234 FUNNY ANIMAL COMICS
in 2007, the same year it was nominated for two Eisner Awards , winning one for “Best
Reality-based work.”
See also: Gay and Lesbian Th emes
Wendy Goldberg
FUNNY ANIMAL COMICS. Above all other genres, funny animal comics have represented
comics’ role as lightweight children’s entertainment. Despite this reputation, some
of the most important, enjoyable, and artistically satisfying comics ever created have
used funny animal characters. Authors diff er regarding the defi ning characteristics of
the funny animals genre. A funny animal comic typically features characters who com-
bine animal faces with upright bodies that include hands, dressed (at least partially) in
clothes, who converse with each other using language rather than animal sounds (for
example, Donald Duck.) Th ese characters think and act more like people than like ani-
mals. Th ey exist either in a world that is entirely or mostly inhabited by funny animal
characters (for example, Mighty Mouse) or in which the animal characters are accepted
as people by human characters (for example, Bugs Bunny). Th ey commonly interact
with characters that more simply represent animals (the classic example being Mickey
Mouse and his pet dog, Pluto, as opposed to Mickey’s anthropomorphized dog friend,
Goofy.) Th e art typically features a rounded, simplifi ed, and exaggerated style rather
than a detailed or realistic style. Th e intended audience typically consists of children
more than adults. Th e approach typically emphasizes humor or adventure stories. Some
of the most important funny animal characters, however, violate one or more of these
parameters. For example, Felix the Cat does not wear clothes. Funny animal characters
raise the question of whether they represent an animal who acts like a person or a per-
son who looks like an animal or something else. In most cases, the answer seems to be
“something else.”
People have drawn and sculpted characters with animal heads on human bodies
since long before they began making recognizable portraits of human heads on human
bodies. Paleolithic drawings of these composite beings, created tens of thousands of
years ago, were simpler than the famous cave paintings of large mammals. Some were
crude line drawings, scratched onto bones, possibly as illustrations to support the telling
of stories that are now lost.
Other noteworthy precursors of funny animal comics appear in ancient Egyptian
art. Ancient Egyptians drew animal heads on bodies to show individuals who embodied
that animal’s qualities, but also comic scenes of animals behaving like humans. Th ese
ancient cartoons appeared on papyrus or broken pottery, and sometimes depicted mice
as rulers with cats as their servants.
Th e immediate ancestors of American comic strips were the American humor
magazines of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Th ese magazines published no-
table work by T. S. Sullivant, who drew clothed animals with a dazzling liveliness and
humor, and Harrison Cady, who drew wonderfully detailed cartoon illustrations of a
