Doonesbury’s ‘Zorro’ Guest Artist Unmasked

The soldier-cartoonist who signed himself “Zorro” when he blazed across the country as a guest in Sunday’s “Doonesbury” comic strip has been unmasked--by his mother.

Tommy Rominger, a 33-year-old Air Force tech sergeant in the Persian Gulf, delighted some and enraged other readers of 600 newspapers that carried the strip.

“I frankly don’t understand the humor in some of the cartoons, and I never was a big fan of Doonesbury until now. . . , “ said Marilyn Rominger, who lives in this community just north of Daytona Beach.

“But I think this is wonderful,” the cartoonist’s mom said.

Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau showcased five Rominger cartoons last Sunday under the title, “Living in Purgatory.”

Rominger adopted the pen name “Zorro” for his lampoon of soldiers at war in the gulf. Some people questioned whether Zorro was real or just a concoction by the same brain that created “Doonesbury” regulars Zonker, Boopsie and Uncle Duke.