I am so saddened to learn that local NC homeboy Doug Marlette died today in a car crash in Mississippi. And doubly deepened by knowing he was enroute to my second hometown of Oxford, MS, to advise a high school production of “Kudzu, A Southern Musical”, based on his long-running comic strip, set to be performed in Scotland.
This was a life cut too short. Doug was such an extraordinary person, very commited and cued in to seeing through the disparities and foibles of life. He was an outstanding cartoonist from his college days here at UNC, and had recently acheived the wonderful transition of becoming a novelist to further his creative spirit.
I am sad and pissed and sad again for this too quick taking. Doug loved his South, and understood it enough to jibe and jiggle it, and create a way to keep heart with it and love the best parts, too, on a national scale. “Kudzu” was a great modern strip with a Southern bent.
That is terrible. While I hated Kudzu (way too much re-hashing of the same jokes over and over and over), I thought his editorial cartoons were brilliant.
While I agree with cmkeller in regards to ideas being rehashed (which may have had something to do with his move toward writing novels), I still tune in on a daily basis. I guess I just never got over Will B Dunn’s 1988 campaign, or Nasal’s attempt to become a “brother.”