Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 31, 2011

Jeff’s delusions are good for Random House.

Perhaps Jeff’s “I may be on a mission” response is a he-man cover for low self-esteem; perhaps his parents bear some responsibility for this, especially his mother. I’m sure Becca sees through his silly defense, probably thinks it’s cute. I still think the two are going to fall in love.

Becca Bickle (great name!) is the best thing to happen to this comic in years.

There is almost nothing in this world that isn’t improved by adding a cute redhead.

If Becca thinks she’s going to get any real work out of Jeff, she better be prepared to go Taliban on his lazy butt.

Is Becca Bickle related to Travis? (“You talking to me?”)

Jeff could be either the next Warren Murphy. Or more likely, Remo Williams, since he thinks he’s writing autobiography.

SUSAN Second time today I think you’re right. What’s up? I never agree with you.

Isn’t Jeff himself kind of oxymoronic? If we stretch the meaning of the word a bit. Jeff has a wildly overactive imagination. This is sometimes referred to as creativity. If he can keep it focused enough to produce a reasonably coherent narrative, and do it with a straight face (has he any other?), a good editor can do the rest. Becca is every man’s fantasy, especially those of us with “delusions of adequacy”: a beautiful female enabler!

I will bet a nickel that this all turns out to be one of Jeff’s daydreams.

Galley proofs are the last chance for the writer to see if he any words out.

@sandfan: Did you leave the word “has” out to illustrate your point?

Galleys? Who did the actual writing here? Are we supposed to believe that slacker Jeff had the focus and ambition to write a book, even a crappy one>

I suspect Becca is not as innocent as she looks. She has to be able to handle lots of big egos of all kinds, and keeps the game going smoothly with her natural enthusiasm. She is probably quite capable of putting the hammer down if the interests of Random House are about to be violated. Also, I’m guessing she is probably quite self-possessed and can shift emotional gears better than a 30 year veteran truck driver can shift his eighteen wheeler..Jeff may be heading for an emotional cold shower when his parents ask him if he’s even bothered to read the galley proofs.

For all the fans of redheads, check this out:http://youtu.be/IGGOmE_ni04 Total redhead overload. And if that’s not enough, that video was made here: http://www.roodharigen.nl/en/ This year’s Redhead Day is coming up THIS WEEKEND! There’s still a chance to get there…

Hold the press. Every chapter has been classified.

Not sure if Jeff realizes he’s in character.

Jeff already HAS been writing. Almost all these delusional fantasies of his were things he was writing down, not living. You see him in front of the computer all the time typing. So what’s so hard to believe? He’s living the fantasy by writing it. Not exactly the first time that’s been done.

Jeffrey? I like it.

My Papa told me “Son, a redheaded woman is cause for concern…” Bugs Henderson

Hmm, Jeff’s life arch is beginning to parallel L. Ron Hubbard’s. Will he go on to form a cult after his book comes out? Only time will tell.

Eh. He probably submitted his blog posts and left the work to the editors. It’s okay, they’re used to dealing with crappy input to make authors look good.

To make best-selling fiction requires both a great writer and a great editor. Exceptions exist but are few and far between. Trudeau knows the score, and he has drawn both a great, hardworking writer — Jeff — AND a great, hardworking editor — Becca.

Red Rascal launched this week’s arc right after having broken into Mike’s daydream (on Sunday, RR tried to behead the broker who was going to take Mike’s company public).

The coy transition allows GT to make THREE aspiring writers—Bumtreff, Jeff, and (via Mike Doonesbury) Trudeau himself—hang upon the whims of a calculating redhead.Given GT’s fascination with dangerous redheads, I’d say Becca is his modern incarnation of *Fortuna^, the Roman goddess/whore later known as Lady Fortune. (Her naked image, with her wheel, was on the cover of the first issue of Fortune Magazine 80 years ago.)

Note the name of Becca’s publisher. The goddess Fortuna has always been regarded as a whore because she distributes her favors RANDOMly to fools. And the fools (Wall Street junkies) gladly jump on her wheel to ride it up—and then down.

hey! are we gonna get a red rascal adventure “graphic” novel in nov (a-la-9 Chickweed Laneś Edie Ernst—USO Singer, Allied Spy)? that would be so cool.

In talking about writers working long hours, I’m talking about writers who are “breaking in” — not long-time successes like, say, John Updike. Many novelists who’ve already “made it” may work shorter hours, maybe only four hours per day. That’s highly variable, depending on the vagaries of the already-successful writer. Historically many of the truly great novelists may have had manic-depressive illness..In her book TOUCHED WITH FIRE psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., at Harvard, lists just a tiny sampling, including: Honoré de Balzac, Boris Pasternak, Sylvia Plath, John Bunyan, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Henrik Ibsen, Herman Melville, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Leo Tolstoy, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Emile Zola, …..Bottom line: Jeff Redfern may also have it. Which would account for some of his bizarre behavior. But here we’re beginning to talk about genius. Jeff may be a genius. He may be a stand-in for Trudeau himself, who is IMO a genius “comic” artist-writer already.

Yesterday’s strip had 32 comments for the whole day; Becca appears and this will be the 41st before 2 pm ET.

Oh, Becca… If you only knew…

That’s what fellow composers said about Mozart. And what fellow scientists said about Einstein. Not to mention probably most geniuses, such as Thomas Alva Edison.

It’s getting hard to separate “Comic Reality” from Jeff’s fantasies.

pd, a link to LF would be nice.

Yeah lwp but if you eliminate the top 2% of posters, how much “gold” does that leave for the bottom 98%? Aren’t the total # of posts inflated?

DT are you reading Jeff’s character as a biographical sock puppet?

Richard the only “famous secret agent moron” I can think of, is 86.

@ FriscoLou…Johnny English, Peter Sellers when he played James Bond in Casino Royale, Clueso

pksampso said, about 14 hours ago“Galleys? Who did the actual writing here? Are we supposed to believe that slacker Jeff had the focus and ambition to write a book, even a crappy one>”

I absolutely believe it. He’s been writing these stories for months on the computer. We’ve seen it multiple times.

I’ll let Hamlet and his friends close the night (and the month):

HAMLET. Good lads, how do you both?GUILDENSTERN. Happy, in that we are not overhappy.On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.HAMLET. Nor the soles of her shoe?ROSENCRANTZ. Neither, my lord.HAMLET. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favors?GUILDENSTERN. Faith, her privates, we.HAMLET. In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true!She is a strumpet.

ok but what about the helicopter repair girl, she’s redhead too. (the plot thickens …)