The second anthology of the popular newspaper comic Get Fuzzy, starring a selfish sracastic cat and a sweet but simple dog, this is certainly no Garfield re-hash.
Darby Conley is an American cartoonist best known for the popular comic strip Get Fuzzy.
Conley was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1970, and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee.
While in high school in 1986, he won a student cartooning competition. During his Senior Year at Doyle High School (now South-Doyle High School) in Knoxville, Conley was voted 'Most Talented' by his graduating class. He attended Amherst College, where he studied Fine Arts, drew cartoons for the student newspaper, played rugby, and was a member of an all-male, jazz-influenced a cappella group, the Zumbyes. (Fellow cartoonist alumni of Amherst include FoxTrot creator Bill Amend and the late John Cullen Murphy of Prince Valiant fame.)
Like Rob Wilco, the human protagonist in Get Fuzzy, Conley is an enthusiastic rugby union fan, playing during college and sustaining several injuries that failed to diminish his passion for the sport.
Before becoming a cartoonist, Conley held a wide array of jobs: elementary school teacher, art director for a science museum, lifeguard, and bicycle repairman. This eclectic collection of professions is reminiscent of those held by Douglas Adams, whom Conley has mentioned as a comedic influence.
Conley, an animal rights activist and vegetarian, lives in Boston.
I'm enjoying this comic in my search to find a replacement for long-ago favorites. However, it lacks a certain something-something to make it shine. This is best suited for the pet-lovers among us.
My full review, as always, will be permanently housed on wordpress, as Goodreads states it can delete (and has deleted) reviews at any time.
I'm a huge fan of these books, and I just love Sachel Pooch and Bucky Cat and their poor human owner who has to deal them both. They're a great quick read when you want something funny.
Right off the bat I have to say is that more often than not I went: What the...? My recommendation is to read, nonstop, through two of his treasuries. Then you'll get it. Once you do Conley is a genius at showing how different personalities get along and how poignant his messages are. These books are very funny and just fun to show the crazy and messed up ones to your friends.
Interesting comic strip premise: maybe double the IQs of a dog and a cat, give them the ability to speak, then watch them act just like a dog and a cat. Not very funny to me, but endlessly revealing about, and mostly true to, the natures of these animals. These are early strips, and the feature became better later. I like it.
This book is easily the best cartoon book in the Get Fuzzy series. Though I admit that it is not one that I would put on my cofee table, written before the jokes got extrremely silly but still late enough that the characters have found their niche.
Still one of the best pet-oriented comics out there (rivaled only by Mutts). It's funny, sweet then right back to funny, and I honestly think Darby Conley is a pet psychic for how perfectly he captures and adds human emotions to Bucky and Satchel.
I've never read a Get Fuzzy comic before until this book. I checked the book out because as I flipped through it in the library, I came across a hilarious comic: it was Halloween, and the dog dressed up as a vaccum cleaner, because it was the scariest thing he could think of, which I just thought was so funny and true. I checked it out, and read through it all in 1 day, hoping to find more that were as funny. Well, I found about 5 more that were really funny, but the majority were only so-so, sadly.
The prime audience for this is people that have had both a dog and cat before, because most of the humor is about pets. The siamese is a really funny unique character, but overall I was disapointed by how few really funny comics were to be had in it.
Son tiras sobre un hombre, su gato y su perro. No, no es Garfield. El perro es bobalicón y bienintencionado, el humano es un adorno despersonalizado y el gato es cínico y olvidadizo. No es muy cliché, pero tampoco es muy original.
El apartado gráfico es correcto. Son tiras, dibujo rápido y de fórmulas simples. Cuando tiene que dibujar alguna figura humana un poco difícil (niños, por ejemplo) no lo hace muy bien, pero son tiras, no pasa nada.
La narrativa visual es bastante mala. Muchas veces te rompe el chiste la falta de continuidad visual de la misma tira. Los guiones tampoco son muy allá, los chistes son flojos cuando son buenos e inexistentes cuando son malos.
Me imagino que tiene su público y que habrá quién le encuentre la gracia. Se lee fácil, son tiras, las tiras siempre se leen fácil. Pero me han dado ganas de saltarme las páginas de 20 en 20.
The Chicago Tribune ran it for a year or so and finally dumped it-and nobody protested. It's shocking to see so many good reviews of this comic, which is probably the most unfunny one I've ever read.
Like others have said, it's essentially a ripoff of "Garfield" even if the drawings are better. But even "Garfield" could be funny once in a while. Not once did I ever find a laugh in any of these strips. But I guess there's an audience for everything.
More heart than the first, but not much more humor. Certainly nothing I'd pin to my bulletin board or use to illustrate a point. And nothing to make me want to read more.