User:Zombiebaron/wip/Marmaduke

An example of a typical Marmaduke comic strip, published February 4th, 2009.

Marmaduke is a politically and comedically progressive daily comic strip. The strip's creator, Brad Anderson, one of the funniest and most talented people alive, has been writing and drawing a new Marmaduke strip every day since January 10th, 1954. The one panel comic focuses on the adventures and misadventures of its titular great-dane, Marmaduke, and his human family.

Marmaduke has won countless awards for its biting satirical take on daily life with a dog. Brad bases all of his strips on real events from his life, and sometimes dreams that he has. The characters of the family in the strip are based on Brad's own wife and kids, and the character of Marmaduke is a composite of three or four different great-danes that the family owns.

History

One of the first Marmaduke strips ever published. It is interesting to note how Brad's artistic sensibilities have shifted over the years.

Brad Anderson had the inspiration for what would become the comic strip Marmaduke on Christmas Day 1954, when he received his first great-dane, a puppy named Marmalade, as a present. Even though he was only 14 years old, Brad began to draw and caption comic strips about him, his dog and their adventures together. Brad misspelled Marmalade's name as "Marmaduke" in the first strip, and the name has stuck ever since.

Brad's first few Marmaduke strips were self published. However, because of the strip was so funny it soon got picked up by Brad's school newspaper, and then local paper. Today Marmaduke is published in nearly 1,000 newspapers worldwide, and is translated into 19 different languages.

As Brad Anderson has grown up, the characters in Marmaduke have too.

Cultural Impact

In this strip, Brad leaves the meaning unclear, and therefore up to the reader to interpret.