‘Boondocks’ Creator Aaron McGruder Creating Drama Series for Amazon

“The Boondocks” creator Aaron McGruder is creating a new dystopian drama for Amazon.(@aaronmcgruder23/Twitter)

Aaron McGruder, creator of cult-favorite “The Boondocks,” is teaming with producer-director Will Packer to create a new series for Amazon Studios

The streaming service has bought an untitled drama project from the comic strip and animated TV show writer. Deadline reported McGruder and Packer, who produced the upcoming comedy “Girls Trip,” will serve as executive producers for the secretive effort, along with writer and producer Norman Aladjem.

Reports say the series is set in an alternative universe in the style of “The Man in the High Castle,” a drama that examines how the world would change if the United States’ Allied powers had not been victorious during World War II.

The show could be the next best thing for fans of “The Boondocks,” which emerged as a comic on The Hitlist Online in 1996. It’s success led to the creation of an animated series of the same name, which ran for four seasons from 2005 to 2014 on Cartoon Network with a one-year gap between seasons two and three and a four-year hiatus between the penultimate and final seasons. McGruder left his showrunner role on the program ahead of its fourth season, saying on Facebook that “nothing is more painful” than leaving his characters Huey, Riley and Granddad behind. He attempted to raise money for a “Boondocks” movie centered on the character Uncle Ruckus, but the fundraiser capped at $70,000 shy of its goal. In 2014, McGruder turned his efforts toward a new series called “Black Jesus,” which last aired on Adult Swim in 2015, the same Cartoon Network programming block that was home to “The Boondocks.”

Recent tweets show that fans are still longing for McGruder to bring back the adult cartoon sitcom.

https://twitter.com/mayaamor/status/823897996207263745

https://twitter.com/KingJohnLove/status/829204059869609984

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