news-record.com

When Garry Trudeau agreed to do an e-mail interview to promote his upcoming appearance, I thought what better person to interview him than a fellow cartoonist? Man to man. Cartoonist to cartoonist. Successful, nationally known figure to -- well -- cartoonist to cartoonist. Here's what he had to say.

Q. "Doonesbury" has mostly leaned left of center during its nearly 40-year history. Have any of your opinions changed or softened -- politically, culturally, socially -- during this period?

A. Sure. It'd be a little alarming if they hadn't. I would hope my principles have remained intact, but where they engage reality has been a shifting landscape. Broadly speaking, I would say that my cultural views have shifted rightward, the predictable impact of parenthood. Socially, I would hope I'm a much more tolerant version of my prefeminist, prediversity self. Politically, I've drifted toward the center because I see no alternative if you want to get things done. A lot of liberals have dragged themselves toward the center, only to discover that conservatives have increasingly withdrawn to the fringes. Any Republican talk of a "center right" is wishful thinking. Most of them remain at screaming distance from progressives.

Q. You work under a tighter deadline than most cartoonists, yet you still have to write your strips roughly two weeks (dailies) and six weeks (Sundays) in advance for newspapers. In this age of immediate information, that can seem like an eternity. How do you keep your strip feeling current? Do you ever get blindsided by breaking news? Conversely, has breaking news ever made you seem prescient?

A. The reason I now work on such a short lead is largely due to Watergate. Events broke in such a pell-mell, unexpected fashion during the unfurling scandal, it was hard to get out ahead. Ehrlichman's resignation so took us by surprise, I had to recall a whole week (he later wrote to apologize). So the deadline kept getting whittled away, from six weeks down to one, and there it stayed. Having said that, it's a bit of a myth that the strip traffics in breaking headlines; it just seems topical because I make fairly good educated guesses about what I think people will still be thinking about two weeks hence. That's when I do it at all. Most of the story lines aren't that time-sensitive, in fact, could appear a year later (and do, as reruns).

It's true sometimes the strip appears prescient to people, but that's usually blind luck. If you write topical material every day, on occasion you're bound to surge ahead of the curve.

Q. Who is your favorite character to write for and why?

A. Well, it used to be Lacey Davenport, but I made the mistake of letting her age out. In recent years, I would say I've most enjoyed writing for the characters in B.D.'s world of wounded warriors -- Elias, Melissa and especially Toggle. I don't know whether it's simply because the characters are fresher, of more recent invention, or simply because they are of a culture I'm particularly interested in. In terms of comic-strip convention, introducing them was ridiculous -- I already had an insane number of characters for readers to keep track of. Wikipedia lists 66, and it's not a complete list.

Q. With all the new media outlets that are available, political discourse has degenerated into partisan yelling. Have you changed your approach as a cartoonist to avoid becoming part of the noise? Does this dilute the impact political cartoons once had?

A. The impact has been diluted by the multitude of voices, not their shrillness. There's still plenty of moderate, reasonable discourse, but it competes in an ever-expanding universe of commentary. There are over 120 million blogs now -- and hundreds of cable stations. So it's true that no one voice is going to be as influential as it once was. It's important to remember that every day about 295 million Americans get up and fail to tune in to Rush Limbaugh.

Back in the late '70s, I created an animated "Doonesbury" special for NBC. The network declined to order another because of disappointing ratings. The show had 21 million viewers. On an average night, "The Daily Show," a huge hit, pulls 1.5 million viewers. It's a different world.

Q. Characters have a way of developing personalities of their own, sometimes going off in a different direction than you might have originally imagined. Which of your characters has surprised you the most?

A. Well, nothing pushes the reset button quite like limb loss, so I would have to say that B.D. has been the most changed by events. When I blew him up in 2004, there was a three-day reveal, and when I finally showed B.D. on the stretcher, the only thing more startling to some readers than the loss of his leg was the absence of his helmet. I didn't remove it just because that's one of the first things medics do in the field; I did it to signal to the readers that nothing would ever again be the same for B.D.

He's had an arduous recovery, and it's taken its toll of his self-confidence. In some ways, injuries are tougher on officers because they're used to being in control. B.D's been in charge, on and off the field, his whole career, so his loss was more than physical. Suffering and powerlessness can be embittering, but it can also teach empathy. B.D. is more alert to the pain in others now, especially that of his comrades-in-arms. He still can be emotionally obtuse, but he is now living a more mindful, generous life.

Q. Give us your picks for the best of/worst of "Doonesbury"? The ones you would frame and the ones that you try to forget? (General story lines or specific strips.)

A. I don't think I'd frame any of them -- they're all flawed enough that I wouldn't want any of them on my wall -- but I liked the second journey to Reagan's brain, Waiting for Mario (a Godot parody) and the USA Today riff. I also feel the wounded warrior strips have an emotional richness that sets them apart.

As to the worst, if there are any obvious candidates, I've repressed them. I can't think of any true disasters, just the mediocre work that all of us who work weekly deadlines are capable of. The only strips I would be happy to wipe from the archives are from my college days.

Q. As newspaper readership and circulation declines, does "Doonesbury" have a post-newspaper media plan?

A. "Doonesbury" has been on the Web for 15 years, and the site actually makes a little money -- unheard-of for media sites. But it's not really a plan, just a presence. I don't believe there's anything I can do personally to prepare for a post-newspaper future, other than hope that the large media companies will come to their senses and form a gated Web collective along the lines of cable TV. They need to form a news utility, financed by subscription or micropayments because going it alone has been disastrous for all of them.

The only other model that seems promising is the electronic reader. By the end of the year, Kindle will have lots of competition, and if e-readers become larger, flatter and more newspaperlike, people would conceivably move to them and pay for subscriptions that would cost far less than print subscriptions. We know the Web is probably a lost cause -- a whole generation believes everything on it should be free -- but we also know from the iPhone that a new platform can set new rules. Look how happily people pay for apps.

Short-term, we're probably OK. What's not commonly known is that most print newspapers are getting by. It's just the big, debt-loaded metros that are sinking fast. There will probably be enough paper clients to keep me going for the foreseeable future. I feel extraordinarily fortunate that I've been given the long run I have -- if newspapers vanish tomorrow, I'll have no grounds for complaint.

Q. You have probably the largest staff of cartoon characters in the history of comics working in your strip. And you've admitted to a few inconsistencies with the characters in the past. This begs the question: How do you remember them and keep their intertwined lives straight? Have you had to lay anyone off? (I haven't seen Bernie in a while &ellipses;.)

A. A few inconsistencies? That's being generous. I suspect there are hundreds. It's a significant problem for me, mostly because of the longevity of the strip. It's true it can be annoying to readers, who in turn annoy me with their complaints, so I do make some effort to keep things straight. But if I have a good idea, and I'm not sure whether it contradicts something I wrote in the mid-'80s, and I only have 35 minutes to deadline, no way I'm going to burn up drawing time to check.

The closest thing the "Doonesbury" franchise has to an institutional memory is David Stanford, the Duty Officer of the Web site. He's really more of an authority on the strip than I, so I would suggest you send any follow-up questions to him. You'll get better answers.