In Meta-Messages, we look at instances where comics use meta-comments; this last one is one of many instances where Patrick McDonnell paid homage to classic comic book covers with his iconic comic strip Mutts.
In case you’re not familiar with a Sunday newspaper strip, the Sunday strip of a regular newspaper comic strip is often its own thing, in terms of not being part of the same plot as the daily strip (in other words, the strip will tell a story from Monday to Saturday, but if the story is two weeks long, the story will skip Sunday and pick up on Monday). Sunday strips are in color and are large in size.
Of course, when dealing with strips that don't have “plots,” Sunday strips aren't all that different from daily strips. However, another interesting aspect of Sunday strips is that they tend to have “titles,” where the name of the strip is given. (Theoretically, these titles could be removed if necessary, for reasons of space, although that sort of thing doesn't happen anymore. It was much more common when there were LOTS of newspaper strips crammed into a Sunday comics section.) In Patrick McDonnell's iconic and successful comic strip, bastardsHere's an example of a cover page from the beginning of the series…
Well, as you might imagine, when you do this over and over again, you want to have some fun, and so over the years, Patrick McDonnell has used his titles to pay homage to all sorts of interesting artwork, including his love of classic comics. So I'm going to present ten examples of these homages to classic comic book covers (I may present more of his homages in the future).
For an animal, its owner can be a superhero
The first time McDonnell used a comic book cover for a title was in 1996, when he depicted Ozzie, Earl's owner (the two main stars of Mutts are Earl the dog and Mooch the cat), as Superman via the cover of Superman #1, with Early explaining to his friend Guard Dog that Ozzie, in Earl's eyes, is PRACTICALLY a superhero (years later, Ozzie would help save Guard Dog's life, so in that case he WAS a superhero).
Halloween can be a scary time for animals
While McDonnell used these homages at various times, there were two specific times of the year when they tended to be seen more often. One of those times was Halloween, as everyone dressed up and it was a good time of year to do superhero homages. Here, McDonnell's homages Police Comics #27, Batman's debut, features Earl and Mooch hiding in a cave to escape all the scary Halloween costumes, only to discover that a bunch of bats are hiding there too.
Mooch gets angry
The first non-superhero comic book cover McDonnell paid homage to was in 1997, when he paid homage to the cover of Crazy #1 (years before it became a magazine), with Mooch taking over from Melvin on the cover. The original Mad comic was more of a generic parody of genres, like a war parody, a horror parody, etc. Here, we see that Mooch is so restless that he's making everyone uncomfortable with his unconventional energy.
Earl and Mooch are the world's finest duo
In this tribute to The best comics in the world #1 (the series that would have been renamed The BEST comics in the world in the next issue), we see Earl and Mooch talking about all their various “super” abilities, but note that, despite all their powers, they still can't get any salami from the local deli (the deli would become a constant presence in these comic book homages).
Mooch gets into action
Speaking of Deli man and these tributes, in this Action Comics Homage #1, Early Daydreams Mooch uses super strength to pick up the Deli Man and throw him away, so Earl and Mooch can have free access to the meats behind the Deli counter. McDonnell has used “Deli Man” in a number of other homages. I've avoided them mainly because I wanted to highlight Mooch and Earl as much as possible (and there are SO many comic book cover homages, I've limited myself to showing ten of them).
Mutts gets electrocuted
In general, McDonnell tended to pay homage to superhero comic book covers for the most part, but he occasionally made exceptions. One of the more unusual was this brilliant homage to Robert Crumb's iconic independent comic book series, Zap Comic #2, one of the most important moments of the underground comics era of the late 60s and early 70s.
Mutts Goes to “Hell”, Boy
This is another surprising homage, as McDonnell pays homage to Mike Mignola's Hellboy with this Halloween strip, in which Mooch gets stuck in the sheets when it's dinner time and appears to be dressed as a ghost for the holidays.
Deli Man's powers are impressive
The other major time of year when McDonnell often paid homage to superheroes was at San Diego Comic-Con in late July. In this July 2014 strip, McDonnell pays homage to Fantastic Four #48 as Earl and Mooch marvel at Deli Man's powers.
You wouldn't like Mooch when he's angry
In this 2022 strip, also scheduled for San Diego Comic-Con, Mooch transforms into the Hulk when he gets so mad that his owners changed his cat food.
Mooch can tame the wildest beast
Amusingly, a year later, McDonnell revisited the Hulk theme by having Mooch's adorableness calm the Hulk down and transform him back into Bruce Banner (the homage is to the cover of Fantastic Four #12, Marvel Comics' first crossover).
Finally, here's McDonnell paying homage to his Marvel Comics graphic novel published last year, the excellent The journey of the superhero.
This isn't one of the ten tributes I've submitted, I just thought it was appropriate to highlight this fantastic graphic novel.
If anyone has a suggestion for future Meta-Messages, please email me at brianc@cbr.com