I've been rewatching the third season of The Boondocks animated series and it's so damn good. I had been a fan of the comic strips since a librarian friend of mine handed me a trade paperback of Aaron McGruder's collected works because he thought we had similar art styles. I was immediately enthralled by both the art and the bold social commentary McGruder put front and center.
Fast forward to Adult Swim picking it up to series and you've got the birth of one of the greatest American animes ever made. It gave McGruder a chance to further explore the concepts he'd championed in his strips, but now the kid gloves were really off. He somehow found a way to balance difficult issues with kung-fu action.
It's been great going back to the show, but after 10-years apart, it's kind of a bummer that so many of the things they addressed on the show are still a major problem. Some eps even seem almost prophetic in the things they talk about or predict, like the episode about a global pandeminc and really go to show just how insightful McGruder and his writers were.
And then there's all the amazing animation and fight scenes like the one below. It's just too damn good.
I've never watched the fourth season because McGruder wasn't really involved with it, but I'll porbably be checking it out now since I've basically binged watched every other show I like already during the pandemic. I also learned that a Boondock Instagram was started back in 2019 with the intention of a new strip series existing there, but it looks like that was given up rather quickly. I've also seena few sources claiming there's a new series in the works. Hopefully that's more than just a rumor because I feel like The Boondocks would be just as relevant as ever (and still as funny) in modern times.
