The last two panels of the Doonesbury for March 8th, one of Trudeau’s pointedly political strips, about people whose reputations have been soiled by their association with Helmet Grabpussy: what does it mean if you turn up as a character in a comic strip (especially this strip)?
Oh, so meta: not only do the two men — a now-grey-haired Mark Slackmeyer and an aging Mike Doonesbury — recognize that they are not entirely real people, but (despite their many apparently real-life experiences) also characters in a comic strip, they further recognize that indubitably real people, people from Meatworld (like Alan Dershowitz) can join them in Stripworld — and that when such a person materializes in Stripworld, it’s usually as an object of mockery. As Mike says, “that’s never good”.
