Los Angeles, CA (Los Angeles Co.) Los Angeles Magazine (Cir. M. 172,000)

MEDIA

Do"\Vn in the Boondocks ..'\.ARON MCGRUDER DRAWS A WORLD WHERE "PEANU'TS' AND P ✓ DIDDY,

M ALCOLM X AND "X,,M EN' ALL MEE'T BY S'TEPHANIE KANG

MAGINE YOU HAVE A NEW JOB. Black Fanther Farty leader Huey P Newton) officially became an Angeleno, but his Lo From now on your responsibilities is a "radical scholar," busy writing 'The Free Feliz apartment looks like he ju t moved in. entail making 30 million people laugh Huey World Report, organizing Klan \Vcltches, The few pieces of furniture are covered with Ionce a day. A few people will censor and overthrowing the new world order. His Doobie Brothers CDs, Sade's live concert your work. Others will hate it. Wor t of all, younger brother, Riley, is the "brash product video, and pages from hi new book, Fresh some won't get the j ke. Ever. No problem, of a popular black culture ob e ed with for' 0 1 . .. You Suc\as. A framed picture of says Aaron McGruder, cartoonist of 'The gangsters." Rounding out the cast are Caesar, 'The Simpsons cast sits, unhung, by the door Boondoc\s and comic ' latest success tory. a Brooklyn native who dream of "micro, next to a bamboo blowgun he bought in a In a field where careers are judged in phones and lyrical dominance" as an emcee, shop on Melrose. decade , the lightning popularity of Mc, and Jazmine, a "young biracial girl struggling McGruder hunches over his Vaio draw, Gruder' comic strip has brought some fresh to find her identity at the border of the color ing board and in a few deft strokes outline attention to the funny pages. Tagged by one line." Living amid the culturally white norm, a close-up of his main character, Huey. The observer as "Chris Rock doe Peanuts," this pint-size crew daily tackles American cartoonist' expression is relaxed, even mildly McGruder publicly voices opinion about verities like white liberalism, black mobility, bored, but onscreen Huey is , as always, race in America that are often only aid behind and American democracy-and still ha scowling. Otherwise, the physical similarity do ed doors, or aren't said at all, with targets time for homework. between creator and creation is hard to ig, ranging from Ralph Nader to Puff Daddy. It's been nearly two years since McGruder nore. With his hort Afro and lender build, Uncompromi ing and caustically intelligent, 1\1E UOY$ LOOI( FORWARD TO A NEW LIFE 'The Boondoc\s crosses the conservative and - A NEW ~GINNING ... NESllED IN 1\1E WARM ~RA(E OF SUUORUIA .. even reactionary pages of the comics section and plants a flag where i sues of racial iden, tity, politic , and hip-hop music meet. 'The Boondoc\s drop two black brothers from Chicago's South Side into Woodcrest, the fictionalized epitome of middle-class, white uburbia. Huey Freeman (named for

60 LOS AN_GELES AUGU T 2001 MEDIA

EVERYFODY'S TALl(IN' ABOUT "PLJFFY TH IS , PLJFFY THAT." WHAT AFOOT SHYNE?/ HE AIN 'T SHOT NOFODY - HE JUST SHOT IN THE AIR. AND HE KEPT IT REAL FY NOT TESllFYING, NOT LIKE THAT SNITCH PLJFFY.

PANEL DISCUSSION: Huey and Riley Freeman debate the issues

doesn't make the strip black," he says. "Hip,hop struggled so hard to overcome racial divi ion." makes it multiracial." TI1e strip al o ha come under fire from older black profes ionals who feel it promotes stereo, HE MELANGE OF MAINSTREAM types. Another irate Times reader sugge ted and obscure reference can be that the strip's gang ter topics "make black pea, daunting for the uninitiated. One ple look like demons." T strip links figures a diverse as Yet there are a steady nwnber of readers who Charlie Rose, hip,hop artist Raekwon, race appreciate M cGruder' voice. "Finally a comic theorist Frances Cress Welsing, and UC Regent trip define my place, my attitude, my life a a W ard Connerly, a combination that would leave young black man," read one recent letter. Or a many readers shaking their heads. Evidence of "Bobby" wrote on The Boan.doc~s W eb site, "He an eclectic aesthetic i everywhere in the strip; gives my thoughts a voice." McGruder's vibrant cartooning style terns from Former L.A. Times readers' representative h.i interest in Japanese a.nime as well as X , M en N arda Zacchino believes the fierce difference of comic books. opinions ignals not only good bu iness sense but A s much as M cGruder i a child of pro, good journalism. In the month following the gressive black thought, he i al o the reverent strip's debut, Z acchino' column reported that product of popular culture. Both Star W ars and nearly 400 readers, roughly split down the mid, Peanuts deeply influence The Boan.doc~s. "They dle, threatened to cancel their subscriptions if define part of who we are as a culture," he says. the Times dropped-or kept-T he Boondoc~s. "TI1ey are two moments that will never be re, "You can't please readers," says Zacchino, adding peated, will never be replaced, and that we all that even in its comics pages, "a good newspaper collectively share." should be a marketplace of ideas." Kelley insi ts that this cultural duality­ Some critics fail to see that rather than straddling both mainstream and marginalized glorify gangsters, M cGruder lampoons con, cultures-is common today among middle,class temporary black culture, never more so than blacks, contra ting with the popular image of in hi description of Riley as "shortsighted , "real" black people as urban and poor. TI1e boys' ignorant, and concerned only with instant negotiation of blackness within w hiteness also gratification." When R iley contemplat es addre es the effect of cultural mixing and mis, turning to the traight path, he tallies up his communication. Riley complains that his cla , option -playing pro ball, cutting a platinum mates are "bitin' off his style," appropriating his album, or making blockbuster movie -only dress, his slang, even hi "thug mug." At the same to stick to his thug life ambitions in the name time, Caesar's hout,outs during class for his na, of "keepin' it real." tive hometown ("Yo! Is Brooklyn Up In Here?!!") M cGruder has inadvertently tepped from are more often than not met with uneasy silence. obscurity into the impossible role of national You have to wonder if his creator feels similarly spokesperson. "\\ /hen you have so few black to, every time he finishes a strip. ries being told, each individual t01y has the pres, A LUXURIOUS EUROPEAN DAY SPA Certainly M cGruder is not preaching to the sure of representing more than it possibly can," (818) 995-3888 converted. TI1ose he w1ites for-hip,hop know, he says. His success at criticizing black America 17401 Ventura Boulevard ledgeable black youth-are the least likely to has in turn made McGruder responsible for pick up a newspaper. His critic , however, come propagating a positive black image-ironic fo r Encino, CA from all over the color, political, and age spec, someone who feels isolated from mainstream www.skinspa.com trum. Complaining about everything from the black culture. "I feel obsolete," he says. "I feel like lack of miling characters to McGruder's alleged an artifact among black people." Gift Certificates available by inciting of racism, one L. A . T imes reader called Aware of the preca1ious nature of his busi, phone or our web site. The Boon.doc~s "truly offensive in a city that ha ness (a few newspapers have drop ed the trip),

6 4 LOS AN.GE LE S A UGU T 2 001 MEDIA I ..A. ·y ·y It . d 'd d '\ ·, w 111te a 1 a an Boondoc\ s shirt, McGru er could pass for an older Freeman brother. Huey's civil rights ac umen and anger at black enter, tainment al closely coincide with McGruder's own views on race ;md politics. Although he denies that Huey is his alter ego, M cGruder admits that 'The Boondoc\ s is "thematically autobiographical," echoing his ex­ periences gr w ing up in the predominantly w hite community of C olumbia, M aryland. "I went through my periods," he says. "As a black kid in the uburb , you had two choices: em, phas ize your bl ackness or blend in with the w hite kids." In his late teens M cGruder drew from this conflict, envi ioning a comic strip that satitized notion of black identity and combined his love of hip-hop, politic , and race with art. 'The Boondoc\s was fi r t seen in 1996 on the W eb site Hitlist. Soon came a brief stint at his alm a mat er, with the University of M aryland's independent new spaper, and in the hip-hop magazine 'The Source. A chance meet, ing in C hicago the next year at a N atio nal A ssociation of Black Journalists convention led to a fi ve-year, six-fi gure contract w ith Universal Pre s Syndicate. De pite its brash tone, the strip's national debut in April 1999-in approximately 160 newspaper -was one of the bigges i omics histoty, surpassing the start-up numbers for such titans as Doonesbury and Calvin and Hobbes . Its success has spawned two books and negoti, ation fo r a television series. At 27 M cGruder is a generation or two younger than most comic strip creators today. He' also one of no more than ten black ca rtoonists in syndication. But what makes 'The Boondoc~s unique- even more than it focus on middle-class black identity-is its youth.fol sensibility. "Every generation sho uld have its own artists," says M orrie Turner, w ho in 1965 be, came the nation's first yndicated black cartoonist w ith his Wee Pals strip. "M cGrnder's made his mark and ea rned his readers by representing the hip-hop generation." In the space of the comics pages, Turner suggests, w here content is often dictated by the popular demand of longtime readers, M cGruder' strip may be the first to openl y embrace a community of young people who "think differently, talk differently, dress dif­ ferently, and see the world differently." \Vhere else ca n you discu s the myste1y of 2Toc's post­ bumous recording career or the irony of a thug, in-training like Riley loving Lauryn Hill? Robin D.G. Kell ey, a black cultural critic, says that hip-hop's predominantly w hite sub, urban fu n base infoses 'The Bocm,doc~s with a uni, ver ality crossing race and class lines. "Hip-hop ·-/\ ~1 ME DI A

McGruder holds a "kamikaze attitude" about skills. McGruder stands center stage, giving the they're doing something right when there's no­ his work, dismissing both the confused ("Let keynote address at Youth Summit 2001. The body there to help them. The rhetoric is a bit them work for it") and the critical ("Don't read mostly black and Latino youths quiet down as heavy-handed, and suddenly even McGruder it"). He doesn't plan to read his newspaper fan McGruder begins a speech titled "Following seems aware of it. mail, much less his.hate mail, for at least 20 Your Dreams." He pauses a moment, glancing at a series of years. He tries to say what he wants to every The cartoonist sums up his success by not, murals flanking the stage depicting famous day, knowing how easily his career can end. "I've ing that money and fame notwithstanding, black figures: Martin Luther King Jr., Kareem never seen him back down from a fight," says "at the end of the day, there's nothing like Abdul, J abaar, Rosa Parks. In characteristic Tavis Smiley, former host of the talk show BE'f being an articulate, intelligent person who Boondoc~s fashion, McGruder smiles at his au, 'Tonight. "I told somebody, 'If you ever see knows who they are and where they came dience and cautions, "Then again, I wouldn't Aaron McGruder in a fight with a bear, you from." He advises the group to eschew connec, recommend anyone taking life advice from help the bear.'" tions for working hard, noting that they'11 know someone under 30." (0 Yet some fans feel that McGruder has toned down 'The &xmdoc~s to gain a broader audience. Many recent strips are free of overt racial and political content, focusing instead on family,ori, ented topics like summer vacation and house­ hold chores. So at the moment ofMcGruder's greatest commercial success, has The Boondoc~s lost its edge? McGruder replies that although he relishes his role as comics' "angry race-humor guy," he strives to cultivate the characters' relationships as much as the social issues they discuss. "People focus on the sensationalism of the race issue , but they don't focus on the humanity of the characters," he says. In the end, it's the charac, ters that give The Boondoc~s its authenticity, whether detailing the conflicts of navigating a black identity in a white world or dealing with universal issues of family and school. Just as Lucy never lets Charlie Brown kick that foot, ball, Huey will continue procrastinating about mowing the lawn, and Riley will always, always whup Huey on PlayStation 2. These everyday moments are as integral a part of 'The Boondoc~s' freshness as its social commentary. That diversity reflects the lives of many black Americans, who, like most people, don't spend all their time thinking about race. "\Vhat makes the strip compelling is it shows African Americans in fairly mundane situa, tions, which then reveal just how complicated and human they are," says Kelley. By embrac, ing the complexities of McGruder's middle, class black experience-in the breadth of its content and the honesty of its voice-The Boondoc~s acts as a small but significant splash of color on an otherwise racially sterile and apolitical comics pages.

T'S A CLOUDY SATURDAY MORNING at the Watts Labor Community Action Co;::..mittee, a theater cum nonprofit space Inestled in a neighborhood inundated with liquor stores and chain-link fences. Nearly 100 young people from the L.A. area are here for an all day workshop focusing on decision-making