Mutts by Patrick McDonnell, Reviewed
By Tom Spurgeon
The newspaper comics page is such a vast wasteland of ancient and uninteresting holdovers, niche market-targeted sitcoms and poorly drawn punch line-a-day joke engines that talking about the death of the comic strip is a cliche even amongst the most casual readers. The situation was exacerbated by the recent retirements of the '80s' most successful quality mainstream talents: Berke Breathed, Gary Larson, and Bill Watterson. Watterson in particular is missed: 'Calvin and Hobbes' held a place even amongst the pickiest comics fans as "the good newspaper strip." With that strip gone since the beginning of the year, the limited virtues of the remaining strips, even effective ones with fan followings like 'Dilbert' and 'Fox Trot', become very clear.
Patrick McDonnell's 'Mutts' isn't a great strip, but it's a pretty good one. On the strength of the first collection, it has the potential to be a very good one. It's well-drawn, in a style that easily sets it apart from its comics page fellow travelers. It has the sort of simple premise, life as experienced by a little dog and a cat who live next door to one another, that moves the focus from endless variations on "me, too" humor into potentially richer, funnier territory. It has an agreeable lead: the dog, Earl, is wide-eyed enough to serve as the audience's surrogate but wry enough you don't feel bad he's taking your place (the litmus test is that the strip's jokes are funnier when we see them through Earl's eyes). The second lead is effective, too. Earl's next-door neighbor cat, Mooch, works equally well putting the spin on one of Earl's comments or driving the action himself. Best of all for fans of the form who miss Watterson, 'Mutts' experiments with format and structure: many of the Sundays are designed to be printed one way and one way only; daily strips may run as three strip-wide panels one on top of the other, or in any variety of rhythms, from single panels up to nine small ones.
There are some growing pains. A few of the gags are forced and unimaginative, particularly some early takes on the theme of pet ownership (I dare anyone to make a "Who's walking whom?" joke funny). And while Earl is a well-defined character, many others aren't. In this first collection, at least, Earl's owner Ozzie is a complete cypher. Even Mooch is hard to pin down sometimes. While both leads speak in ways that echo classic strip affectation ("Yesh" for "Yes"), in a few of the strips Mooch's dialogue reads like a crude Pogo parody. And although this may be the result of having a great pair of leads, the strips where minor characters take center stage often fall flat. 'Mutts' needs more foils, like the obnoxious squirrel sticking his butt out at Earl and Mooch, and less tertiary leads, like the mostly unfunny bickering bird couple who hold center stage for a couple of days.
It's too soon in 'Mutts'' development to pass final judgment on the strip. Mediocre strips are often better in their first, heady months of syndication, and the great ones only become that way over time. But McDonnell's gentle approach, solid and entertaining characters, and awareness of the strengths of the form give him the chance to become as good as this first collection promises. Even if 'Mutts' fails to live up to that promise, McDonnell does enough things well to make his strip the beneficiary of the "quality strip" publicity it deserves. Given what passes for quality these days, he deserves every opportunity. Call your paper.
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