Tribune will run 'Doonesbury Flashback' starting March 3

Last week, I asked readers to weigh in on whether The Tribune should run "Doonesbury Flashback" when cartoonist Garry Trudeau takes a second break from drawing the daily comic strip to spend time writing and producing a second season of "Alpha House" for Amazon Instant Video.

Enough of you responded that you want to see strips from among the 13,000 Trudeau has drawn in the past 43 years that The Tribune has decided to carry "Doonesbury Flashback" starting the week of March 3 rather than choose a new strip for its place.

"The readers in my house (three) all enthusiastically vote to run archived 'Doonesbury,' " one reader said in an email. "I'm the only one who was there at the time. They want to catch up on their history."

Many other readers responded similarly, and that reaction is one both Trudeau and Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes "Doonesbury," want to hear.

In selecting strips for "Doonesbury Flashback," Trudeau said in a statement that "we're going deep, literally back to Day One."

"Revisiting four weeks of strips from every year of syndication, I hope to hit many 'Doonesbury' high points, focusing on how the characters (over 75 of them) got involved with one another," his statement said. "Since their lives have always been bound up in the events of the day, it should be a kind of déjà vu for my peers, and maybe a 'What were you people thinking?' for newer readers."

Trudeau last summer took an initial hiatus to work on "Alpha House," which stars John Goodman.

Amazon Studios renewed the program for a second season, prompting Trudeau's decision to take the second leave.

"There's no way of knowing how many seasons of 'Alpha House' lie ahead," Trudeau said in an earlier statement, adding he could be back to drawing "Doonesbury" full time in the fall.

Trudeau has said he'll continue to draw new Sunday "Doonesbury" cartoons.