I recoiled from so many columnists because I started seeing one side (Buckley and his ilk) just being obnoxiously shitty and no one else calling them out in ways I could understand as a child.
I guess that was what the cartoon page was for. In this corner, The Wizard of Id and BC, which I thought was sanctimonious crap. In this corner the dead poets of Peanuts and the other recycled historical content (the fact that Garfield is in this club now is weird), whatever the fuck was going on with Prince Valiant (yaw), etc.
Then there was Doonesbury, which was kind of a phenomena back then with the three panels of the front of the White House every day. At least that’s what it seemed like. Then it turned into Thirtysomething at some point? I don’t know. They had bound printed books of newspaper comics in the library so it’s mixed up in my head which were actually in the newspaper when.
All the strips that were in the papers were also compiled into the books. I know, I grew up reading my brother’s copies. So, they can be read in order. Trudeau just followed what was going on in the country and the world at the time. Hunter S. Thompson pretty much hated Uncle Duke, btw.
I would argue that Doris Kearns Goodwin’s work relies on exactly the deep level of research and scholarship that defines an academic historian. So even when she isn’t writing directly about a specific historical figure, I’d say this is the place for her!
I wasn’t quite sure; biographers are not often historical figures, except maybe James Boswell; I know that Mark Twain helped Ulysses S. Grant compose his memoirs (not ghosting, but actual helping), so I suppose that counts.
