boondocks

The Boondocks is a daily syndicated comic strip written and originally drawn by Aaron McGruder. Created by McGruder in 1997 for The Diamondback, the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, College Park, the strip moved from the college pages and was printed in the monthly hip hop magazine The Source in 1997. As it gained popularity, the comic strip was picked up by the Universal Press Syndicate and made its national debut on April 19, 1999. A popular and controversial strip, The Boondocks deals with African American culture and American politics as seen through the eyes of its protagonist, 10-year-old black radical Huey Freeman.

McGruder sold the television and film rights for the strip to Sony Pictures Entertainment. The Boondocks animated TV series premiered on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming November 6, 2005. The first season episodes became available on DVD July 25, 2006.

History

The strip debuted in The Diamondback under editor Jayson Blair, who paid McGruder $30 per strip, $17 more than the others at the time. However, upon the revelation of news article fabrications by Blair in 2004 (by then a reporter for The New York Times), McGruder's comic strip joined others in lampooning Blair.

In Fall 2003, McGruder passed art duties on to Boston, Massachusetts-based artist Jennifer Seng. In an interview with The New Yorker, McGruder said, "If something had to give, it was going to be the art. I think I'm a better writer than artist."^[1] Carl Jones succeeded Seng as illustratrator in late 2004. In the introduction to the collection Public Enemy #2, McGruder writes "I had hired an artist to help me on some of the art duties. People think I stopped drawing the strip, but that's never been the case. To this day there has never been a single Boondocks strip that I did not personally touch — I still obsess over the details of Huey, Riley, Caesar and Granddad. I still go over every panel. I still care what it looks like, and I always will."

In late February 2006, McGruder announced that his strip would go on a six-month hiatus, starting March 27, 2006, with new installments resuming in October. Repeats of earlier strips were offered by Universal Press Syndicate in the interim.^[2]. According to Editor & Publisher, two-thirds of The Boondocks' client list substituted different features rather than publish reruns. Universal Press Syndicate president Lee Salem announced on Sept. 25, 2006, that the comic would remain on hiatus indefinitely, saying, "Although Aaron McGruder has made no statement about retiring or resuming The Boondocks for print newspapers ... newspapers should not count on it coming back in the foreseeable future".^[3] McGruder's editor at the syndicate, Greg Melvin, met with McGruder in Los Angeles over the course of at least two days unsuccessfully attemping to have the cartoonist abide by his agreement to return in six months.^[3]

Description

The strip depicts Huey Freeman and his younger brother Riley, two black children who have been moved out of Chicago by their grandfather to live with him in the predominantly white suburb of Woodcrest (in Maryland, as seen from the area code stated in the March 16, 2000 strip). The title word "boondocks" alludes to the isolation from primarily African-American urban life that the characters feel, and permits McGruder some philosophical distance. Huey is a politically perceptive devotee of black radical ideas of the past few decades (as explained in the May 4, 1999, strip, Huey is in fact named after Black Panther Huey P. Newton) and is harshly critical of many aspects of modern black culture. Riley, on the other hand, is enamored of gangsta rap culture and the "thug"/bling-bling lifestyle. Their grandfather is a firm disciplinarian who is offended by their values and ideas.

Huey's best friend is Michael Caesar, a dreadlocked aspiring MC who agrees with many of Huey's criticisms but serves as a positive counterpoint to Huey's typically pessimistic attitude by taking a humorous approach to issues. He is also a budding comedian, although most of his humor consists of trying to play the dozens on Huey, which always falls flat. The Freemans' neighbors are NAACP member Thomas Dubois (a reference both to W.E.B. DuBois and Uncle Tom) and his white wife Sara, who are both lawyers. Their young daughter Jazmine is very insecure about her ethnic identity and is often the subject of Huey's antipathy for being out of touch with her African ancestry.

The Boondocks is very political and occasionally subject to great controversy, usually sparked by the comments and behavior of its main character, Huey. The comic strip has been withheld by newspapers several times. In this aspect, it is similar to Doonesbury. In particular, the principal characters often discuss racial and American socio-economic class issues. Some attribute the disputes over the strip to a political correctness that discourages any discussion or recognition of ethnic and cultural distinctions. Because of its controversy, many newspaper publishers either relegate the strip to the op-ed section of the paper, pull more potentially controversial strips from being published, or do not publish the strip at all, tactics also similar to Doonesbury.

The Boondocks is one of at least seven widely-syndicated comic strips drawn by African-American cartoonists, including Candorville, Curtis, Jump Start, Housebroken, Watch Your Head, Wee Pals, and Herb and Jamaal. It is one of nine politically themed syndicated comics, including the liberal Doonesbury, Candorville, Opus the Penguin, Rudy Park, and La Cucaracha, and the conservative Prickly City, State of the Union, B.C. and Mallard Fillmore.

Main characters

• Huey Freeman - A 10-year-old boy who appears angry most of the time, with strident political awareness, and who sees himself as a revolutionary. He is disturbed by the ignorance in modern-day black television and issues in politics. In the early days of the strip, he is mentioned to be named after Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panthers.
• Riley Freeman - The opposite of his older brother, 8-year-old Riley praises the "thug life", and aspires to be the same as all the rappers and thugs he sees on television. He has assigned himself the nickname "Esco", after Pablo Escobar. He also formerly had the nickname "Yosemite Sam", but that appears to have faded away with time. Other aliases he's given himself have included "Osama Bin Laden" (chosen many months before 9/11) and Uday. Riley chose this last nickname on one of the extremely rare occasions he watched the news; he normally goes to great lengths to avoid the acquisition of knowledge. He once became upset after getting a C-plus in school because he was afraid such "exemplary" grades would ruin his street credibility. Since asking for and not receiving rims for Christmas, Riley has been determined to sleigh-jack Santa Claus on Christmas Eve for the dual purpose of taking what he believes is owed to him and meting out punishment.
• Michael Caesar - Huey's classmate and best friend, and agrees with most of Huey's views of life. Unlike Huey, Caesar is more optimistic and cheerful, and is usually making jokes about whatever issue is at hand. It was Caesar's idea to find a boyfriend for Condoleezza Rice, reasoning that if she came to truly love somebody living on the planet she wouldn't be so "hell bent to destroy it." Caesar is originally from Brooklyn and needs little prompting to vocally represent his hometown. He and Huey have co-founded the newsletter the "Free Huey World Report" and the annual "Most Embarrassing Black People Awards."
• Robert Jebediah "Granddad" Freeman - Huey and Riley's retired grandfather, a pragmatist and disciplinarian. Robert is known to panic at news reports, and values his own peace and comfort over the needs of others while still looking out for the children's welfare...Also his inheritance caused them to live in the nice suburban home in the television series
• Thomas and Sara Dubois - An interracial couple in the neighborhood. They both work as lawyers. Tom is often seen talking (sometimes arguing) with Huey about current politics, while Huey tends to deride Tom for being a conformist yuppie, sometimes going as far as to sarcastically suggest that he's not really black. For a while Tom was kicked out of the house by Sara after he called her a "two-timing political floozy" when she voted for Ralph Nader instead of Al Gore. Four years later, Tom kidnapped Nader in the hopes of preventing him from taking votes away from John Kerry and costing the Democrats the 2004 Presidential Election. He was eventually persuaded to release Nader by Huey.
• Jazmine Dubois - Thomas and Sara's light-skinned, 10-year-old biracial daughter, who seems to like Huey, despite his general coldness toward her. Jazmine is often portrayed as naïve, and is very optimistic in contrast to Huey's pessimism. Early in the strip she was purposefully ambigiously colored so as to cloud the issue if she was white or black (she was a grayish color). It even prompted her to be directly asked by her teacher. She disappeared for roughly two years, and it was revealed she had been so scared of the terrorists she wouldn't leave her house. She tried to turn herself into the FBI three times, because she thought she was helping the terrorists by being scared (having heard statements to the effect of "If you live in fear, the terrorists win"). She eventually came out because of a "Credible threat against her teddy bear." Jazmine is insecure about her curly and voluminous hair, wishing it looked straighter, like her mother's hair. Huey's suggestion to Tom that he and Sara try "emphasizing the natural beauty of her African features" rather than trying to help her change her appearance fell on deaf ears. On one occasion when Jazmine was complaining about her "big and poofy" hair, Huey interrupted her to ask what she thought of the clouds. She thought the clouds were pretty, but completely missed the point Huey was trying to make.
• Cindy McPhearson - A Caucasian girl in Huey's class who appears to be utterly clueless about racial issues. She shows a fondness and curiosity for rap music (Snoop Dogg in particular).
• Uncle Ruckus - A mentally disturbed neighborhood handyman and acquaintance of the Freemans who plays the archetypal role of a black man who dislikes his own race and constantly, but often illogically, praises Caucasians, he also claims to be part French part Cherokee part Navajo part Sioux with a splish splash of Irish. He frequently spouts white supremacist rhetoric. The name is an apparent reference to Uncle Remus.

Minor characters

• Hiro Otomo - One of Huey's friends, a young Asian-American DJ. Hiro only appeared in the original Diamondback version of the strip. He is named after mangaka Katsuhiro Otomo.
• Psycho Star Wars Guy - A long-haired young man who stood in line for The Phantom Menace for months. Huey regularly visited him in line. Finding the movie disappointing, he thought he had nothing left to live for, until Huey convinced him to sue George Lucas, though Huey didn't actually mean for him to do so. Psycho Star Wars Guy later ran into Lucas himself and kicked him in the rear, sparking a brief (fictional) wave of publicity for both himself and Huey, who claimed responsibility for the attack.
• The school principal - An out-of-touch young man who prepared for the arrival of Huey and Riley by renting several blaxploitation films, mistakenly thinking of them as representative of black culture. He somehow has access to FBI files of Huey.
• Mr. Petto - Huey and Caesar's teacher, who is as clueless about how to handle them as the principal is. Old-fashioned and not used to dealing with Blacks, he is intimidated by Huey's intellect and has struggled trying to debate with Huey during class.

Published collections

• 2000: Because I Know You Don't Read the Newspaper
• 2001: Fresh for '01...You Suckas!
• 2002: A Right to Be Hostile (treasury)
• 2005: Public Enemy #2

See also

• The Boondocks television series

Footnotes

1. ^ McGrath, Ben. "The Radical", The New Yorker, April 12, 2004. Retrieved on 2006-02-02.
2. ^ Armour, Terry. "Boondocks creator taking 6 months off", Chicago Tribune, February 28, 2006.
3. ^ ^a b Stepp, Laura Sessions. "Syndicate Says Boondocks May Not Return", The Washington Post, September 26, 2006.

References

• Comic at The Detour (Canadian, Teletoon)
• Comic at GoComics.com
• Comic at AdultSwim.com
• Comic at Yahoo.com
• AOL Black Voices, hosts full-color version of daily strip; lasts 24 hours
• Comic at uclick.com