Marmaduke

File:Marmaduke.gif

A Marmaduke cartoon from September 13, 2006

Marmaduke is a newspaper comic strip drawn by Brad Anderson from 1954 to the present day. The strip was created by Anderson, with help from Phil Leeming (1955-1962) and later Dorothy Leeming (1963-1969). The strip revolves around the Winslow family and their Great Dane, Marmaduke. The strip on Sundays also has a side feature called "Dog-Gone Funny," in which one or more panels are devoted to dog anecdotes submitted by the fans. Anderson received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for the strip in 1978.

Characters

• Marmaduke - A great dane. Marmaduke lives with the Winslow family and exhibits many characteristics not typically displayed by dogs.
• Helmy - Housewife of the family whose daily life would probably be a lot less of a hassle if she didn't have Marmaduke around.
• Phil - The head of the household. Phil loves his dog despite Marmaduke's antics but, not surprisingly, gets fed up once in a while.
• Barbara - The Winslow's oldest child.
• Billy - The youngest Winslow. Billy is somewhat more at the mercy of Marmaduke than the others, as he is still dwarfed by the family pet.

Animation

Ruby-Spears produced Marmaduke segments for the animated series Heathcliff, whose title character was also based on a comic strip character. In this animated version, the male characters were voiced by Paul Winchell and the females were voiced by Russi Taylor. Marmaduke also made a cameo appearance as an intentional "mistake" in an episode of Garfield and Friends and the episode is called Mistakes Will Happen. At the very end of Mistakes Will Happen, Garfield is making a promise to us or the audience that there will never be another mistake on the show again until Garfield breaks his promise and Odie is replaced by Marmaduke, then Garfield and Marmaduke go to the kitchen for a 10 a.m midnight snack.

Criticism

In his psychological analysis of the strip at Wondermark's The Comic Strip Doctor, David Malki ranks Marmaduke among "the worst newspaper comic strips".

References

• Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.

External links

• National Cartoonists Society Awards
• Today's Marmaduke strip at comics.com
• Marmaduke Can Vote - A blog dedicated to re-captioning Marmaduke strips with political humor
• The Marmaduke Project - A site dedicated to making Marmaduke funny, in various ways.
• Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke - A blog explaining each Marmaduke strip in humorous, sarcastic detail.