'Doonesbury' cartoonist plans a long vacation

By Compiled From Wire Service Dispatches With Analysis From Monitor Correspondents Around The World; Edited By Anne Shutt

September 10, 1982

Fairway, Kan

Garry Trudeau is suspending his Pulitizer Prize-winning ''Doonesbury'' comic strip to rest and provide unreconstructed hippie Zonker Harris and the other residents of Walden Puddle Commune the chance to evolve into the ''world of grown-up concerns.''

Trudeau announced an unprecedented hiatus from cartooning - perhaps for as long as 20 months. Universal Press Syndicate president John P. McMeel said ''Doonesbury'' would be suspended in more than 700 newspapers Jan. 2, 1983.