Roland Hedley, the fictional Doonesbury character who began using Twitter last spring has closed his account. Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau used his character to poke fun at the emerging Twitter social phenomenon. He went on to create a real Twitter account under the character’s name that gained the attention of the New Yorker and the Columbia Journalism Review. Last fall, a compilation of 500 of the best tweets were published in a book entitled, “My Shorts R Bunching. Thoughts?: The Tweets of Roland Hedley
When asked about the account closing, the Doonesbury camp only confirmed that it was closed stating,
“Unfortunately, Roland Hedley’s glorious months of tweeting have ended as abruptly as they began. We do not expect him to resume, as his Twitter account has, as you note, been deleted. He will be missed! Thanks for noticing.”
NOOOOOOOO! Everytime I start loving a twitter account it closes. First Miley Cyrus, now Roland Hedley… Next you’re going to tell me Brittany Murphey stopped Twittering.
I really feel that these sorts of gimicks do a disservice to the actual comic strip. Let the strip and it’s story keep the interest of the readers, not publicity stunts and parlor tricks.
It drew attention to the strip, he sold some books and made some money, he brought it to a close before it became a distraction. And it didn’t dilute the character.
Given all the talk here about how to promote comic strips, you’re gonna have to go into more detail about how this was a bad thing, Garey.
About how many followers did he have?