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scans_daily...better known as New Zealand (The Maori name for the islands is Aotearoa, which translates as Ao = cloud, tea = white and roa = long)
In my efforts to find new material to showcase, I came across a copy of an old book I picked up a few years ago, Murray Ball's Footrot Flats.
Footrot Flats is a home grown comic strip from New Zealand by cartoonist Murray Ball, that ran between 1975 and 1994 in the papers (though new material was published in books until 2000 or so)
It tells the ongoing life of a working farmdog, a Border Collie known to all as "Dog" (He does have a proper name, but he's hideously embarassed by it and refuses to let those few who know it use it). He is owned by Wallace Cadwallader "Wal" Footrot, a working farmer.
There were many other regular and semi regular characters. Wal's Aunt Dolly who kept house with a rod of iron, Horse the cat, Rangi (a local lad), Cooch (who owns the next farm over) and Darlene (the object of Wal's affection, sometime girlfriend and who Dog views as his nemesis, since he doesn't like to share what little affection Wal is able to generate)
Thought it has moments of cuteness and affection, there's a streak of unsentimentality to the strip which I like. It differentiates it from the likes of Garfield or Peanuts. Life on a farm is rarely sentimental, and the strip reflected that. Dog may be an anthropomorphic animal like Snoopy (is self aware, can write, has thumbs when the plot requires it), but is also an animal who knows his place in the pecking order. He probably IS smarter than Wal, but so are any number of animals, and possibly some minerals, but that doesn't do much good when you're HIS dog.
I've deliberately picked a couple of strips which focus on the animals for this post, as they are frequently the best ones.
Horse is rather awesome, reminds me a little of Nanny Ogg's Greebo.
I love the facial expressions in that last panel.
In my efforts to find new material to showcase, I came across a copy of an old book I picked up a few years ago, Murray Ball's Footrot Flats.
Footrot Flats is a home grown comic strip from New Zealand by cartoonist Murray Ball, that ran between 1975 and 1994 in the papers (though new material was published in books until 2000 or so)
It tells the ongoing life of a working farmdog, a Border Collie known to all as "Dog" (He does have a proper name, but he's hideously embarassed by it and refuses to let those few who know it use it). He is owned by Wallace Cadwallader "Wal" Footrot, a working farmer.
There were many other regular and semi regular characters. Wal's Aunt Dolly who kept house with a rod of iron, Horse the cat, Rangi (a local lad), Cooch (who owns the next farm over) and Darlene (the object of Wal's affection, sometime girlfriend and who Dog views as his nemesis, since he doesn't like to share what little affection Wal is able to generate)
Thought it has moments of cuteness and affection, there's a streak of unsentimentality to the strip which I like. It differentiates it from the likes of Garfield or Peanuts. Life on a farm is rarely sentimental, and the strip reflected that. Dog may be an anthropomorphic animal like Snoopy (is self aware, can write, has thumbs when the plot requires it), but is also an animal who knows his place in the pecking order. He probably IS smarter than Wal, but so are any number of animals, and possibly some minerals, but that doesn't do much good when you're HIS dog.
I've deliberately picked a couple of strips which focus on the animals for this post, as they are frequently the best ones.
Horse is rather awesome, reminds me a little of Nanny Ogg's Greebo.
I love the facial expressions in that last panel.
