Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 12, 2022

Yup, Michelangelo career was fueled by the petty disputes among Italian nobility.

Ms Doonesbury? Will Mike pay for all of this?

Will this be a giant statue of a geek mooning across the lake?

Panel Four: “You used to work for Trump”. With a copyright date of 1996, that comment was just a tiny hint of what Trump the Terrible Tyrant would become.

WHA. . . Trump?!

Seems easy enough. Just put up a sign that says “Private Beach”

Are they talking about the golden Trump idol?

From back in 1996 she had bad things to say about “the former guy”? I’m trying to remember what he’d screwed up at that time. The implosion of the casinos?

This reminds me of when I lived in NYC, and a beautiful view across the Hudson was ruined by an ugly high-rise in NJ.

I want the strips where JJ met Trump. I remember the ones where Trump wanted Boopsie to be a spokesmodel on a game show.

Ah. So the unnamed client isn’t Trump after all. I was thinking this might have been an early appearance of The Great Man before Trudeau settled on a character design for him; there are similarities with his personality. The client also looks a lot like Brian VanHoose from the comic strip “Knights of the Dinner Table”.

Trump’s pettiness was apparent as far back as 1996. Too bad many were not paying attention.

Funny, I was sort of thinking that WAS tRump…

Ok… I admit total confusion. Who is the fat, superficial, hard hat blonde mope supposed to be if not Trump? Or is he taking the third person reference around the block a few times? Nobody from 1996 leaps out at me, not that I was really aware of Trump then either.

This panel just reminds me how long we’ve had to put up with the Former Guy…

Scroll to the bottom of the page you’ll see the book YUGE! for sale. 30 year collection of Doonesbury lampooning tRump.

Lots of gaudy gold gilding, white marble, and black velvet for Trump.

I thought he was Trump

And this was back in 1996!

Just realized that Zeke’s Stetson must be made of the same material as a construction hardhat, or he wouldn’t be allowed to wear it on a construction site.

Whatever she does, I’m pretty sure it won’t be a ginormous stainless Steel Jelly Bean. It’s been done.

“It needs to be gaudy enough to show Dad how wrong he was when he said I’d never amount to anything.”

Hmm, I thought the guy in charge was Trump!

This Trump reference is from 20 years before Donnie ran for the presidency.

There’s an area near Atascadero, CA where the property is dominated by near-life-size metal dinosaurs. Hwy 41 – check it out.

It’s amazing how many people are apparently unaware that Trump was a punchline for decades before he ever ran for President. I grew up in New Jersey in the ’80s and ’90s, and as a kid I knew exactly three things about him: his infidelities/divorces, his tackiness, and his bankruptcies.

JJ will figure out how to make it into a performance piece involving herself…

She got to be one of his conquests!

You want to dominate the lakefront?Put up a statue of a giant trout.

Little did he know then

Can’t wait to see how she makes a mess of this.

Sad that whatever year this is . . . . it still fits

As I recall this leads to JJ meeting Kim

Promises not kept—and why has nobody acted to close Guantanamo?

There’s a legend in Regensburg about a rivalry between the bridge builder and the Cathedral architect—each of the monuments is a masterpiece of its kind, and they are said to mock one another.