Sunday Comics | Guard Dog from ‘Mutts’ is finally free

Check out recent webcomics by Grover, Chris Eliopoulos, Joshua Barkman and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best and most interesting comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Followers of the comic strip Mutts by Patrick McDonnell will recognize Guard Dog, one of the strips most enduring and popular characters. Introduced about a year after the strip debuted, Guard Dog has been tethered to a stake in his owner’s yard ever since, a symbol of the cruelty of dog chaining.

After being abandoned by his owner and left to fate, Guard Dog is finally free and has a new home — not to mention his own web page.

“I started in my sketchbooks drawing a tough dog,” McDonnell told AP News about the dog’s origins. “I drew a big gruff dog and I put a studded collar on him. And then I drew a chain. And when I did that, it changed everything. I realized that it wasn’t a villain. It was a tragic character.”

McDonnell said fans of the strip have asked for the dog to be freed in the past, while animal welfare groups would ask him to keep the dog tethered as a way to bring attention to the dangers of animal neglect.

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Mail Call | ‘Love Everlasting’ comes to print in August

Plus: more from Chris Eliopoulos on getting the rights back to ‘Cow Boy,’ plus free comics from Grant Morrison, Saladin Ahmed and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of cool things we’ve received in our mailboxes from comics creators, publishers and more. Hit the links for more information.

Love Everlasting, the Substack comic created by Tom King and Elsa Charretier, will make the jump to print, courtesy of Image Comics. The ongoing series kicks off in August.

The comic, which is up to issue #3 on Substack, plays with the tropes inherent to the romance genre:

In Love Everlasting, Joan Peterson discovers that she is trapped in an endless, terrifying cycle of “romance”—a problem to be solved, a man to marry—and every time she falls in love she’s torn from her world and thrust into another teary saga. Her bloody journey to freedom and revelation starts in this breathtaking, groundbreaking first issue.

Here’s a look at the variant cover to the first issue, along with two variants by Clay Mann and Tula Lotay:

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IDW to retell Marvel origin stories in new series

The origins of Spider-Man, Hulk, Thanos, Venom and more will be retold in the all ages series.

IDW will add to its Marvel Action line in December with Marvel Action: Origins, a new series that retells the origin stories of Spider-Man, Thanos, Venom, Hulk and more.

Christopher Eliopoulos will write the series, while Lanna Souvanny will provide the art.

“Creating a gateway for young readers to learn more about the amazing characters of the Marvel Universe is a dream job,” Eliopoulos said. “In this series, readers are going to learn about the emotions and inner thoughts of these heroes and villains while learning about values and character. It’s a series that shows the character behind the characters!”

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Comics Lowdown: Con wars, comics in Spanish, new kids’ imprint

Plus: Asterix, Jason Lutes, Derf Backderf, James Romberger and more!

Creator Talk: At The Beat, Matt O’Keefe interviews Chris Eliopoulos about his graphic novels (Cow Boy, Cosmic Commandos), his picture books (Ordinary People Change the World), the difference between comics and book publishing, and how he began his career as a comics letterer—his lettering firm, Virtual Calligraphy, still does a lot of lettering for Marvel.

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