OPEN POST: Sunday Comics With The Boondocks!

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"Jesus was black, 9/11 was an inside job, and Ronald Reagan was the devil."
"I'm gonna find me a white man and lie to him right now!"

These are just two memorable quotes from a short-lived comic strip which left a scorched-earth impression - one that people are still talking about. Before it was an animated series that got a little too real on Adult Swim, "The Boondocks" was ruffling plenty of feathers as a nationally syndicated comic strip. From 1999 to 2006, creator Aaron McGruder launched a full-scale assault on...well, just about everything, including Black culture, conservative politicians and generalized idiocy in American society. It was essential reading for me, since it didn't hesitate to skewer the deserving, and with arguably more daring, more bite and more spit-taking humor than the politically-prevaricating, libertarian "South Park," which started airing only a few years before on Comedy Central.

The strip introduced Huey Freeman, a self-proclaimed Marxist whose name was a shout-out to Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton. But it was too hot to handle for many papers given its scathing, occasionally shocking, but always humorous, takedowns of President George "Dubya" Bush and his administration. Some papers refused to publish it, or censored various strips, or else put it in the OpEd section. When McGruder finally halted the strip, many chalked it up to his decision to "go Hollywood" with Adult Swim, yet he also likely grew weary of arguing on an almost daily basis with newspapers and Universal Press Syndicate, which distributed the comic. If you haven't read the strip, it's beautifully drawn and designed, and, yes, still packs quite a punch. It's well worth seeking out.

Art Credits: Aaron McGruder; Universal Press Syndicate

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