Patrick McDonnell possesses an elegance of line and narrative that both transcends and defines his medium. His artistry is in his Zen-like clarity, his simple direct address, and his unique understanding of the essential animal/human continuum. When one experiences Mutts, one experiences genius.

YESH! Mooch, the curious cat. Earl, the evertrusting dog. Ozzie, Frank, and Millie, the people they love, exasperate, and amuse. These are just a few of the characters who inhabit the world of Patrick McDonnell's Mutts, where characters and storylines perform a delicate balancing act with visual invention and a playful relationship to the history of art. With its clean and expressive lines and humorous, often philosophical, writing, Mutts has become a favorite among comic-strip readers, animal lovers, and art enthusiasts.

Mutts: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell, the first book of its kind to focus on his work, includes not only a vast collection of McDonnell's beloved Mutts strips, but also sketches, paintings, sculpture, and more. Built around an autobiographical text written by McDonnell, the book admits readers into the cartoonist's world, where imagination and inspiration coexist with deadlines and practical restraints. He discusses his cartooning influences, and describes his daily creative process, revealing the complexities of the craft in today's world. His essay serves as autobiography, comic history, character explication, and art history all rolled up into one.

John Carlin, art and comics historian, contributes an essay adding McDonnell to a distinguished roster of cartoonists, beginning in the early twentieth century with such figures as George Herriman, Frank King, and Lyonel Feininger, and coming up to Charles Schulz and R. Crumb. As Carlin explains, McDonnell has, with simplicity and subtlety, been able to attain the same high level of personal expression, formal experimentation, and aesthetic achievement as these predecessors, creating a body of work that is notable for not only its formal beauty but also its unflagging humanism.

Words and Pictures PATRICK McDONNELL

Mutts and the Art of Everyday JOHN CARLIN

Authors' Biographies, Credits, and Acknowledgments