The Boondocks

AHI-3000
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The Boondocks Sept 5, 2015 20:50:24 GMT expendableindigo likes this

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Post by AHI-3000 on Sept 5, 2015 20:50:24 GMT

Anyone else familiar with the comics and show? There's some obscure history behind it...

Apparently the newspaper comics originally began in 1996, but I've been unable to find anything that was published before April 1999.
Also I've heard that the TV cartoon was first pitched as a pilot to FOX, but was rejected.

legofan94
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The Boondocks Sept 5, 2015 23:50:32 GMT expendableindigo likes this

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Post by legofan94 on Sept 5, 2015 23:50:32 GMT

just pulled the wayback machine info for hitlist.com , where the Boondocks were said to have been posted earlier than anywhere else, and there was indeed a tab for Boondocks on the bottom of the webpage. Bondocks prints were aparently being sold as early as christmas 1996, but I can't find any comicstrips posted that early.

another site claimed that they were first posted in "The Diamondback", the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, College Park. Colleges tend to keep very good records, and this is less than 20 years old. I reccomend contacting someone at the university library to see if they have any issues of The Diamondback archived.

EDIT: having just found This webpage , it's clear that the university library DOES indeed have copies of the newspaper stored on microfiche. so if you were interested in seeing if there were any issues of The Boondocks that weren't syndicated, that's where you would have to look.

Last Edit: Sept 6, 2015 0:09:59 GMT by legofan94

AHI-3000 Guest	The Boondocks Sept 6, 2015 22:21:30 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Post by AHI-3000 on Sept 6, 2015 22:21:30 GMT Thanks for the link, although I was unable to find any Boondocks comics there.

legofan94 VIP Posts: 13	The Boondocks Sept 8, 2015 4:56:57 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Post by legofan94 on Sept 8, 2015 4:56:57 GMT I might not have been clear, what I ment to say was that the comics were printed on PHYSICAL pieces of microfilm in the library itself, there's nothing posted online anywhere as far as I can tell.

Lucy
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The Boondocks Sept 12, 2015 18:40:03 GMT via mobile

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Post by Lucy on Sept 12, 2015 18:40:03 GMT

For the record, I said I would go to the library to look for these since I live like 30 minutes away from it and I haven't forgotten about that yet. If they're open on monday I'll see if I can go then, if not I'll try for next Saturday or the Wednesday after that. I'd like to go sooner but the school year just started up again and I've been really busy, and this seems like it could take the entire day.

AHI-3000
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The Boondocks Sept 14, 2015 5:10:17 GMT

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Post by AHI-3000 on Sept 14, 2015 5:10:17 GMT

Well out of curiosity, I decided to use the Internet Archive to find boondocks.net, which was the original official website. There were some archived pages of that site dating back to 1998. Though obviously, I was unable to find any comics from 1996-1998. It's kinda unfortunate how things can be lost even on the Internet.

AHI-3000
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The Boondocks Sept 28, 2015 3:54:27 GMT

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Post by AHI-3000 on Sept 28, 2015 3:54:27 GMT

I also checked the Internet Archive for hitlist.com, which as was mentioned earlier, was the first known place where The Boondocks comics were posted. But obviously, they are missing.

Now I'm not an expert on this, but how can media from the recent past get lost so easily? I guess that the Internet of 1996 wasn't very stable or reliable.

solariszero
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The Boondocks Oct 2, 2015 9:27:28 GMT

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Post by solariszero on Oct 2, 2015 9:27:28 GMT

AHI-3000, the World Wide Web wasn't invented until 1989 and even then, there weren't a lot of computers in homes or offices. Heck, I remember when my house first got its' first computer back in like, 1998 or something like that. That, and the web itself was still in its' infancy since commercialization of it didn't start until 1996-1998, leading to the dot com boom. So, your guess is right since the Wayback Machine wasn't around until January 24, 1996 -- making even that in its' infancy as well.

...Smallish history lesson for you regarding the World Wide Web (and also the Internet, I suppose.)

You know, this makes me wonder if the first ever webpage is able to be seen still or even accessed... Perhaps a new article is in order? *shifty eyes*

Lucy
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absence makes the heart grow fonder

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The Boondocks Oct 2, 2015 16:37:39 GMT

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Post by Lucy on Oct 2, 2015 16:37:39 GMT

The very first webpage is currently preserved here: info.cern.ch/ However, there isn't a whole lot to see.

Back on the topic of Boondocks, I know I missed the previous dates I said I was going to go there, and I'm EXTREMELY sorry about that. I would have gone by now if I had a driver's license, but I don't (tell the teachers to ease up on the homework so i might actually find the time to get one), so it not only has to be a day that I'm free, but my mom has to be free as well to drive me there, and it's seriously just been problem after problem when it came to finding such a day (car was being fixed, mom needed to watch the pope address, I'm at my dad's house every other weekend, etc.) However, we set in stone back on Sunday that we WILL be going tomorrow (I would have posted it then but I didn't want it to become another false promise in the event something came up). So far nothing has come up though, so I can guarantee that, short of any spontaneous deathly illnesses or Hurricane Joaquin making us physically unable to leave our home, I'll go there tomorrow.

Last Edit: Oct 2, 2015 16:38:17 GMT by Lucy

Lucy
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absence makes the heart grow fonder

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The Boondocks Oct 3, 2015 19:12:41 GMT

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Post by Lucy on Oct 3, 2015 19:12:41 GMT

OKAY!!!! I'm at McKeldin right now and we FINALLY managed to find the right microfilm and figure out how to use the scanpro machines. I compared them with the ones already found, and it seems like he's reused some of the same jokes later in the syndication run, but the strips are different drawings entirely. I am scanning them right now and will post them when I'm done, just thought I'd update you guys so you know I didn't forget about it.

Lucy
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absence makes the heart grow fonder

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The Boondocks Oct 4, 2015 1:04:36 GMT

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Post by Lucy on Oct 4, 2015 1:04:36 GMT

Well. I was sort of hoping somebody else would post here in the last few hours so I wouldn't have to post 3 times in a row in the same thread. Oh well.

-First things first: My previous description of them being the same jokes was misleading. I wrote that after I had just started going through them, but from what I can tell, only the first strip was recycled into the syndicated version. So, the good news is: new finds! The bad news is, unless they've been collected in some compilation book (I don't know a whole lot about The Boondocks, maybe they have), that means we still need to find the strips that were only on hitlist.com since these aren't all of the pre-syndication strips.
-Second, I apologize for the contrast on these. When you're dealing with 15-20 year old microfilm naturally the quality won't be perfect, and this is the best I could get them to look.
-Last, thanks to the very kind people working at McKeldin Library. They spent a good 30-45 minutes helping us find the Diamondback archives after the higher-ups, at some point, decided to move/mislabel them and not tell anybody about it. They also were very helpful in teaching how to use the ScanPro machines despite the fact that none of them knew either.

ANYWAYS. HERE THEY ARE, CROPPED AND WITH THE PROPER DATES ATTACHED. THIS CONTAINS EVERY SINGLE STRIP PUBLISHED IN THE DIAMONDBACK, AND THERE ARE A TOTAL OF 30 STRIPS.

December 3rd, 1996

December 4th, 1996

December 5th, 1996

December 6th, 1996

December 9th, 1996

December 10th, 1996

December 11th, 1996

January 31st, 1997 (there was a large date gap in the archives, presumably it wasn't published during winter break)

February 3rd, 1997

February 4th, 1997

February 5th, 1997

February 6th, 1997

February 7th, 1997

February 10th, 1997

February 11th, 1997

February 12th, 1997

February 13th, 1997

February 14th, 1997

February 17th, 1997

February 18th, 1997

February 19th, 1997

February 20th, 1997

February 21st, 1997

February 25th, 1997

February 26th, 1997

February 27th, 1997

February 28th, 1997

March 3rd, 1997

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On March 4th, 1997, the strip could not be printed, due to a technical error. The following was printed in its place:

Aaron McGruder was less than pleased. The strip did not run at all for the next two weeks because of this, and because of the paper's lack of an apology for it, on March 18th, the following article ran, which marked the complete end of the strips run in The Diamondback.

( I didn't realize until I got home that the left side of the text was cut off. Sorry guys, I dropped the ball on that one.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyways. So now we've found we have more to search for, but at least we know that those strips do exist.

EDIT: Added a .rar archive of all the strips in case people want to download them: www.dropbox.com/s/19fuzkw64aw04g0/boondocks.rar?dl=0

Last Edit: Oct 4, 2015 1:07:57 GMT by Lucy

AHI-3000
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The Boondocks Oct 7, 2015 18:47:14 GMT

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Post by AHI-3000 on Oct 7, 2015 18:47:14 GMT

solariszero: Well I was born in 1996. Obviously I'm quite younger than the World Wide Web, and so I can't truly fathom what life was like before it was so commonplace.

Lucy: Thanks a lot for reprinting The Diamondback comics. So there were only 30 strips total printed in that newspaper? And since this was almost 20 years ago, I can see they've aged quite a bit. Huey, Riley, and Caesar look literally black. (rofl)

And yeah, a lot of those comics seem to have been redrawn for the version that was published by Universal Press Syndicate, although there are still some differences.

But have the earlier comics from Hitlist.com (first published in February 1996) been lost forever? Or are they just hidden somewhere?

AHI-3000 Guest	The Boondocks Oct 7, 2015 18:54:11 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Post by AHI-3000 on Oct 7, 2015 18:54:11 GMT BTW, what happened to the Lost Media Wiki? The main site is down, but these forums are still standing?

AHI-3000 Guest	The Boondocks Oct 25, 2015 16:13:01 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Post by AHI-3000 on Oct 25, 2015 16:13:01 GMT I see that the wiki is up and running again. BTW, is there any word on the even earlier comics that are still missing?

Lucy
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absence makes the heart grow fonder

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The Boondocks Oct 25, 2015 19:36:20 GMT via mobile expendableindigo likes this

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Post by Lucy on Oct 25, 2015 19:36:20 GMT

Oct 25, 2015 16:13:01 GMT AHI-3000 said:

I see that the wiki is up and running again.

BTW, is there any word on the even earlier comics that are still missing?

I think we may have gotten as far as Google searches will take us, our next options include reaching out to people who might have them saved, and/or contacting Aaron McGruder himself

Post by AHI-3000 on Sept 5, 2015 20:50:24 GMT

Post by legofan94 on Sept 5, 2015 23:50:32 GMT

Post by AHI-3000 on Sept 6, 2015 22:21:30 GMT

Post by legofan94 on Sept 8, 2015 4:56:57 GMT

Post by Lucy on Sept 12, 2015 18:40:03 GMT

Post by AHI-3000 on Sept 14, 2015 5:10:17 GMT

Post by AHI-3000 on Sept 28, 2015 3:54:27 GMT

Post by solariszero on Oct 2, 2015 9:27:28 GMT

Post by Lucy on Oct 2, 2015 16:37:39 GMT

Post by Lucy on Oct 3, 2015 19:12:41 GMT

Post by Lucy on Oct 4, 2015 1:04:36 GMT

Post by AHI-3000 on Oct 7, 2015 18:47:14 GMT

Post by AHI-3000 on Oct 7, 2015 18:54:11 GMT

Post by AHI-3000 on Oct 25, 2015 16:13:01 GMT

Post by Lucy on Oct 25, 2015 19:36:20 GMT

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