Would the fact that you also draw comic strips have anything to do with your opinion? I realize that it’s gotta be hard to step back, and be objective. NOt saying you don’t hold a valid opinion.
Memorials traditionally include a list of the names of those lost. Making his Memorial Day Sunday strip a memorial makes sense to me, and I found it a bit sobering to see the sheer volume of people lost to the war.
Claiming that this strip “rips off” anything misses the point that this is how memorials have been done for decades.
It’s not terribly original, no, but it is sobering.
It’s very nearly traditional for comics to step away from the funny for Memorial or Veteran’s day observances. Peanuts, IIRC, did it all the time. A list of names gets the point across much nicer than just having his characters preach at us.
Having been covering (and finding humor in) the war with his strip, I think that it is appropriate to show the real human cost.
He rememebers the fallen. That is what Memorial Day is about.
With all due respect to those who say “He’s preaching to the choir”, “It’s unoriginal”, etc., there are unfortunately still a lot of people in this country who act like this war is some sort of game. As far as I’m concerned, the more the point is made that real people are dying, the better.
Maybe all Trudeau wanted to do was make a nice gesture! Isn’t that enough for a comic strip?
Maybe it’s changed, but it also used to be Remembrance Day. This I have on good authority from my grandmother, who remembered the end of the First World War first-hand.
On further googling, nobody seems to be able to make up their minds. Some claim ‘armistice day’ was dropped after WW2, others aren’t so sure - and the British Legion still uses it.
Actually, he’s doing it to sell his comic strip. And since he’s selling that comic strip internationally, he’d do well to remember his international audience.
I guess you’ve never heard of Remembrance Day, nor visited any war memorials or military cemetaries in Britain?
I feel the two at Cox & Forkum are rather more poignant.
Chefguy, the link you first gave is dynamic, so one day later, it points to a different cartoon.
This link should be the Memorial Day cartoon all the time.
My opinion – I think any president that wants to go to war again should be required by law to slowly read every name on this list before ordering any troops anywhere.
Well, it gives me an awareness of craft. Doonesbury on a bad day is still better than most strips on a good day, but this is Doonesbury on a bad day nonetheless.
I hope this isn’t too far off topic, but that Cox & Forkum cartoon made me think: “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”
The soldier is shown in the cartoon not as just an innocent person, but represented as a rifle with helmet and boots. Somehow, no matter how justified a war might be, it will eventually lead to this outcome for some, maybe many. Why should this come as a surprise to any government?
No, I don’t blame the individual soldier or even the individual – after all, one man’s brave freedom fighter is another’s bloodthirsty terrorist. I am looking at the larger philosophical picture. Something is wrong with mankind if it uses warfare as the main method of resolving conflicts. And there is something wrong with world leadership if it thinks this is what defines the crowning achievements of civilization.
I think Revedge has it; the last few days of Doonesbury have been making light of casualties/injuries in Iraq, to the point where BD just missed a chance to catch a USO show. Between that frivolity and the Memorial Day weekend, a sobeer look at the real cost of war seems appropriate.
I wasn’t moved one way or another with the strip, but I’m glad he didn’t make a joke out of it.
Whether he’s selling his strip internationally or not (and I don’t know that he is; can anyone confirm either that Doonesbury is syndicated outside the US or that the syndicate tries to sell it outside the US?) the simple fact is that Doonesbury is an American strip. The bulk of its audience is American, its political POV is American, its focus is American. If it does have an international base, that doesn’t affect my point at all that Memorial Day is an American holiday and slamming GT for observing an American holiday by listing dead Americans is stupid. Are you equally as pissed off at, say, the Vietnam Memorial for not listing off the dead from other countries? I can’t imagine that anyone other than the most hypersensitive of all possible twits would be insulted that GT listed American names only.
No I hadn’t specifically heard of Remembrance Day before this thread which might be why I asked about it. Other people managed to note its existence without being jackasses about it. Neither have I visited any military cemeteries or memorials in other countries. If there are names of American dead listed on some of those memorials, that’s swell. That some other memorial might list some non-native dead doesn’t make the idea that GT is in the wrong for only listing Americans any less asinine.
Oh my god, the first cartoon shows a girl planting an American flag! How can you find that poignant when it insultingly omits the flags of every other country that’s lost people in a war? And the second one shows an American Revolutionary soldier with a present-day American soldier! It insultingly ignores all the other armies in the world!
I mean really, you do get that by citing those two cartoons you completely undermine your own point about GT supposedly insulting an international audience, right?
I think you’re missing the reality of the matter, that most of the world perceive it to be America’s war, with other countries only involved because of blind admiration of the power of the US, or because of coercion. And we’re not so stupid as to not realise that it’s the US forces that dominate on the ground, and therefore they are taking the brunt of the casulalties.
Furthermore, unlike Doonesbury, I’m not aware of Cox & Forkun being syndicated internationally (although I’m prepared to be proven wrong).
It was for Memorial Day.
Trudeau can hardly be blamed for remembering the dead. That’s what this day is all about. The fact that he chose to do it while 90% of America was out barbecuing say a lot.
Not quite sure what point you’re trying to make here. qts jumped on my shit for critiquing his suggestion that an American cartoonist somehow insulted his international readers by listing off American dead for an American holiday. He then offered as more poignant alternatives two cartoons which use exclusively American imagery. It seems rather unreasonable to attack GT as being exclusionary to the point of insult for focusing on Americans on America’s Memorial Day and then point to two other America-centric cartoons as part of that attack.
Much of what I’m thinking about the posters in this thread can only be said in the Pit, so let me be clear.
It’s Memorial Day. These are the names of the soldiers who gave their lives in service to their nation
That’s it. Period.
Those of you who are attempting to hijack this strip to further pro- or anti-Bush agendas should be ashamed of yourselves.
For God’s sake, can’t we just have a day to remember our military dead?
Yes, I think I may have been getting confused by layers of cynicism and sarcasm …things I should know all about 
But the problem with this war is the same as with the adoption of the Falklands conflict into British remembrance - a significant proportion of people do not accept that anything was being done in their national interest.