Debuting in 1999, Get Fuzzy has rocketed to the top of the charts. Get Fuzzy has become a hit cartoon with its bitingly funny portrait of single life with pets.
And why not? The laughs come fast and furious. Get Fuzzy features Rob Wilco, a single, mild-mannered advertising executive who's the so-called guardian of Bucky and Satchel, anthropomorphic scamps that still live by their animal instincts. Bucky, a temperamental cat who carries a boom box and goes on spending sprees, definitely calls the shots in this eclectic household, while Satchel is a kindly canine with a sensitive soul who tries to remain neutral, even though he bears the brunt of his feline companion's mischief.
Between the three of them, the Wilco household faces a whole host of trials and tribulations that classify them as family. Satchel wants his boundaries respected. Bucky refuses to eat vegetables but insists on snarfing up Rob's plants. Rob tries to meet women, but his pets continually subvert his efforts. In every frame, Get Fuzzy depicts the hilarious war between the species, giving the animals an equal footing in hilarious one-upmanship.
Get Fuzzy is the comic strip for everyone who loves their pets with an attitude. That said, Groovitude is Get Fuzzy at its finest.Contains cartoons from The Dog Is Not a Toy and Fuzzy Logic.
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 ordered this comic strip collection on the spur of the moment a few weeks ago, and used it this last week to help me stay awake in between hose changes while watering the yard. Usually I watch episodes of a favorite Spanish language telenovela, but sometimes my little pea brain needs to just relax and this book was perfect for those particular nights.
I remember reading Get Fuzzy in the Tucson daily paper back when they still offered home delivery service. That is not an option for our town anymore so I have been out of touch with Bucky Katt, Rob, and Satchel for some time. It was cool to revisit the early years. I used to clip out favorite daily strips and the Sunday panels too, and I recognized some of them while working my way through the book.
When you read such a big dose of this comic at one time, you begin to think that Rob is either a saint for keeping his misbehaving cat or a fool for keeping his misbehaving cat. I must have known I would enjoy myself with this book because even before I started reading I ordered the next three books in the series. lol
I have an entire summer of nighttime watering in my future, and I am looking forward to sharing at least part of it with Bucky and the gang.
Totally forgot about this strip until I saw the book in a Leesburg thrift shop for 50¢, and it turned out to be the best two quarters I've spent in a long time.
"Get Fuzzy" is what "Garfield" should be, if it wasn't aimed at seven-year-olds and grandparents. It's the same setup - nerdy owner of an obnoxious cat and dim-bulb dog - with the twin bonuses of everyone being able to talk with the animals as if it was just a regular thing and, I dunno, humor.
While many of the running jokes get repetitious after a while, I'm giving Conley the full 5 as this is his very first collection, and you gotta reward fresh talent and creativity, (although I'll be harder on later books - which I will definitely read). Am curious to see how both his writing and drawing style evolves.
I'm not a cat person - and judging from this, certainly never will be - but am learning now via my son and his wife, and as far as I can tell, Conley REALLY understands the feline mind. While no "Calvin & Hobbes" (what is?), this is still a fun strip for young-to-middle-age adults, particularly if you're a pet owner.
I never saw the original comic strip, but this collection was a $1 gem at a library book sale. Not funny ha-ha, but but funny awwwww. Especially Satchel, the epitome of sweet, dumb dogs - my favorite kind.
I love dogs and cats, so of course Get Fuzzy is my favorite comic strip. Even as a child, when I hated cats, I loved Garfield. When Sylvia first came out, I was probably too young to understand – no, I still don’t get it—but I always understood and was entertained when Sylvia’s cats appeared. I’m not a fan of animals talking in books, but in comic strips? Bring it on!
One of the things I like about Get Fuzzy is that Bucky Katt, Satchel the dog, and their “owner” Rob Wilco, are presented as a family. Bucky and Satchel both get allowances from Rob, and yet the three are also like roommates: you know, 3 bachelors living together. I find it hilarious that when they go out, Rob carries Bucky around in a “Bundle O’ Joy,” which is like one of those front-loading (?) baby backpack carriers. Satchel is half yellow Lab and half Shar-Pei, and is so sweet, even though he’s not exactly bright. Bucky, on the other hand, is a Siamese mix missing his top right fang, and whose ears are always pulled back in an aggressive position. And, in fact, he’s somewhat aggressive, but mostly because he loves to annoy Rob and Satchel.
This is especially endearing to me because Bucky is a combination of all 3 of my male cats: Basil the Siamese mix; Hee Seop (aka Feral Cat) with the missing top right fang; and Angelo (aka Thugdoll) whose ears are often pulled back and is, in fact, aggressive. So there you have it.
Oh, yeah. Groovitude contains the first two Get Fuzzy collections: The Dog is Not a Toy and Fuzzy Logic.
2.5 stars. Maybe I'm of the wrong generation but frankly, I did not find these comic strips all that funny. Hark! I've been betrayed by other reviewers!! I will admit to having a chuckle here and there but I would estimate that I found only about 30% of the book funny. The rest I would look at and think "Why is this amusing? I have two dogs and have owned three cats I should find this funny" Perhaps I've lost my funny bone during an ill fated game of Operation in the 70's. Perhaps I've just been spoiled by Calvin and Hobbes--the eptiome of comic strips in my opinion (I did live with a Calvin for 17 years as a child so I can definitely relate to C&H). Or perhaps, I'm old and just don't do "strips" anymore....but I refuse to believe I'm old! (Even if I am approaching bifocal stage and I'm no longer "perky", and I did use the word "Hark" earlier). I will still keep this collection in the guest room for those who come to visit and if I hear snickering I will increase my star rating, however right now it stays at a 2.5.
(I did find Bucky's pledge of allegiance funny though, "I pledge allgieance to the can...of the perfect food that is tuna...and to the fishy for which it cans...one portion, just for me, with olive oil and crackers on top" Groovitude page 181.)
This is quite the "Bloom County" comic, but created roughly 20 years later. Even though Conley owes Breathed a lot, he pays hommage in some aspects, and this series holds its own despite it being Garfield-ish as far as the sort of jokes being repeated is concerned. Still, it's written with heart, smarts and something has to be said for keeping a comic about a psychopathic cat, his bullied-into-his-shoes dog companion and their human owner alive for such a long time without it delving into complete doom.
The negative bits having been concentrated on, Bucky's (the cat) one-liners and his antics can be hilarious. For instance, Bucky ordering stuff online is one thing, but the kicker - apart from what he actually orders - is the fact that a credit card-company has approved a cat's request for a credit card. And there a lot of subtle kickers like that strewn around, often displayed as a two-in-one at the end panel. This, and the fact that the characters do have interesting, concrete and genuinely funny personas, makes Conley a winner, despite only every ten or so panels being really funny.
Still, he reaches out. I recommend it, but I don't think I'll be buying it.
Newspaper comics have always been a staple of my reading material, so an entire book of them is an exciting concept to me. In many ways cartoonists have a distinct advantage over novelists in that they can convey the visuals of a story in exactly the way they want it (although this is somewhat of an oversimplification of the creation of comics.) Although many do not utilize this advantage, Darby Conley does so on a regular basis. Set in a modernized version of the Arbuckle residence of Garfield fame, Conley uses angles, colors, and well-developed characters to give his comics not only great humor but a lot of heart. Even though a reader can only see the characters in short clips that would equal out to something like 30 seconds of real time, the characters' personalities flow from the page as if they were old friends whom we have gotten to know well. Through his great visuals and characterization, Darby Conley has created a collection worthy of all ages and most personalities.
My husband would give this compliation of Get Fuzzy strips a 10 or higher but I found a little bit too much repetition (some of it literal -- pages 203, 204 are repeated in 226, 227) thematically. While the comic strip does have an on-going plot similar punchlines recur with too much regularity. The jokes circle around:
* What silly letter is Satchel writing this week? * How much does Bucky love tuna? (ala how much does Garfield love lasagna?) * Bucky's misuse of words (that's chipmunk logic!) * How does Bucky scare away Rob's guests? * Bucky's latest get rich quick scheme * Rob's late to work! * Rob has to go on a business trip
Sprinkled in between there are some hilarious one-offs too. The best of the Get Fuzzy comics in this book are the Sunday strips.
Now that we no longer have Calvin & Hobbes or The Far Side for our daily newspaper giggle, the search for humorous comics has become a difficult one. Although Liberty Meadows (Frank Cho) is probably my current favorite, I'm not sure that strip is still in active production. If it is, I certainly have never seen it in the Phoenix newspapers.
Get Fuzzy, although uneven at times, is almost always humorous and still appears in several newspapers (again, not in Phoenix). This book is the first treasury collection, so it's fun to see the evolution of Bucky and Satchel... and Rob himself. Being a cat owner, I often see my own white fuzzball in Bucky's antics. I'm happy to add this treasury to my collection.
Groovitude is Darby Conley's first Get Fuzzy treasury, featuring a guy named Rob and his two household pets, Satchel Pooch and Bucky Katt. Between the three of them, there is always some mishap or adventure going on under the Wilco roof.
In Groovitude, Bucky is refusing to eat his vegetables and is scarfing up Rob's plants. He also thinks he is an artist, making "masterpieces" out of trash and writing manuscripts. He constantly is trying to hog the TV as well. Satchel on the other hand, wants his boundaries respected, but seems to get in the middle of Bucky's messes.
I loved Groovitude. It is an awesome first treasury to a great comic strip, and can't wait to read more.
One of the best aspects of being on a vacation at the house of good friends, is being able to browse their bookshelves. This is one of the books I picked after having finished the rather dense Frankenstein. I had never heard of this comic strip before. The vast majority of comic strips I find to be thoroughly unfunny, so this is one that rises above average, in that I find it occasionally funny - maybe 1/4 of the time. It's nowhere near the upper echelons of Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, or early Peanuts, but it was fun, light entertainment to intersperse with my heavier reading. Really this was about a 2.5 stars.
Bucky, the perpetually belligerent Siamese cat. Satchel, the perenially abashed sharpei-lab mix. Rob, the commentator and ineffective arbiter of the household.
I figure that chortling out loud about every other page is a pretty reasonable hit rate for a comic, so Conley clearly was doing his job. A lot of what's funny is just the absurdity of many of the situations he created. Some of it's the consistency of the characters. And there are little turns of phrase that come out of no-where and hilariously frame the action.
It clearly owes a lot to Doonesbury and Garfield, but still is its own thing. And I like it.
Groovitude is a collection of Get Fuzzy comics. I am quite fond of Get Fuzzy, really. It's like Garfield if Garfield acted like a particularly angry (and dumb) cat, and if Odie was considerably smarter but still not the brightest bulb in the box. Get Fuzzy also tends to run two or three-week plotlines, which I like. Still, some of the comics seem like they don't really have a punchline, and some of them plain aren't funny. If you like evil cats and sweet dogs and deadpan snarker owners, I can recommend it anyway.
I love Get Fuzzy, and this was an awesome Treasury for the comics. I didn't enjoy it as much as Looserpalooza, but it was still a good read. Who can resist a little fuzzy maniac like Bucky, a sweet, clueless (who doesn't even know what "clueless" means) dog like Satchel and a long-suffering, wonderful nerd like Rob? The Wilco household is full of insanity, laughs and dead critters (threats from Bucky), and I love reading about it!
Heavily influenced by Berkeley Breathed in the best possible ways. Bucky is my favorite comic book cat of all time. Darby Conley has truly captured what life with a Siamese cat is like. Also BONUS for the appearance of Captain Haddock on the subway and the many Ween references!
Re-read in August 2012. Get Fuzzy is on the short list of my all-time favorite cartoons, probably coming in second only to The Far Side. Great word play and pop culture references, plus I love the idea of animals going out to restaurants. And, of course, Bucky's songs are totally awesome. Plus, I can enjoy the thought of not having to pay for all of the vet costs and damaged property replacement. (I guess that's what makes it okay to like Bucky!)
My sister Allison loaned me this book, and it had me at the first strip. She and I laughed for about 15 minutes, and it just kept getting better. Very fun, very clever, and the reason I don't like pets! I know, you all read very impressive books and I send over comic books! Hey, a girl's gotta relax too!
The funniest comic strip I've ever read. Darby is amazingly clever; I've read all of these books several times and they never cease to make me laugh. I wish I could afford to send a set of them to all of my friends. In fact, I'm thinking of buying a set and giving them to Jared for his wedding.
I didn't know that this comic was so funny, I think thats because this is more of a narrative comedy than a one off sort of thing and I'd only ve read them as one offs. I'll be getting a new book next time we go to BookBuyers.
Yet another Get Fuzzy Collection. Love these dearly. If you've ever thought of owning both a cat and a dog, this may tempt youto really do it. And if you already do enjoy/hate that experience on a daily basis you will laugh out loud at how spot on these comics are. Conley, you rock.