Garry Trudeau is somewhat of a recluse.

The creator and author of the politically themed ‘Doonesbury’ comic strip, and Pulitzer Prize-winner for editorial cartooning, rarely makes public appearances and frequently denies media interviews. But Syracuse University managed to snag him last night in Hendricks Chapel as a part of the 2004 Syracuse Symposium: Humor lecture series, mostly because the timing worked for both parties.

‘I’ve spent my lifetime trying to perfect the lifestyle that doesn’t actually require my presence,’ Trudeau said, giving the crowd of 1,400 its first laugh of the night.

The audience didn’t wait much longer for its second, as Trudeau explained that his youngest son’s approaching move to college has forced him to prepare for a life without children.

‘I’ve begun to imagine a whole new future for myself,’ Trudeau said. ‘I’ve given a lot of thought to my obituary.’

In his self-penned obituary, which Trudeau read aloud to the crowd, he called himself a late-blooming, New York Knicks point guard who enjoyed an early career as a cartoonist. But following an appearance at Syracuse University in 2004, he became disenchanted with the back-to-back invasions of Syria and France and appeared at a Knicks tryout game. Egged on by audience laughter, Trudeau continued telling the story of his yet unfolded life, describing his book, ‘Your Mother,’ and its follow-up, ‘Your Sister,’ and how he had served as the focal point of the biography, ‘White Lightning.’

But to become one of the nation’s greatest writers, one does not need to create an elaborate past to be reflected in an obituary some day, or attend a big-name college, Trudeau said. To be a great writer, one first needs to experience many things that are worth writing about.

While in college, in the late 1960s, the baby boomer generation had hijacked American culture, Trudeau said. Newspaper publishers, members of the older generation, were not looking for comic strip writers who necessarily had skills but for those who offered a younger voice, like Trudeau.

‘My perspective was in demand,’ Trudeau said.

Because of its radical views for the time, though, his strip did not appear in many newspapers throughout the country until the older publishers began dying.

‘A happy pattern emerged,’ Trudeau said. ‘Across the country, the publishers who said ‘Doonesbury’ would be published over their dead bodies got their wish.’

The strip became an overnight hit after Trudeau won the Pulitzer, even though he says his grandmother still disapproved of his chosen profession.

Trudeau digressed from his story several times to elaborate upon his generation’s recent efforts to downplay its crazier days from years ago.

‘Public figures use the budding scientist defense: ‘I was engaged in experimental research,” Trudeau said. ‘I think it’d be refreshing to hear a senator say, ‘Hey, I don’t remember my freshman year, get over it.”

One can best determine a person’s place in the baby boomer generation by asking who was his or her favorite member of the Beatles. Each of the 1996 presidential primary candidates responded to that question, with Bill Clinton answering Paul, Trudeau said.

‘But it’s fair to assume he lied,’ Trudeau said, and after pausing for the audience to laugh, deadpanned, ”I did not listen to that Beatle.”

The house lights dimmed at three points within the lecture as Trudeau played video clips- the first of ‘Tanner 88,’ a mini-film written by Trudeau in 1988, which documents a fictional candidate’s campaign for presidency, and the second of a clip of a musical he wrote near the end of Reagan’s term that mocked the United States’ accidental bombing of Tunisia. The third consisted of a montage of segments with Duke, an animated character from Trudeau’s strip, Katie Couric, George Bush and Al Gore.

The greater population no longer reads comic strips regularly, Trudeau said, and the challenge for today’s comic strip writers is to transition from old to new media. Soon animated strips will replace static images altogether. Because of the freedoms that exist in this country, he said, no matter how unrecognizable cartoonists may be today, they are able to work with considerable license.

Several audience members asked Trudeau questions after his speech, the first regarding his method of selecting comic ideas and why he avoids certain topics.

‘You mean why I don’t cover issues that interest you?’ Trudeau asked.

Joking aside, Trudeau said he selects topics that pique interest, and that his general audience will be able to grasp and enjoy.

In response to another question, Trudeau offered his belief that, if Bush is re-elected, the war in Iraq will continue with no end. Even if Kerry is elected, he said, the war will be an extremely hard one to bring to an end.

Trudeau’s lecture and responses to questions demonstrated that he is one of the great critics of our time, said Rogan Kersh, an SU professor of political science.

‘Trudeau manages somehow to take humor in person and in ‘Doonesbury’ and transfer it into something much more profound,’ Kersh said.

‘I just liked all the Bush-bashing,’ said Patty Kimball, a former adjunct professor at SU, who also attended the event.

Some of the younger audience members said that, although the lecture entertained them, they were not as impressed with the many references to events that had occurred before their time.

‘It was a bit for a different generation,’ said Jackie Wheel, an undeclared freshman in The College of Arts and Sciences. ‘Some of it went over our heads.’

Published on September 21, 2004 at 12:00 pm