A separate question on the topic of Doonesbury.
Is this strip saying that JJ has some terminal illness? Or is she just planning for her eventual death at some unknown point in the future?
I read it as the latter.
I’m thinking it’s the latter.
Ah. Wrong strip. That makes sense. As for the Q-word, considering it was 1984 and it was Trudeau and Boopsie, I’m leaning towards McGuffin/Noodle Incident.
Now, if it was Uncle Duke, on the other hand…
Well, yeah, this is Doonesbury we’re talking about. The fourth-frame jokes are often half-assed. The third-frame jokes are often actually funnier.
Here’s one from a couple weeks ago. The fourth panel joke is cute, but the subtlety of the absolute silence in the third panel is cute and quite clever. Not since Jack Benny has anyone made such an effective use of silence in comedy.
I remember similar discussions about the cover of Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick, which is in the form of a newspaper. The main article refers to a scandalous incident in which a child used the word “g–r” on television. People were arguing over what rude word fit those blanks.
“Every man in the world is either a Realist or a Nominalist. Give yourself a test: if someone called you a gigger or a fell-picker, and you knew it wasn’t true, would you hit him or smile? That’s how easy it is to tell.”
― Alexei Panshin, The Thurb Revolution
The subtlety of the absolute silence in the second last panel is cute and clever. Not since Ziggy has anyone made such frequent use of silence in comedy.
I kid. 
Perhaps. But the fact that JJ specifically said that she plans on posting it on YouTube seemed to be to suggest her death was more immediate than just some potential future demise. JJ is conscious enough of pop culture to know how fast the technology changes. If she lives a normal life span and dies twenty years from now, there’s a good chance posting something on YouTube will be the equivalent of posting it on GeoCities or MySpace.
I don’t think Trudeau put a lot of time and thought into that strip. The Blowback letters column pointed out that it was her daughter Alex who was born live on cable, not J.J. herself, who is way too old for that.
But J.J.'s still au courant. She’s going to die live on Periscope, which is only a year old.
Not as embarrassing as the time he started a storyline about Jeff wanting to date Alex. Trudeau had forgotten he was her uncle. Trudeau had to admit he had screwed up and rewrite the strips so it was Zipper, not Jeff, who was interested in Alex.
Grin! Fair is fair, but, seriously, Trudeau does make pretty clever use of “silence” in the comic-strip medium.
(Ziggy. Ick. Now I need to go to 4chan and download some porn, to compensate.)
Others long before me have commented on the one two three four rhythm of Doonesbury. The third panel often is funnier than the fourth.
Boopsie sure is cure, though!
The REAL reason I’m thinking it’s the latter is because Zeke asks her how she knows it’s going to be her last artwork.
Hi from the future, just randomly stumbled on this thread. This exact strip was posted on the door of a professor at my college with the question: “Can anyone explain what this means?” scribbled above it, along with a picture of a guy shrugging, sort of a proto-emoji. It rested on the door unmolested for 3 years. In the spring of my senior year, the words “QUEEF QUAFFING” were written across it. The strip came down a week later.