’.

My first cockatiel was named Phred. GT takes it seriously, but like we who have “been there” , he knows there are lighter moments and views, like triggering on the dude not knowing Metallica. Of course, on the serious side it IS hard to know what each person’s “trigger” might be. Tragic but fixable indeed.

Cowboy Mouth puts on one of the best live shows in the business - and their live rendition of “Joe Strummer” will have you wondering whether or not the band’s drummer/lead singer is actually human.