So I’m at BEA. I’ve been a Doonesbury fan since the Year Zero. Garry Trudeau is signing copies of his latest compilation and I have to meet him. Garry, despite his fame, seems more genuinely nice and interested in the masses passing him by than almost any other author there.
When I get in front of him, I pass along a sincere homily. “For the past 30 years, my best friend and I have been using a catch phrase from one of your panels.”
Garry looks happily incredulous and replies with a chuckle, “I never knew I created any catch phrases.”
I go on to describe, verbatim, the above cartoon, a remnant from the Viet Nam boatpeople era. Garry is wide-eyed. “Oh my God, I can’t believe you remember that strip after all this time!”
My pal Jerry and I have entered the phrase, “Can I have your roll?” into our pantheon due to its comedic poignancy on two major levels. One, we’re two guys who love to eat and have never been above taking food from each other’s plates, and two, the panel perfectly captures the dichotomy of the breach between the rich and the poor. Thirty years later, it still holds up. Enjoy.