Doonesbury - Characters

Characters

Doonesbury has a large group of recurring characters, with 24 currently listed at the strip’s website. There, it notes that "readers new to Doonesbury sometimes experience a temporary bout of character shock," as the sheer number of characters—and the historical connections among them—can be overwhelming.

The main characters are a group who attended the fictional Walden College during the strip’s first 12 years, and moved into a commune together in April 1972. Most of the other characters first appeared as family members, friends, or other acquaintances. The original “Walden Commune” residents were Mike Doonesbury, Zonker Harris, Mark Slackmeyer, Nicole, Bernie, and DiDi. In September 1972, Joanie Caucus joined the comic, meeting Mike and Mark in Colorado and eventually moving into the commune. They were later joined by BD and his girlfriend (later wife) Boopsie, upon B.D.'s return from Vietnam. Nicole, DiDi, and Bernie were mostly phased out in subsequent years, and Zonker's Uncle Duke was introduced as the most prominent character outside the Walden group, and the main link to many secondary characters.

The Walden students graduated in 1983, after which the strip began to progress in something closer to real time. Their spouses and developing families became more important after this: Joanie's daughter J.J. Caucus married Mike and they had a daughter, Alex Doonesbury. They divorced, Mike remarried Kim Rosenthal, a Vietnamese refugee (who had appeared in the strip as a baby adopted by a Jewish family just after the fall of Saigon), and J.J. married Zeke Brenner, her former boyfriend and Uncle Duke's former groundskeeper. Joanie married Rick Redfern, and they had a son, Jeff. Uncle Duke and Roland Hedley have also appeared often, frequently in more topical settings unconnected to the main characters. In more recent years the second generation has taken prominence as they have grown to college age: Jeff Redfern, Alex Doonesbury, Zonker's nephew Zipper Harris, and Uncle Duke's son Earl.