MUTTS Sunday Mornings: A MUTTS Treasury


Patrick McDonnell - 2001
    The colors are delicately applied, a visual feast. In short, not only is this tome exemplary of the cartoonist's art, it is similarly an exemplar of the printer's. A well-made book." - Comics Buyer's Guide, on MUTTS' first Sunday treasury, MUTTS SundaysMUTTS is known for its straight-forward, delightful artwork, its positive messages, and, of course, the antics of its charming furry protagonists, Earl the dog and Mooch the cat. But MUTTS has also garnered praise for its creative and colorful Sunday strips.Sunday Mornings is a collection of MUTTS Sunday strips hand-picked by creator Patrick McDonnell. Monday through Saturday, readers of every generation have wide-ranging reasons why they love MUTTS. But Sunday is a special visual adventure. The logo panel is almost a strip unto itself, often paying homage to cartooning of yesteryear, with Mooch and Earl in a comic book cover tribute or parodying a strip from decades gone by. Some readers may have never seen the logo panel, since they are sometimes dropped for space. Those cheated readers, as well as those who have come to love MUTTS' special Sunday full-color strips, will cherish this vibrant collection.

Opus: 25 Years of His Sunday Best


Berkeley Breathed - 2004
    From one of the funniest minds - and pens - of our time this title is a collection of the very best of Opus, everyone's favourite maladjusted penguin.

Happy Trails!


Berke Breathed - 1990
    Berke Breathed delivers another book with his Bloom County comic-strip characters of Opus, Bill the Cat and the rest of the gang as they engage in their rollicking adventures.

Liberty Meadows, Volume 1: Eden


Frank Cho - 1999
    Also featuring cover galleries and sketch galleries of unpublished Liberty Meadows art.

A Baby Blues Treasury: The Super-Absorbent, Biodegradable, Family-Size Baby Blues


Rick Kirkman - 1997
    Cartoons provide a humorous view of the frustrations and rewards of parenthood as Wanda and Darryl adjust to life with young children Zoe and Ham.

Archie #558


Archie Comics - 1943
    Then in "Barbecue Blunder," sometimes it's fun to reminisce about picnics gone by!

Archie: Love Showdown - Chapter 1


Dan Parent - 2012
    When Betty and Veronica catch wind of the mash note, each believes the other one sent it, and all-out war is declared to determine who will win Archie's heart once and for all!

The Incompleat Pogo


Walt Kelly - 1954
    

Marching Bands Are Just Homeless Orchestras


Tim Siedell - 2010
    The bookstore or library is half full of that kind of crap. What you're holding here is a collection of quips and observations with a refreshingly gloomy, sometimes twisted, always funny take on life. Or lack thereof.With illustrations by renowned artist Brian Andreas, this book is a glimpse inside the humorously askew mind of a writer whose witticisms have been featured on NPR, printed onto t-shirts, performed on stage in Germany, and posted online at the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times. He's been named one of the top funniest people on Twitter by the likes of Maxim, MSNBC and Mashable.

Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun: A Get Fuzzy Treasury


Darby Conley - 2004
    Some are taken by the visual element...Then there's the people who want it to be funny...Darby gets both." --Scott Adams, creator of DilbertGet Fuzzy collections are flying off the shelves. And Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun, the second full-color treasury of the outrageous antics of Bucky, Satchel, and Rob, is sure to attract more readers of the strip voted Best Comic Strip of 2002 by the National Cartoonists Society.Behold the world of Get Fuzzy. Meet Bucky Katt, the Siamese smart-ass who coexists under protest with Satchel Pooch, the sweet-tempered shar-pei/Lab mix, and Rob Wilco, the human who keeps the refrigerator stocked.Each day in newspapers around the world readers visit the place where cats, dogs, and humans meet and learn a little bit more about each other-not necessarily by choice. By turns hilarious, poignant, and even human, Get Fuzzy is the smartest, funniest comic strip in newspapers today.

Baby Blues: Ten Years and Still in Diapers: A Baby Blues Treasury


Jerry Scott - 1999
    Just as the tyke was going mobile, Wanda found out she was pregnant again, and we watched as the family adapted to the demands of two kids. Now Zoe has matured into a big sister to baby Hamish-who's learning to walk and talk, in addition to rolling. The MacPhersons find their lives have become immeasurably richer, except in terms of actual income!Baby Blues: Ten Years and Still in Diapers is a special treasury of the beloved strip, featuring Sundays in all their colorful glory. Countless Baby Blues fans can identify with the MacPhersons, who balance never-ending mayhem around toys and vegetable consumption with an undying love and quest to raise their little ones into healthy adults. Parents and nonparents alike have fallen head-over-heels for the sidesplitting, yet realistic, family humor that Baby Blues has consistently delivered to their homes.

Peanuts: A Golden Celebration: The Art and Story of The World's Best-Loved Comic Strip


Charles M. Schulz - 1990
    Schulz has been cartooning for an astonishing 50 years (the "Peanuts" strip itself debuted October 2, 1950, but he drew an earlier incarnation called "Li'l Folks" before that). Peanuts: A Golden Celebration is a remarkable collection of strips spanning that time period. Readers get to see the first appearance of Linus, Marcy, Pigpen, and Woodstock, and even the momentous first time Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Schulz comments on the cartoons and his inspirations via notes in the margin, ranging from boyhood stories about his father (a barber, just like Charlie Brown's) to an account of the time the narcolepsy experts at Stanford University expressed concerns over Peppermint Patty's constant sleeping in class. One of the most interesting inclusions is that of several letters of complaint, ranging from readers whose religious sensibilities have been offended to a 1969 missive from Schulz's own syndicate asking him not to depict Franklin in the same school as the white students anymore. Naturally, the much-loved "Peanuts" holiday specials are covered, as is the musical adaptation You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, but it's the strips that really make the book. Readers can follow the evolution of Schulz's drawing style--deliberately less realistic as the years went on--and even check out a few panels drawn by Schulz's own cartooning heroes. This is a terrific compilation that serves well both as a chronicle of popular culture and as just a really funny collection of comic strips. Don't wait for the Great Pumpkin to bring you one. --Ali Davis

Bart Simpson Class Clown


Matt Groening - 2010
    Make Bart Simpson Class Clown part of your permanent record.

99 Percent Perspiration: A Frazz Collection


Jef Mallett - 2006
    Frazz is cool. Frazz is . . . a hit! Take one successful and secure songwriter, put him on the steering end of a janitor's broom, and drop him into the world of elementary education. And with that, if Jef Mallett's calling the creative shots, you have the makings of one of the most flourishing new comic strips to come along in years.Frazz follows the life and loves of one Edwin Frazier, aka Frazz, as he writes more best-selling lyrics, ponders the world's greatest literature and deepest mysteries with an 8-year-old genius, and interacts with the menagerie of other faculty and staff members. What results is a wild mix of witty observations and outright slapstick that amuses while causing you to see the world in a new light.99 Percent Perspiration is the second collection of this very popular strip that appears in more than 150 newspapers worldwide, including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. Frazz was nominated in 2004 as one of the best comic strips of the year by the National Cartoonists Society. It has also received two Wilbur awards for ethics and values.

Don Quixote, U.S.A.


Richard Powell - 1966
    He has, however, been a disappointment to his family in several ways: In appearance he is insignificant looking both in face and figure; he went to the University of Florida instead of Harvard where his forbears had been mainstays of the varsity crew for generations, and he studied agriculture instead of pointing himself toward a career in banking, bonds, or law. To say the least he is not apparently the stuff from which heroes are fashioned.As an agricultural expert specializing in fruit farming, Arthur becomes a Peace Corps volunteer and is assigned to the Republic of San Marco in the Caribbean. This weak-chinned Don Quixote soon acquires his Sancho Panza in the person of a rascally eleven-year-old boy, Pepe, who makes a bargain to be paid 400 pesos each time he saves Arthur's life. (The payments mount alarmingly!)The island's dictator thinks he can use Arthur to obtain military supplies with which to wipe out the band of guerillas in the hills who oppose his corrupt dictatorship. Failing in this the dictator decides to murder Goodpasture and cause an international incident by blaming it on the guerillas. This, he reasons, will bring the U.S. in to help stamp out the rebels.This plan also backfires (with Pepe's help, of course) and Goodpasture is taken prisoner and when they see he is a harmless eccentric he is appointed chief cook for the guerillas. From then on Arthur's life becomes a series of misadventures through which he moves serenely and from which he generally emerges unscathed (again with Pepe's assistance) until he surprisingly finds himself the guerillas' leader.Following one of the funniest bloodless revolutions imaginable Arthur Peabody Goodpasture ends up as Arthur el Gavilan, the new dictator of San Marco. "His strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure."