Not really, he's actually just amputating his leg:
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A main character in the "Doonesbury" comic strip will lose a leg while fighting in Iraq, one of two strips published this week that feature soldiers getting injured in the war.
In Monday's "Doonesbury," B.D., a football coach-turned-soldier, was injured after being reactivated in the Army at the end of 2002, following a losing football season.
Later this week, he will wake up to find his left leg amputated, according to Universal Press Syndicate, the strip's distributor.
Screw that, kill the guy. Back up your froth over Iraq by icing one of the main characters in your comic strip. B.D. survived Vietnam and the Gulf War, didn't he? Seems like the guy's living on borrowed time as it is.
I remember reading the Doonesbury books when I was a kid back in the '70s. Maybe it's because the jokes went over my head half the time ("Look out, it's a staggering deficit!"), but I think Trudeau was less strident in those days. The strips were wordier, which was probably a function of the amount of room he used to have to work with, but the humor seemed more subtle.
"Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau said he wanted to illustrate the sacrifices American soldiers are making.
Heh. "Illustrate." Good one.
"It's a task any writer should approach with great humility, but I think it's worth doing," Trudeau said. "We are at war, and we can't lose sight of the hardships war inflicts on individual lives."
Trudeau said B.D. would learn to deal with his injury "probably the same way so many wounded vets seem to — with gratitude for having had one's life spared, empathy and respect for those who have suffered worse, and a grim sense of humor indispensable to fending off despair."
So...he's ripping off Cutter John from Bloom County? How wonderfully ironic.
If Trudeau really wants to keep "the hardships war inflicts on individual lives" in perspective, he shouldn't let B.D go back to his loving wife and friendly community with a new devil-may-care attitude: he should put him out on the street. Make Boopsie unable to deal with his (now sometimes violent) mood swings and throw him out. Show him approaching Mike for a handout and have Mike turn away in revulsion without realizing who this bum really is. Rather than "fending off despair," show the despair.
Not that tired jokes showcasing B.D.'s new "grim sense of humor" won't be effective as well, of course. I can hardly wait for the first time B.D. says he's "stumping for Bush."
We will resume printing Doonesbury in the paper when the content is deemed suitable for publication in the Journal-Advocate.
http://www.journal-advocate.com/Stories/0,1413,120~7821~2096451,00.html
So is it spooky syncronicity that BD is losing a leg at the same time as Rob from Get Fuzzy is going to Andrews to meet his cousin who is returning from Iraq where he lost a leg, or is Rob B.D.'s cousin?
I, for one, think that Zonker and Satchel would do well in a few scenes, but JJ and Bucky would be just a bit much...