Aaron McGruder is an American cartoonist best known for writing and drawing The Boondocks, a Universal Press Syndicate comic strip about two young African American brothers from inner-city Chicago now living with their grandfather in a sedate suburb.
All
the Rage: The Boondocks Past and Present
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Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press (October 30, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307352668
ISBN-13: 978-0307352668
Review from Publishers Weekly
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Since it started national syndication in 1999, McGruder's comic strip has been famous for its sharp satiric perspective on African-American culture. The strip ended in 2006, following its debut as an animated series on Comedy Central's Adult Swim. This new collection serves as a farewell to the series' comics incarnation and takes a very unusual form. The first section of the book collects characteristically witty Boondocks strips from 2003 through 2005 on topics ranging from Iraq and Hurricane Katrina to the frustrations of computer help lines and the inanity of newly concocted slang. Part II, The Media, consists primarily of interviews with McGruder from newspapers, magazines and television. These allow McGruder to express his political opinions more openly and point to various controversies that the strip aroused. This leads to Part III, The Controversy, which reprints many of the strips from 1999 onward that various newspaper editors refused to run. What is especially striking is the outrage over McGruder's early criticism of the Bush administration's response to the 9/11 attacks. Hence this book is not only a retrospective of this decade's most impressive comic strips, but also a sharp reminder of shifting public opinion. (Nov.) Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Boondocks
2008: 2008 Wall Calendar
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Calendar: 24 pages
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing (September 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0740765868
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The Boondocks, the animated TV series based on Aaron McGruder's award-winning comic strip, is a provocative comedy brimming with social relevance and satire. The Boondocks tracks the adventures of Huey and Riley Freeman, young black brothers who experience a culture clash when they move from southside Chicago to the quiet and safety of "The Boondocks," a.k.a. suburban Woodcrest, to live with their grandfather. In this 2008 calendar, you'll spend the year with Huey, Riley, Granddad Robert Jebediah Freeman, Uncle Ruckus, Jazmine DuBois, and her parents, Tom and Sara.
The Boondocks has heart, and it has something to say about family, brotherly love, and overcoming the inanities of everyday life. It is funny, fearless, and continues the vibe of the strip. -Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle
Public Enemy #2 : An
All-New Boondocks Collection (Boondocks Collection)
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ISBN: 1400082587
Format: Paperback, 176pp
Pub. Date: April 2005
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Here's the next big collection of Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, the most subversively funny, controversial, and politically engaged strip to be found in America's comics pages. Featuring Huey Freeman, a radical preteen conspiracy theorist, and his little brother Riley, a desperately cute thug-in-training, The Boondocks skewers targets from George W. Bush and Ralph Nader to Queen Latifah and Bill Cosby. With more than 500 previously uncollected strips�including strips banned from newspapers around the country�Public Enemy #2 is a must-have collection of the sharpest satire being crafted today.
Birth of a Nation:
A Comic Novel
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Aaron McGruder, Reginald Hudlin, Kyle Baker (Illustrator)
ISBN: 1400048591
Format: Hardcover, 144pp
Pub. Date: July 2004
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
This scathingly hilarious political satire--produced from a collaboration of three of our funniest humorists--answers the burning question: Would anyone care if East St. Louis seceded from the Union?
East St. Louis, Illinois ("the inner city without an outer city"), is an impoverished town, so poor that Fred Fredericks, its idealistic mayor, starts off Election Day by collecting the city's trash in his own minivan. But the mayor believes in the power of democracy and rallies his fellow citizens to the polls for the presidential election, only to find hundreds of them turned away for trumped-up reasons. Even sweet old Miss Jackson--not to mention the mayor himself--is denied the vote because her name turns up on a bogus list of felons. The national election hinges on Illinois's electoral votes and, as a result of the mass disenfranchisement of East St. Louis, a radical right-wing junta led by a dim-witted Texas governor seizes the Oval Office.
Prodded by shady black billionaire and old friend John Roberts, Fredericks devises a radical plan of protest: East St. Louis will secede from the Union. Roberts opens an "offshore" bank (albeit in the heart of the U.S.) to finance the newly liberated country, and suddenly East St. Louis becomes the Switzerland of the American heartland, flush with money. It also begins to attract a motley circus of idealistic young militants, OPEC-funded hitmen, CIA operatives, tabloid reporters, and AWOL black servicemen eager to protect and serve the new nation.
Problems set in almost immediately: Controversies rage over the name and national anthem of the new country (they decide on the Republic of Blackland with an anthem sung to the tune of the theme from Good Times), and local thug Roscoe becomes a warlord and turns his gang into a paramilitary force. When the U.S. military begins to move in, Fredericks is forced to decide whether his protest is worth taking all the way.
Birth of a Nation starts with a scenario drawn from the botched election of 2000 and spins it into a brilliantly absurd work of sharply pointed satire. Along the way the authors lay into a host of hot social and cultural issues--skewering white supremacists, black nationalists, and everyone in between--drawing real blood and real laughs in equal measure in this riotous send-up of American politics.
A Right
to Be Hostile: The Boondocks Treasury
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ISBN: 1400048575
Format: Paperback, 256pp
Pub. Date: September 23, 2003
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Book Description
Here's the first big book of The Boondocks, more than four years and 800 strips
of one of the most influential, controversial, and scathingly funny comics ever
to run in a daily newspaper.
�With bodacious wit, in just a few panels, each day Aaron serves up�and sends
up�life in America through the eyes of two African-American kids who are full of
attitude, intelligence, and rebellion. Each time I read the strip, I laugh�and I
wonder how long The Boondocks can get away with the things it says. And how on
earth can the most truthful thing in the newspaper be the comics?�
�From the foreword by Michael Moore
Fresh For
'01.... You Suckas: Boondocks
Collection
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Amazon
Format: Paperback, 128pp.
ISBN: 0740713957
Publisher: Andrews & McMeel
Pub. Date: May 2001
Since its debut in April 1999, The Boondocks has found a home in more than 250
newspapers, making its launch the strongest since Calvin And Hobbes and For
Better Or For Worse. The rich, multilayered comic strip offers a frank yet often
funny look at race in America. It starts with a simple premise: Two young boys,
Riley and Huey, move from inner-city Chicago to live with their grandfather. The
tension increases, however, because the two boys are African-Americans now
compelled to adapt to a white suburban world. They must take all they've learned
in the 'hood and apply it to life in the 'burbs. Aaron McGruder has created a
strip unlike any other. Superbly illustrated, The Boondocks has stirred
controversy, attracted widespread media coverage, and won readers who've
applauded McGruder's unapologetic and humorous approach to race. This second
collection includes some of the year's most compelling story lines. The
Boondocks is a groundbreaking strip of enormous proportions. It's certain to
only increase in popularity.
The
Boondocks: Because I Know You Don't Read The Newspaper
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Amazon
Format: Paperback, 128pp.
Andrews & McMeel Publishing
Pub. Date: August 2000
More about this book
"The Boondocks is a deliciously amusing work that creatively challenges us
with intense substance, cleverly disguised as a humorous comic strip. Aaron
McGruder is one of the most important voices of his generation and a true credit
to his race"
�Tavis Smiley, Author and Host of BET Tonight
"The Boondocks works because McGruder lets lots of opinions and agendas
fly; he's not on any soapbox rant. Best of all, he lets you decide who's right
and who's wrong -- assuming you're not too busy laughing."
�Newsweek
"The most appalling of McGruder's reckless charges was that BET 'does not
serve the interest of black people.' Our response to this slanderous assertion
is that the 500-plus dedicated employees of BET do more in one day to serve the
interest of African-Americans than this young man has done in his entire life."
�Robert Johnson, President and CEO, BET Holdings, Inc.
The comic strip is about African-American children who
come from the city into the suburbs. The creator says it's "thematically
autobiographical" because it's inspired by real people and talks about true things Q: How did The Boondocks start and what happened to
it before its debut in the
Source? Considering I was expecting everything from Klan hatemail to chastisement on my lack of drawing ability, I was pleased with the response and the more than 100 fan emails I received (only one person told me I was wack). Several months later, on December 3rd of the same year, a bolder, more confident, and slightly less inept cartoonist made the bold foray into daily print media. The Diamondback - the independent student newspaper of the University of Maryland - debuted the strip to their roughly 20,000 readers with rave reviews. The strip managed to run for about two months before that newspaper jerked me and forced me to take my strip elsewhere. But such is life... Anyway, that handful of you out there who have become fans of the strip know that if The Boondocks is anything - it's inconsistent. I have to take personal responsibility for the shameful "here today, gone tomorrow" appearances of the strip over the years. Finishing school, having a life, making moves, and not getting paid for any of this often meant that drawing and writing The Boondocks took a backseat to everything else. I know there were several promises made about weekly and even daily strips online, and to all those who were holding their breath, well...please rest in peace and I'm very sorry. For everyone else, though, The Boondocks is about to be in your face very often and in a very big way.
Q: Is there a book or comic book available? Q: Will the strip be in (insert local newspaper
here)? Q: WHERE'S THE GEAR????!!!!! Q: Why do you make fun of Puffy so much? Q: Can you email me pictures (of the characters,
nobody wants pictures of me)? Q: What's the status on the television show?
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Related Links
Boondocks Official Homepage
http://www.boondockstv.com/
uComics.com
http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/
All Boondocks images are copyright 1996-1998 and are the exclusive property of Aaron
McGruder
