Posts tagged "cartoons"

Technically, Patrick McDonnell works with imaginary animals. But for the millions who flip straight to the comics section, the "Mutts" crew is as real as their own pets. Everyone from PETA to the Humane Society of the United States have bestowed honors on McDonnell, and even late "Peanuts" artist Charles Schulz called "Mutts" "one of the best comic strips of all time." This fall, McDonnell publishes "Wags," a children's book about what makes "Mutts" star Earl's tail wag.

Name: Patrick McDonnell
Age: 53
Job: Author and illustrator of the comic strip "Mutts" and 13 compilation books.

Earl was inspired by your prior Jack Russell, also named Earl, who lived to be 19. What about Mooch?
Mooch was a combination of a few cats I had when I was growing up. We always had cats and I always wanted a dog, but I guess my parents didn't think I could take care of one. I bought every book about dogs I could find, I wanted a dog so bad. When I finally got Earl, he certainly lived up to everything I could have wanted for a dog.

How did you decide on how Earl would look? Was that instantaneous, or did it develop over time?
Early in my career, I was an illustrator for Forbes and Sports Illustrated and so forth, and in 90 percent of my drawings, there was a little white dog in the background. I just thought I was drawing a generic dog, but an art director told me that I was drawing a Jack Russell terrier. So I looked it up in a book and it was like my cartoon dog come to life. So the cartoon dog became a real dog and the real dog became the cartoon dog.

To paraphrase that cantankerous cat's cartoon theme song: Heathcliff just won't be undone.

Look for a comeback from the famous feline character, as EW.com reports that a freshly inked Hollywood deal has put into motion plans for family animation studio Magic Lantern Entertainment to develop anything and everything from yet another Heathcliff TV series to direct-to-DVD releases -- perhaps even a live-action feature film.

While the Heathcliff comic strip continues to run in print, the tabby cat hasn't seen the light of a TV of movie screen since the mid-1980s.

Producers behind the deal are probably purring over the $75+ million grossed back in 2004 by Garfield: The Movie -- although its sequel, Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, grossed a relatively kitty-sized $28 million.

The original Heathcliff strip, created by cartoonist George Gately, debuted in 1973. Today the strip is written and drawn by Gately's nephew, Peter Gallagher. According to reports, the first new Heathcliff product to come out of the deal will likely be an animated DVD to be released in 2011.