Uncle Duke

Uncle Duke is a fictional character in the comic strip Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau. He is nominally Zonker Harris's uncle, albeit an "uncle by courtesy" only. Duke appeared in the strip July 1974 and was originally a straightforward caricature of the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (see Raoul Duke), but eventually took on a life of his own and a succession of ill-fated ventures in the areas of politics, business and crime.

Duke is an epic consumer of drugs and alcohol, and an amoral trickster with a fondness for firearms. He has a son called Earl who resembles him in most ways, but is sober and more clever.

Duke's early life is murky. His mother is mentioned very few times in the strip; a flashback has her noting at Duke's college graduation that "one of three men I used to know would be very proud of you." He recalls having been born wearing Ray Bans, and is almost never seen without sunglasses in the strip. As Jim Andrews calls him a "42-year old balding bagman" in the strip for 6 July 1979, his birthyear could be 1936 or 1937. He tells Earl that he does not remember where he attended high school. He mentions to Honey that he fought in the Belgian Congo to pay for college. While in Haiti, he is visited by his former college roommate, Robert Vesco.

Despite Zonker calling him "Uncle Duke", Duke appears to be his surname, shared by his son Earl and his cousin David. The back matter for the Doonesbury collection "Death of a Party Animal" refers to him as "Raoul Duke," a throwback to the character's origins. Conversely, in one exposé of his past he is revealed to have no last name.

In early strips, Duke and others would mention his wife, Sandy, who never appeared in the strip. They seem to be permanently estranged.

Since his first appearance in the strip, Duke has assumed many career hats, each more outlandish than the last. When first introduced, Duke was working as a writer under Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone magazine, much to Wenner's chagrin and aggravation over Duke's inability to meet deadlines and/or maintain coherence within the confines of his articles, which were often written with the aid of controlled substances. His Hunter S. comparisons are fairly evident in this beginning, as the first strip to feature him has him high on tequila and coke, attempting to kill invisible bats with a ruler.

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