Day One Dictator: More Doonesbury in the Time of Trumpism

As Trump returns to the ballot in 2024, this collection of Doonesbury Sunday comics about the former (and possibly future) president will hit just ahead of one of the most significant election cycles in decades.

＂I want to be a dictator for one day.＂ - Trump

Volume V of the Doonesbury Trump Quintet tracks the ever-metastasizing Big Lie, with Mark offering a month-by-month calendar to track the Former Guy’s burgeoning court dates. Unfortunately for the Trump Innocence Project, it turns out almost all the witnesses are former aides or allies. How did Dems manage to weaponize Trump’s friends? While readers puzzle over that, they can also play a life-of-crime board game -- Donald Trump’s Spree. The only way to win, of course, is to cheat, but no problem -- it’s been normalized.

Fortunately, this volume also features the Doonesbury regulars, with Alex and Toggle raising three free-range kids and Mike happily wallowing in grandpahood. Mr. Covid retires, proud to know his wilier, more adaptive descendants will keep taking the fight to the unvaxxed. Joanie thinks Rick’s latest story is the best thing he’s ever written: too bad it was actually authored by ChatGPT. Roland and Rascal, wading through Ukrainian snowdrifts, blunder into a Meta crack-up. Not even fantasy is making sense, but in Day One Dictator, G.B. Trudeau gives it his best shot yet.

Garry Trudeau is in his 36th year of trying to make Donald Trump go away. Nothing’s worked.

G. B. Trudeau has been drawing his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip for more than forty years. In addition to cartooning, Trudeau has worked in theater, film, and television. He also has been a contributing columnist for the New York Times op-ed page and later an essayist for Time magazine. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He lives in New York City with his wife, Jane Pauley. They have three grown children.