Tag: Patrick McDonnell

Abrams ComicsArts will collect the story of Guard Dog from ‘Mutts’ next month

Check out a preview of Patrick McDonnell’s long-running story of a dog chained up in his yard who is ultimately abandoned by his owners.

One of the most endearing characters in the comic strip Mutts by Patrick McDonnell will take the spotlight in a new collection this September. Breaking the Chain: The Guard Dog Story tells the heartbreaking and uplifting story of Guard Dog, the dog that spent more than 20 years chained up in his yard before ultimately being freed.

Abrams ComicsArts will publish the collection of strips that detail how Guard Dog’s owners abandoned him as they moved away, and his subsequent rescue by his friends Mooch and Earl, and a little girl named Doozy who frequently visited him over the years.

“This wasn’t a villain; this was a tragic character,” McDonnell writes in his introduction to the book. “I thought of all the real dogs in this country and around the world who suffer the same unbearable fate. Maybe my dog could be their voice. He could represent the cruelty that animals endure at the hands of humans, and the cruelty we inflict upon ourselves by staying chained to our own unconscious ways of thinking.”

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Quick Hits | Massachusetts police officer searched an 8th grade classroom for a copy of ‘Gender Queer’

Plus: News on IDW, Fantagraphics, Joe Sacco, Jim Lee, Chris Gooch and more.

In a chilling chapter in the ongoing culture war against LGBTQ+ books and graphic novels, several sources reported that a plain-clothes police officer searched an eighth grade classroom for a copy of the graphic novel Gender Queer in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

The officer notified the school he was coming and was accompanied by the principal as he searched for the memoir by Maia Kobabe, which has topped the most banned book list for the last couple years. The search reportedly took place after school hours and was the result of a single complaint by a community member.

“Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia. What are we doing?” Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told the Berkshire Eagle.

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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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Slugfest | Scholastic outlines their plans for the new ‘Dog Man’ book

Plus: The Oloris, Poison Ivy, The X-Cellent, Whistleblowers, Patrick McDonnell and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. Hit the links for more information.

The graphic novel phenomenon Dog Man will return at the end of the month with a new book, Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, continuing the adventures of our hero, Li’l Petey, 80-HD and the rest of the gang.

Scholastic has announced their promotional plans for Dav Pilkey’s latest, which include a Free Comic Book Day issue, the return of Dog Man: The Musical and Dog Man Day celebrations.

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