Aaron McGruder | |
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 McGruder in 2002 | |
| Born | Aaron Vincent McGruder May 29, 1974 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
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| Education | University of Maryland (B.A.) |
| Genre | Comic strips, television screenwriter |
| Notable works | The Boondocks (comic strip) The Boondocks (TV series) |
Aaron Vincent McGruder [1] (born May 29, 1974) [2] is an American writer, cartoonist, and producer best known for creating The Boondocks , a Universal Press Syndicate comic strip [3] [4] and its animated TV series adaptation.
Aaron McGruder was born in Chicago, Illinois. [2] When Aaron was six years old, his family moved to Columbia, Maryland, after his father accepted a job with the National Transportation Safety Board. McGruder has an older brother. [5]
McGruder attended the Jesuit school Loyola Blakefield from grades seven to nine. After two years he left the school and transferred to the public Oakland Mills High School. At the University of Maryland, he graduated with a degree in African American Studies. [6]
The Boondocks began in 1996 as a webcomic on Hitlist.com, one of the first online music websites. [7] At the time, he was a DJ on The Soul Controllers Mix Show on WMUC. The Boondocks briefly appeared as a comic strip in the University of Maryland's newspaper The Diamondback , during Jayson Blair's tenure as editor-in-chief. [7] [8] McGruder signed a deal with the Universal Press Syndicate and in April 1999, the strip began appearing in 160 newspapers. [8]
The comic strip's main characters are two young African-American brothers, Huey, named after Huey P. Newton, and his younger brother and wannabe gangsta, Riley, [3] from inner-city Chicago, who are relocated to live with their grandfather in a sedate suburb. In six months, the comic strip was being distributed to more than 200 publications. [4] Five collections of The Boondocks have been published: All The Rage, Public Enemy #2, A Right To Be Hostile, Fresh for '01: You Suckaz, and Boondocks: Because I Know You Don't Read The Newspaper. An animated television series adaptation of the strip was successful on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.
In 2013, McGruder expressed interest in filming a movie featuring The Boondocks TV series supporting character Uncle Ruckus. Gary Anthony Williams would reprise his role. McGruder set a goal of $200,000 for startup donations at uncleruckusmovie.com between January 30 to March 1, 2013, but the campaign ended with 2,667 backers and $129,963. [9]
In March 2014, The Boondocks was revived for a new season, but without McGruder's involvement as its showrunner. [10] The first episode of the fourth season was first broadcast on April 21, 2014. [11] In 2019, it was announced that a fifth season of The Boondocks would be produced with McGruder's involvement. The project was cancelled in February 2022. [12]
Among his other projects have been the Super Deluxe variety comedy series The Super Rumble Mix Show. McGruder also developed Black Jesus , another comedy series broadcast on Adult Swim, part of Cartoon Network. [10]
McGruder has developed into a public speaker on political and cultural issues. McGruder said in a 2002 keynote address [13] at the July 12–14, 2002 H2K2 conference that he believed that President George W. Bush was involved with the September 11 attacks:
Outside of the world of whackos and conspiracy theorists and all of that, very few people in the mainstream have been willing to say what I'm about to say, which is, I really and truthfully believe that George W. Bush is somehow involved, either directly or indirectly, in the attacks on New York City on September 11. [14]
During a 2003 reception hosted by The Nation , McGruder offended attendees by defiantly expressing his support for Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential bid. McGruder endured heckling and walkouts as he defended his commitment to left-wing causes, including, he claimed, calling Condoleezza Rice a "mass-murderer" to her face during the 2002 NAACP Image Awards. [8] In 2009, Richmond, Indiana newspaper Palladium-Item reported that McGruder told a Martin Luther King Day audience at local Earlham College that then-President-elect Barack Obama was "not black". [15] McGruder released a statement insisting he was misquoted, while maintaining he remained "cautiously pessimistic" about Obama's presidency. [15]
In 2004, with Reginald Hudlin, McGruder co-authored a graphic novel, Birth of a Nation: A Comic Novel, about African Americans in East St. Louis during an election. [1] The book's illustrations were drawn by cartoonist Kyle Baker.
In 2005, in celebration of Black History Month, McGruder was invited to provide a lecture at the Miami University of Ohio. [16] [17]
In 2010, McGruder worked as screenwriter in the final treatment of the feature film Red Tails , released in early 2012. Its story is based on the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American combat pilots during World War II. [18]
In August 2017, it was announced that McGruder, along with producer Will Packer, will develop a series for Amazon Video called Black America, based on an alternative history, where emancipated black Americans receive three Southern states as reparations for slavery. [19] [20] The series' announcement was reportedly seen as a response to HBO's in-development alternative history series Confederate , whose plot entails a history where the Confederacy won the Civil War. As of 2024 nothing have been made of the project and seemingly scrapped. [21] [ needs update ]
By 2005 [22] and as of 2013 [update] , McGruder was residing in Los Angeles. [1] [22]
Books
Book Contributions
A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
Doonesbury is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed over the decades from a college student to a youthful senior citizen.
The Boondocks was a daily syndicated comic strip written and originally drawn by Aaron McGruder that ran from 1996 to 2006. Created by McGruder in 1996 for Hitlist.com, an early online music website, it was printed in the monthly hip hop magazine The Source in 1997. As it gained popularity, the comic strip was picked up by the Universal Press Syndicate and made its national debut on April 19, 1999. A popular and controversial strip, The Boondocks satirizes African American culture and American politics as seen through the eyes of young African American radical Huey Freeman. McGruder's syndicate said it was among the biggest launches the company ever had.
Get Your War On is a series of satirical comic strips by David Rees about political topics. Initially, the comic concerned the effects of the September 11 attacks on New York City, but it quickly switched its focus to more recent topics, in particular the War on Terror. The strip debuted on October 9, 2001.
Stephan Thomas Pastis is an American cartoonist and former lawyer who is the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. He also writes children's chapter books, commencing with the release of Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. The seventh book, It's the End When I Say It's the End, debuted at #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Middle Grade Books.
John Witherspoon was an American actor and comedian who performed in various television shows and films. He played Willie Jones in the Friday series, and starred in films such as Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Boomerang (1992), The Five Heartbeats (1991), and Vampire in Brooklyn (1995). In addition, Witherspoon made appearances on television shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1994), The Wayans Bros. (1995–1999), The Tracy Morgan Show (2003), Barnaby Jones (1973), The Boondocks (2005–2014), and Black Jesus (2014–2019). He wrote a film, From the Old School, in which he played an elderly working man who tries to prevent a neighborhood convenience store from being developed into a strip club.
Keith Edgar Knight Jr. is an American cartoonist and musician known for his accessible yet subversive comic strips The K Chronicles, (Th)ink, and The Knight Life. While his work is humorous and universal in appeal, he also often deals with political, social, and racial issues. Woke, a television series based on his work, debuted in 2020.
The Boondocks is an American anime-influenced adult animated sitcom, created by Aaron McGruder for Cartoon Network's late-night programming block, Adult Swim. It is based upon his manga-influenced comic strip of the same name. The series premiered on November 6, 2005. The show focuses on a Black American family, the Freemans, settling into the fictional, friendly and predominantly White suburb of Woodcrest. The perspective offered by this mixture of cultures, lifestyles, social classes, stereotypes, viewpoints and racialized identities provides for much of the series' satire, comedy, and conflict.
Feature Comics, originally Feature Funnies, was an American comic book anthology series published by Quality Comics from 1939 until 1950, that featured short stories in the humor genre and later the superhero genre.
"Return of the King" is the ninth episode of the first season of the animated television series The Boondocks. The episode was written by series creator Aaron McGruder and directed by Kalvin Lee, and originally aired in the United States on Cartoon Network's late-night programming block Adult Swim on January 15, 2006.
"A Huey Freeman Christmas" is the seventh episode of the first season of the American animated television series The Boondocks. It originally aired on Adult Swim in the United States on December 18, 2005. In the episode, protagonist Huey Freeman seizes complete creative control of his elementary school's annual Christmas play, but runs into trouble with administration when he wishes to portray Jesus as black. Meanwhile, Riley Freeman rekindles an old grudge he has against Santa Claus.
Huey R. Freeman is the main protagonist and narrator of The Boondocks syndicated comic strip written by Aaron McGruder, as well as the animated TV sitcom of the same name. Politically sapient and borderline militant, Huey, being a self-described revolutionary left-wing radical, regularly reflects upon current events as well as the plight of African-Americans as it relates to a greater American society. As presented by his logical and rational personality, Huey's character has often been described as "misanthropic" and "cynical". He's named after Huey P. Newton, one of the co-founders and leaders of the Black Panther Party. He is voiced by Regina King. In the original pilot, he was voiced by singer Alicia Keys.
Uncle Ruckus is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the American animated sitcom The Boondocks. Voiced by Gary Anthony Williams, he first appeared on television in the show's pilot episode on November 6, 2005. Created and designed by cartoonist Aaron McGruder, Ruckus gained substantial popularity after appearing in the 1996 comic strip of the same name.
The members of the DuBois family — Tom (husband), Sarah (wife), and Jazmine (daughter) — are fictional characters and featured players in Aaron McGruder's Boondocks comic strip and animated TV series. They live across the street from the main characters, the Freeman family — Robert and his grandsons, Huey and Riley.
Boondocks are remote, usually brushy areas.
"The Hunger Strike" is the fourteenth episode of the second season of the American animated television series The Boondocks, and the 29th episode overall. It was written by series creator Aaron McGruder, along with Rodney Barnes, and directed by Dan Fausett. The episode was set to premiere on Adult Swim on January 7, 2008, between "The Story of Thugnificent" and "Attack of the Killer Kung-Fu Wolf Bitch" but aired United States on May 29, 2020.
"The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show" is the fifteenth and final episode of the second season of the animated television series The Boondocks, and the 30th episode overall. It was written by series creator Aaron McGruder, along with Rodney Barnes, and directed by Seung Eun Kim. The episode aired in the United States on May 29, 2020. Prior to the broadcast, the episode aired in Canada on Teletoon on March 16, 2008, and was released on DVD in the United States on June 10, 2008.
Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.
The second season of the animated television series, The Boondocks originally aired in the United States on Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim. The second season features 15 episode, it originally premiered on October 8, 2007 with "...Or Die Trying" and ended with "The Story of Gangstalicious 2" on February 4, 2008.
The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder | |
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