Doonesbury has an official new lead character: Alex Doonesbury, the daughter of Mike Doonesbury, who has been the comic’s protagonist for more than 40 years. Writing for ThinkProgress, Alyssa Rosenberg does a great job of summing up Alex’s appeal, and what it means to have a new generation at the fore of one of the most significant, long-running comic-strips in America:
Daily cartoon strips may not get as much credit as they ought to for shaping the cultural zeitgeist, but throughout her life, and mine, Alex Doonesbury’s been one of the best female characters, of any age, in any medium. She’s a child of divorced parents with a complicated relationship with her mother that made her mature and self-protective rather than the victim of cliche trauma, and loving, collaborative tie to her stepmother, a Vietnamese refugee adopted by American Jews. In addition to both of these women, Alex has a father who spars with her on politics, works with her on business projects, and treats her like a mature person with worthy ideas. She’s been a full member of the cast almost from her birth because she was that important in Mike’s life, and she became so in ours. Alex is a computer genius without falling into sexy hacker tropes, and her skills brought her closer to her parents and all the way to MIT, a point of pride so fierce that MIT students rigged the voting to win her as a fictional fellow student. And her love story with Toggle, a disabled veteran with less education and a decidedly different family background from Alex’s own, has been part of Doonesbury’s transition into a more expansive portrait of American life.
Alex Doonesbury Succeeds Her Father as ‘Doonesbury’s Main Character’
(via The Mary Sue)