Darby Conley

This is a treasury collection of "Get Fuzzy" strips that probably mostly include strips I already have in smaller volumes, but this is such a fine strip that it's worth it to me for the many strips that are unfamiliar to me here and I feel were left out of earlier collections. Bucky, by the way, is one of the most misanthropic characters in all of comics. Combine Satchel's benign ignorance, Rob's bemused tolerance, and some of the most inventive wordplay since Walt Kelly, and you've got a show more vastly under-appreciated strip that deserves a lot more attention than it has been receiving. From what I've read elsewhere, it looks like Darby Conly has gone into a state of semi-retirement, and that's too bad for us. show less

"Get Fuzzy" is one of the more underrated and unappreciated strips out there, dropped by my local newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, some years ago after a readers poll. This says a lot about the editors at the Post and the local readership. "Get Fuzzy" is an intelligent, acerbic, wickedly funny and often hilarious strip that frequently wanders into brilliance. Rob Wilco is a single, somewhat reclusive man who lives in an apartment with Satchel, a dim-witted and good-hearted pooch, and show more Bucky, a single-fanged Siamese who is hands down the most misanthropic comics character I know of, and that includes the mouse from "Pearls Before Swine".

This is a particularly fine collection of strips; there are many where the wordplay beats anything the Marx Brothers ever did. This is a treasury book, which I inadvertently ordered online. I probably have most of these strips in smaller collections. But it's such a great selection that I don't mind. show less

This strip, about an apparently reclusive human named Rob Wilco (perhaps only reclusive because the misanthropic Siamese Bucky tends to repel visitors) and Satchel, an ever gently-confused mixed-breed (accent on the "mixed") mutt of Canadian origin, sets a high bar for intelligent, sardonically funny, verbally inventive comic strip shenanigans. Rob is generally a bemused and confused observer of the interactions between his two "pets", although I don't think he nor Bucky and Satchel see show more their relationship in those terms. I love the Sunday strip where Bucky mentions "chance of rain" to Satchel, who promptly misinterprets a word and starts gleefully chanting "Rain! Rain! Rain!" show less

This strip just gets better and better. The cover is a work of genius itself, a hilarious send-up of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". And the strips themselves have become more subtly multi-layered, frequently with gag lines in each panel that build to a final unexpected guffaw.
The three main characters themselves are fairly unique personalities in comics: Rob, the human, is perhaps a smarter, more hip version of Jon in "Garfield" (don't worry; that's the only comparison that holds up show more against that wretched strip). Bucky, the cross-eyed snaggle-toothed misanthropic Siamese, could be compared to Ignatz in "Krazy Kat". Satchel is Everydog, and the most apt comparison that comes to mind is Stan Laurel's persona in the Laurel and Hardy films.
I've never felt this strip got the recognition it deserves. I just wish that Darby Conley would allow Rob some more human interaction, especially of the romantic sort. He had a few dates early in the strip, and then seemed to give up trying to introduce a potential romantic interest to Bucky and Satchel. Not that I blame him. show less