Besides Charles Schulz's beloved PEANUTS (the best comic strip ever), there were three daily comic strips that held my attention and over which I obsessed: DOONESBURY, BLOOM COUNTY, and CALVIN AND HOBBES. Of the three, only Gary Trudeau creates new Doonesbury material, so I've been mostly bored with comics since Bill Watterson retired Calvin & Hobbes and Mr. Schulz passed away.
A few years ago, I unwittingly came upon a strip that would succeed the aforementioned in my heart.
Aaron McGruder's incendiary and totally hilarious strip THE BOONDOCKS is the best, the liveliest, and most challenging comic strip since Berke Breathed's Bloom County blew up the newspaper funny pages.
The Boondocks is the tale of Huey and Riley Freeman, two African-American boys, who move from Chicago's South side to live with their grandfather in the pastoral suburb of Woodcrest, where they have a little trouble adjusting in the all-white enclave. Huey is a hyper-intelligent revolutionary wannabe, and Riley is hardcore gangsta thuggin' it out. The boys' conflict with their neighbors and the local school is the best clash of cultures in cartooning since Charles Addams' "family" met the outside world.
The Boondocks willingness to tackle many issues: racial divisiveness, society's simultaneous disdain for and pilfering of African-American culture and style, and public and political figures who play upon mainstream fear of young black men, has earned the strip the ire of hypocrites, devils, and ostriches. That McGruder is not willing to play along with the current (as Harry Allen writes in his introduction) "gentle fictions of interracial collegiality" proves he is bold with a bold vision. Damn the blind critics.
GRADE A-
