Cartoonist Unleashes Animal Humor in His 'Mutts' Comic Strip
By Karen Carlin
November 16, 2001
When Patrick McDonnell was growing up, he was a big fan of a certain comic strip named 'Peanuts', featuring a dog named Snoopy. The classic created by the late Charles Schulz gave him the idea to become a cartoonist himself.
"I thought it was the greatest, and I still do. It inspired me to try and do that," said McDonnell, 45, during a phone interview from his home in New Jersey. "I've doodled all my life, and now I do it professionally."
Now McDonnell can open the comics pages and see his own dog, Earl; a cat, Mooch; and a menagerie of other animals and their human friends in his comic strip, 'Mutts.' Carried in more than 450 newspapers nationwide, 'Mutts' debuts in the Post-Gazette's daily and Sunday comics pages beginning Monday.
With comics on his mind, McDonnell attended art school in New York City. After graduation, he met with a syndicate but was disappointed with its lukewarm response to his work. So he started doing illustrations, which appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and Forbes and Time magazines.
" [Illustrating] was a little too successful," McDonnell said with a laugh. "It put the comic strip thing on hold."
But a cast of characters that included a little white dog with a circle around one eye kept popping up in the illustrations.
"I knew that if I would do a strip, he'd play a big part."
That dog -- named Earl, after McDonnell's own Jack Russell terrier -- debuted with 'Mutts' in 1994.
McDonnell readily cites 'Peanuts' as a major influence on his work. But he is also a fan of early strips such as 'Popeye' and 'Krazy Kat.'
"The biggest influence now is my deadline," he joked. "That gets me up and working. It's very inspirational."
McDonnell considers meeting Schulz and becoming friends with his hero the greatest moments of his becoming a cartoonist. The 'Peanuts' creator wrote the foreword to the first 'Mutts' anthology, calling 'Mutts' "exactly what a comic strip should be."
He was really floored by Schulz during a visit to his home in Santa Rosa, Calif. Schulz, promising to "knock his socks off," showed him a strip of Rerun and the 'Peanuts' gang visiting a museum. In one of the panels, Rerun is looking at a painting of -- Earl.
"That did knock my socks off. He gave me the original, and I have it on my wall. I look at it and still think, how did I get so lucky? If you had asked the 5-year-old Patrick McDonnell, he would never have believed it."
The artist doesn't spend all his time doodling. He serves on the board of the Humane Society of the United States and does at least two 'Mutts' stories a year about animal shelters.
"'Mutts' is pretty much my love for comics and my love for animals. So it is kind of a natural move. I try to speak for the animals, and in this day and age, they definitely need a voice," he said.
Although Earl, Mooch and friends have voices, you won't find them acting too much like humans. "I really do try and keep my pets animal-like. ... Keeping the animals as animals is important," McDonnell said. "It's pretty much kind of like the secret life of your pets, and it's about the special bond everyone has with pets."
Keeping that tone is not difficult, with the real Earl and a cat named Meemow sharing the home with McDonnell and his wife, Karen.
"Every day I set up my drawing board, and the cat sleeps on top of it and the dog sleeps under it, so I'm surrounded by inspiration all the time."
OK, we know what some of you are asking: What comic is being pulled to make room for 'Mutts'? Well, consider it judgment day for 'Judge Parker.'
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