DOONESBURY: Garry Trudeau to release 40th-anniversary retrospective

A few 'Riffs readers, as well as Daily Cartoonist blogger Alan Gardner, flagged the "mystery" video clip: Garry Trudeau discussing a new retrospective.

So what's coming down the Walden pike, exactly? With raised hopes and expectations, we put that very question to the "Doonesbury" creator himself.

A book -- titled "40: A Doonesbury Retrospective" -- " is due in late October, Trudeau tells 'Riffs. It'll be more than 650 pages and boxed -- "a behemoth," the cartoonist says.

Universal Press Syndicate launched "Doonesbury" on Oct. 26, 1970. The strip, which famously won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning during the Watergate era, is well-known for often drawing controversy throughout its four decades.

Trudeau notes,however: "The anthology is unusual for its paucity of controversial or even topical strips. It's all about the characters."

In other words: Don't count, necessarily, on seeing any Dan Quayle jokes, Sinatra humanitarian awards or Mark Slackmeyer passionately intoning about John Mitchell: "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"

"40: A DOONESBURY RETROSPECTIVE":