Mutts: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell


Posted on Mar 18, 2008
By Melissa Holbrook Pierson

Abrams, 216 pages, $45

Every day, some of us practice yoga to try to attain a reflective calm, a sense of oneness with all life. We could just as easily turn to any one of 500 newspapers (you surely get one of them) and read Patrick McDonnell's comic strip "Mutts." There, in the world and expressions of Earl, a terrier-ish dog, and his friend Mooch, a kitty who endearingly appends "sh" to many words that don't call for it and is in love with an entity named Little Pink Sock, we can find exactly what we're searching for.

With this lush, large-scale monograph on McDonnell's art - one sees the influence of both Krazy Kat and Peanuts, as well as all the modern masters - there's no need to wait for the paperboy. The two animal friends of "Mutts" are like the best guru: they tell us to stop and smell the flowers (or the dinner bowl), be thankful for the multitude of graces the world offers, and be compassionate. Especially the latter: McDonnell is a formidable champion of animalkind, and sometimes his strip becomes "Shelter Stories," which aims to bring to light the fate of pets in shelters and to promote their adoption. It's not often a comic strip makes you weep.

Rarely is "Mutts" ha-ha funny; instead, it's gentle, revelatory, poignant, and sweetly humorous. Sometimes all at once. McDonnell never shies from hard truths, most especially with the character Guard Dog, who lives a sadly circumscribed life at the end of a short chain.

The artist is not afraid of simple, lovely sentiment, either: in the first panel, we see Earl out for a walk with his owner. He says, "I'm never 'off leash' with my Ozzie." Then he cavorts through the fall landscape, running free. In the third, he asserts, "Our hearts are connected."

Very few cartoonists are this brave. Very few are as worthy as the animals they draw. Patrick McDonnell is the rare one indeed.
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