Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 05, 2011

Jeff knows how to push his mother’s buttons and she knows how push his.

Joanie is recruiting Jeff. Batmom needs a Batson to clean up Gothham. Believe me, Leftwing, good buddy, Jeff will follow her orders. Trudeau has created him for this; Jeff was BORN for this.

After redemption comes emergence. Emergence means acceptance by the society of grace. If you’ve emerged into the state of grace, young mothers will trust you to babysit their one-year-olds. Old ladies will let you hold their purses while they fumble around. If you’ve fallen from grace, people no longer trust you for anything. Jeff is experiencing redemption cum emergence. It’s one of the most beautiful things in the universe to observe..Thank you, Joanie. Thank you, GTB..Go Jeff!

We’ll continue the discussion in the morning. Good night.

Unreal. Read 4th panel.

Palindrome and I have been discussing this extremely difficult matter, for the writer/artist trying to do “fantasy within fantasy”, of distinguishing what is real from what isn’t. He says Cervantes is far better than Trudeau, and I agree. However, Trudeau is no slouch.

Here are some of the easier problems involved with writing “fantasy within fantasy”:Who’s real and who’s not?1. The two thugs who were disemboweled?2. The two “ladies of the evening”?3. The two pilots of the chopper that extracted the Hitler-like dictator (HLD)?4. The HLD himself?5. Overkill himself?Which transactions were real, and which were not?1. The $50M U.S. transaction that originated with Overkill, headed for Karzai, but was mistakenly given to Karzai’s brother? (And, unbelievably, why hasn’t Overkill overkilled Jeff for making the stupid mis-identification?)2. Jeff’s bungee jump that resulted in a million-to-one lucky pullback and safe re-entry of Jeff into the open door of the chopper?3. The (off-panel) successful extraction of the HLD after Jeff ‘n’ Zipper found the winch? (To tell the truth, I was expecting the weight of the 300-pound HLD to de-stablize the chopper and causeit to crash; it was small and already fully loaded [I think].)Artist/writers have to tax their creativity, to make their work “satisfying” to readers. Miguel lived 1547-1616 at the height of the Reaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. He was contemporary with Erasmus, Luther, and Copernicus. According to Palendrom, Cervantes is actually more daring and more realistic with his characters and with “physics” as he knew it. With Cervantes’ Quijote, the “man of La Mancha” gets injured many times; Jeff never does. Quijote learns powerful lessons which Cervantes passes along to us; it seems that Jeff never learns. Quijote’s “mental illness” appears to be less serious than Jeff’s. Quijote recovers by forced learning; Jeff recovers via “redemption” and “emergence” into the society of grace. Palendrome may correct me on this point, but I think that Quijote becomes more of a curiosity, an older-but-wiser, lantern-jawed knight with the best yarns in all Spain to spin. And you’ve gotta go some to be El Cid! Jeff, on the other hand, has a more realistic future in which all of his unreal fantasies can “pop” out of existence and he can become . . . . What? Who? The next Ghandi? The next JFK? The next J.K.Rowling? The next C.S.Lewis, who knowingly said, “The magic never stops!”.Indeed not!That’s enough for tonight. I’m 71 years old and a published writer. So I can understand what these other, greater writer/artists face. But my brain is tired. It’s nearly 1:30 am, Pacific Coast time.Guten nacht,dtπ

His exploits are only real as his typing.With his background for fantasy he’s an easy recruit for his Mum.

Jeff has worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, where he got the laurels to base the Red Rascal on. He destroyed equipment and was sent back home, where he developed his Red Rascal persona online. He was hired by Overkill to do high-risk operations that Overkill could blame on him if they went wrong and reap the rewards if Jeff actually did turn out to be competent and succeed. Jeff succeeded in extracting a nation’s leader from a revolt. He was held hostage in Afghanistan and released. These things have been established as not being fantasy.

Jeff’s mission in Brzrkistan was similar to a WWII rescue mission in New Guinea that should not have succeeded, but did. They did it because they had to, and it had less of a chance of success than Jeff’s. Sometimes reality is more fantastic than fantasy.

Joanie is so much more interesting than Jeff is. Jeff gets too much time from G.B. Trudeau, considering his dull shallowness.

HA, HA, (snort) “Like you and Karzai …” good one, he, he.

Also, Baslim, the lives of Joanie and Jeff are intertwined. Look at Joanie, she’s old and tired. But the hellfires of justice still burn within her, AS THEY ALSO DO WITHIN JEFF. Old sayng: “The apple never falls far from the tree.” GatoCat is right when he says Trudeau knows what he’s doing. I predict that the Joanie-Jeff tale will continue in a looong stretch of strips to come.

How can it be 1.30 am Pacific Coast time when right now it’s only 9 pm Atlantic Coast time??

Ho Rina, friend! I’m on PacCo time right now, and it’s 5:54 pm.

@dtpi; You’re the one who said it was 1.30 am. Was that a typo?

Nice, straight-forward burn. good for Joanie. But is Jeff able to discern that mom just slammed his fantasy?