G. B. Trudeau - 40. A Doonesbury Retrospective 1980 to 1989

6/15/80

O f all the graphic notations that cartoonists have devised over the years, perhaps the most versatile is the arc-and-dot combination used for representing eyes. Jules Feiffer used it to convey emotions as varied as anger, astonishment, and despair. Charles Schulz, with a stubbier curve, rendered it to imbue his creations with wonder or apprehension or disappointment.

For me, the semicircled eye was mainly about innocence. It was an alternative to the world-weary, hooded version that Id issued to the founding characters. When Boopsie joined the gang, she was a nave, prefeminist bubblehead, and the iconic Doonesbury eye, with its hint of sophistication and detachment, looked all wrong on her. It undercut her utter lack of guile. The elegant little arc and dot seemed the way to go.

As the cast grew, so did the need to differentiate. The innocent eyes showed up again at the day care center, where all the children had them (except for Howie, whose eyes were concealed, reflecting his blinkered attitude toward girls). Thereafter, the style was used almost exclusively to convey youth or immaturity, meaning that some characters eventually outgrew it, graduating to the more ubiquitous slash eyes. Alex did so in the course of a single strip.

Boopsies eyes, of course, have remained unchanged, a sort of tribute to her enduring lack of cynicism. Not that the rest of her hasnt evolved. The spacey beach babe is gone, replaced by a fierce mama bear with sturdy values and abundant good sense. Even her self-esteem has deepened. Old Boopsie would have forgiven B.D. his infidelity during the Gulf War; New Boopsie insisted that he redate her and build trust back up from scratch.

I have a longtime friend named Barbara who sometimes calls herself Boopsie. I myself would never address her that way, as Barbara is formidable in a way Boopsie is not. Shes a successful New Age writer and publisher, and it was one of her companys books that transformed astrologys Harmonic Convergence of August 1617, 1987, into a genuine media phenomenon. For Boopsie, the Convergence, which promised to usher in a new era of intergalactic peace, was the culmination of her long search for meaning along Malibu Colonys golden coastline. It had been an arduous journey, often disrupted by the appearance of Hunk-Ra, the good-looking 21,000-year-old warrior whom she channeled, so readers surely felt her pain when a long night of skywatching from her car sparked no feelings of transformation beyond a familiar urge to go shopping. Barbara, in contrast, reported that her night spent on the pyramids of Teotihuacan yielded multiple sightings of dazzling extraterrestrial vehicles streaking across the heavens.

As Louis Pasteur liked to say, fortune favors the prepared mind. Boopsie might be better primed by the time we arrive at the Mayan Long Count (a.k.a. the End of History) scheduled for December 21, 2012, but whatever the outcome, its a safe bet shell witness it with eyes wide open.