Action Figure highlights the fantastic career of Doonesbury’s Uncle Duke. The comic character’s life includes stellar roles as a journalist, governor, NFL sports medicine ‘practitioner’, a brief stint as zombie, a snake oil salesman, and my favorite: Maximum Proconsul of Panama.
There has only been one figure like Uncle Duke, and there is no other character in fictional media who so warms my heart and turns on my sense of adventure. I just love when Gary B. Trudeau’s Doonesbury is on an Uncle Duke thread.
This edition no longer appears to come with the awesome Uncle Duke Action Figure I received with my copy, but the stories are the same. He staggers, mumbles, overdoses and offends his way through America’s most critical moments for three decades. From his introduction to the strip in 1970, Action Figure covers Duke’s exploits into the early 90s.
This more recent clip shows Duke representing BP to the press after they destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. Trudeau captures so much of what was wrong with that moment in history in just a few panels:
No one cheers me up and gives me hope for a bright future like Uncle Duke.
Action Figure: The Life and Times Of Doonesbury’s Uncle Duke by Gary B. Trudeau