You notice for instance, though you could hardly miss it, how much humanity McDonnell pours into Mutts. There is something wonderful about having all of a year’s comic strips in one place while getting them daily via email, or in a newspaper if you’re lucky to go old school, is sublime daily pleasure, having the ability to read them all, one after the other, to pick up on flavours and themes, is a rare and special thing. McDonnell is one of those comic strip artists who invest as much beauty and artistry as he does humour and charm into his comic creation, and it is evident one every page of this wonderful collection. The 200 pages in question belong to Hot Dogs, Hot Cats, the latest treasury released for the comic strip, which premiered on the 5th September 1994, which brings together many of the 2018 instalments along along with delightful artwork.Īctually there is little about Mutts that doesn’t feel like a charming, huggable work of art. Schulz – this is okay you would surmise since Schulz called Mutts “one of the best comic strips of all time” – happiness is falling into 200 pages of Mutts comics and not emerging until you have luxuriated in each and every one of McDonnell’s artistic creations. To co-opt a phrase popularised by Snoopy from Peanuts by the legendary Charles M.

Reading MUTTS, by cartoonist, playwright and author Patrick McDonnell, is never not a joy. (cover image courtesy Andrews McMeel Publishing)

Mooch mutts