The Boondocks

  If a cavalier disregard for political-correctness offends you, then Aaron McGruder’s work may not be for you.  If, on the other hand, you can find humor in someone pointing out everything that is backwards in today’s hip-hop culture, you need to familiarize yourself with “The Boondocks.”

  What began in 1997 as a controversial comic strip for “The Diamondback,” the student newspaper for the University of Maryland, College Park, has evolved into an equally controversial cartoon on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim line-up.  “The Boondocks” is centered around two young boys, 10-year-old Huey Freeman and his 8-year-old brother Riley, who are taken out of inner-city Chicago to live with their grandfather in the Maryland suburbs.  The resulting culture shock—often spurred by ripped-from-the headlines events—provides unbounded fodder for both the strip and the series.

  Huey, like his namesake, Black Panther Huey Newton, is intelligent but radical, forward-thinking but pessimistic.  Riley is enamored with the hip-hop lifestyle, enchanted by thugs and bling, and wants to grow up to be gangsta, like the rappers he sees on TV.  Riley’s hip-hop ambitions are a tremendous source of frustration for Huey and their grandfather, who is a strict disciplinarian.

  The Universal Press Syndicate picked up the comic strip for syndication in April of 1999, and on its first day “The Boondocks” made history as the largest launch of a comic in the history of the printed page, with 160 papers running it.  By year’s end, that number had grown to 200.  But, not unlike “Doonesbury,” its controversial, left-leaning content has offended a few along the way.  Three years ago, McGruder passed the art duties off to another artist, though he continued to write the strip.  “If something had to give, it was going to be the art,” McGruder told The New Yorker in 2004.  “I think I’m a better writer than artist.”  Two artists have drawn the strip since McGruder passed the torch.

  Despite the changes in “The Boondocks’” art department, the look of the strip has remained consistent—and an interesting look it is.  Immediately noticeable is the influence of Japanese manga: accentuated foreheads, small noses, almond-shaped eyes.   This inherent contradiction—the aesthetics of Japanese animation in a comic strip that deals with the culture of Black America—lends itself well to the tension of the strip, which often deals with the struggle for a cultural identity.

  The nature of a syndicated comic strip, even a controversial one, dictates that occasionally the author has to play it safer than he or she would like in order to maintain the mass appeal.  The cartoon on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim plays to a much narrower audience.  By comparison, the show is racier, raunchier, and bluer than the strip. 

  The cartoon is currently between seasons, but reruns of the first season are airing on the Cartoon Network.  The second season is scheduled to start next spring, having been extended from 15 to 20 episodes.  A 3-DVD box set of the complete first season, uncut and uncensored with lots of great bonus features, goes on sale this Tuesday.  You owe it to yourself to check it out.

 -From Pulse
   July 20, 2006