Marmaduke is a newspapercomic 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.
Marmaduke - A great dane. Marmaduke lives with the Winslow family and exhibits many characteristics not typically displayed by dogs.
Dottie - 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, also known as "Barbie".
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 seriesHeathcliff, 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.
"Joe Mathlete" keeps an infamous internet blog dedicated to ironically and humorously explaining the content of Marmaduke comics. Amongst his most common explanations for a particular Marmaduke is the caption "Marmaduke is an asshole," specifically reserved for when Marmaduke engages in a particularly aggravating or rude action that is especially trying to his "owner family". Joe Mathlete once referred to Brad Anderson's comic as "cancer and madness".[2]
References
Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.
