Apparently the old lady died off-panel. I don’t recall her being ill, so I guess (or maybe we’ll find out more soon) she died in her sleep, of old age.
Having just lost my father last year (thank heavens my mother is still alive, so my siblings and I aren’t completely “on our own” as in the strip), I can only praise Garry Trudeau for his incredible handling of this moment. He captured perfectly that sort of “what happens now” feeling that precedes the actual feelings of loss and grief (at least when death isn’t sudden or shocking). I’m not generally in tune with him politically, but he certainly has a handle on the humanity of his regular characters.
Keep up the good work, man. Politics be damned.
(I remember Benjy from the earliest strips. Mike also had/has a brother called “Sal” who sold Dr. Whoopee condoms in the late 80’s; I don’t know if that was later said to be Benjy going through a phase or if he is a third Doonesbury brother, and if we will see him in the next few days also.)
ISTR she said something about not being around for much longer the last time I saw her appear in the strip, within the past couple of months. And, I also STR that she’d been complaining about dying for some time.
There’s no mention of Mike’s brother (or mother) in his bio on the Doonesbury site. According to Wikipedia, Mike only has one brother, whose real name is Benjamin. “Sal Putrid” was a pseudonym.
Just flipped back through the Doonesbury archive. The last time that the Widow Doonesbury appeared was on 11/18, when Mike and Kim had a bedbug infestation:
In the previous day’s comic, she also appeared; that’s where she noted, “What’s the point [of being adorable]? I’m dying.” But, I agree with Roderick Femm – she seemed to be saying things like that for a while.
Saliva “Sal” Putrid Doonesburry was just about the stupidest, most ill-conceived character Trudeau ever came up with… and was a perfect illustration of why he was RIGHT to retire the first time. Trudeau knew absolutely NOTHING about the punk scene, and it showed. He was totally out to lunch when it came to 80s pop culture, and he finally had the sense to realize it and quit.
Unfortunately, he came back… no wiser, no more insightful, and no more in touch with pop culture than before.
Perhaps wrt pop culture, this is a valid statement. But I thought he was primarily a political commentator, not a critic of pop culture. Political commentary-wise, I have no particular problem with his wisdom or his insight.
I did think it was kinda funny about how he ran those strips about the woman who ran afoul of DADT during the days it was being repealed. I wonder if that has anything to do with why the last week or so has been reruns from early in Alex and Leo’s relationship.
Knowing basically zilch about punk during the eighties, I’m curious about what Trudeau missed when it came to Sal Putrid and the whole scene at the time. Do you have any specifics of things that were way off base?
I was more surprised to see Mike Doonesbury’s little brother, I can’t remember the last time we saw him. I had totally forgotten about him. I wonder what is the longest time that has elapsed between two appearances of a Doonesbury character in the strip?
Nicole and Bernie both kind of skipped the 80s. Nicole popped up once since the 1970s, while Bernie has been an on-again, off-again presence. Kim, Mike’s wife, went from toddler to college student without a peep in between.
I feel so stupid, I never realized that Mike’s wife was the same Vietnamese orphan raised by Jewish parents that we saw as a litle girl! The cast bios page ( http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/cast ) has a few people, but there are plenty missing.
I think a complete collection of Doonesbury strips, indexed by character (e.g. you could go to the index and find all strips featuring, let’s say, Kim) would be an excellent use of an e-book. In print it would be huge, but as an e-book, it could fit in your pocket, like on an iPhone.