Ginny's back!

Good news from the world of Doonesbury (although most news from the world of Doonesbury is good). Ginny (aka Virginia Slade) is back! Her husband, Clyde, is back as well. It's good to see them.

A couple of years ago, I went to see Garry Trudeau at UCLA (that's how dedicated of a Doonesbury fan I am; I went into enemy territory). One of the questions was about Ginny; the woman in the audience yelled "I miss her!" To which Trudeau responded, "I miss her, too."

Not anymore! She's back!

For those who may be unfamiliar with the decades-long history of the greatest comic strip in the history of the world, Ginny was Joanie Caucus's roommate at Boalt (aka UC Berkeley's law school), back in the early 70's. Ginny ran for Congress while she was in school, but got creamed. Joanie was her campaign manager. Jimmy Thudpucker, who is a rock star sort of like James Taylor or Jackson Browne, wrote a song and held a fundraising benefit concert for her. Ginny and Jimmy were even on the cover of Rolling Stone. I happen to know this because I just bought a copy of that edition of RS on eBay. Get this - the whole magazine is newsprint.

Ginny is married to Clyde, who is her polar opposite politically; he's quite conservative. He was something of a slacker when we first met him, but he started a successful cookie company and was eventually appointed to Congress, replacing Lacey Davenport, Joanie's old boss. He is still there. Last week, he tried to get Joanie to get him in touch Obama, to no avail. Ha!

So now that Ginny and Clyde are back, one of the only people we haven't seen in a while is Phred. Phred the terrorist, who captured BD in Vietnam, became his good friend, and was later Vietnam's ambassador to the UN.