Doonesbury is a comic strip by Garry Trudeau that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, now a middle-aged, remarried father. Frequently political in nature, Doonesbury features characters professing a range of affiliations, but the cartoon?s editorial slant is noted for a liberal outlook. The name "Doonesbury" is a combination of the word doone (1960s prep school slang for "someone unafraid to appear foolish") and the surname of Charles Pillsbury, Trudeau's roommate at Yale University.
Doonesbury began as a continuation of Bull Tales, which appeared in the Yale University student newspaper, the Yale Daily News, beginning September, 1968. It focused on local campus events at Yale. The executive editor of the paper in the late 1960s, Reed Hundt, who later served as the chairman of the FCC, noted that the Daily News had a flexible policy about publishing cartoons: ?We publish[ed] pretty much anything.?
This week's series of Doonesbury strips are being banned from several publications for Trudeau's take on the current GOP obsession with women and their bodies.