Kudzu (comic strip)

Kudzu was a comic strip by Doug Marlette about rural Southerners. Its main characters were Kudzu Dubose, Nasal T. Lardbottom, Rev. Will B. Dunn, Ida Mae Wombat, Veranda Tadsworth, and Nascar Dad, among others.

At its peak, it was syndicated in three hundred newspapers. At one point, his flippant treatment of depression—a character read a magazine called Modern Depression which featured "Suicide notes to the editor"—drew criticism from advocates for the mentally ill.

CBS aired a pilot for a Kudzu sitcom on August 13, 1983.

Preacher Will B. Dunn, often considered to be the main character in the strip, was modeled, at least in clothing and appearance, on Will D. Campbell, a preacher, director of religious life at the University of Mississippi, civil rights activist (the only white man in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), and author of several books.

The strip's creator, Doug Marlette, was killed in a car accident on July 10, 2007, in Marshall County, Mississippi. As a result, Kudzu will no longer be syndicated; the last daily on August 4, the last Sunday on August 26.