Tough love from a professor influenced “Doonesbury” artist Garry Trudeau ’70 ART ’73, Trudeau told NPR.

In the interview, Trudeau recounted a memorable experience from college:

And one day the professor came over and he looked at my drawing, and he ripped it off my drawing board and proceeded to tear it into pieces in front of the rest of the class. And he looked at me, he said, yes, I know you can draw. What I’d really like to know is whether you can see. And so, that was a very early lesson in paying attention.

Trudeau added that he thinks newspapers will “make their exit” before he decides to retire his comic strip.

[via Romenesko]