The National Cartoonists Society nominated Pearls Before Swine as one of the best comic strips of 2002.

Pearls Before Swine is an impressive comic strip success story. After only a few years of syndication, it appears in more than 150 newspapers worldwide, was nominated as Best Newspaper Comic Strip by the National Cartoonists Society in its debut year-an unprecedented achievement-and its first book collection, Pearls Before Swine, has sold through four printings.

This Little Piggy Stayed Home continues the adventures of Rat and Pig, two characters who couldn't be more different-or more surprising. Rat is your typical Every Rodent: scheming, self-centered, and more than occasionally manipulative. By contrast, Pig is sensitive, kind, and-even on his best days-just plain stupid. Together with Zebra and Goat, they confront the strange and wonderful world around them, a place that looks suspiciously like our own.

By turns thoughtful and subversive, silly and sophisticated, This Little Piggy Stayed Home is one of the funniest comic collections out there.

As always, the more of Bill Amend's work you can get in one place, the merrier. And there's plenty to be merry about here. FoxTrot remains one of the best family strips around, filled with character comedy that becomes funnier the more time you spend with it." -Infodad.com: Family-focused reviews of books, software, music, and more.

Bill Amend does it better than anybody else. His ability to present middle-class family life in a way that's consistently fresh, irreverent, and downright wacky is unsurpassed.

In Who's Up for Some Bonding?, Amend's antics with the Fox family include the artist's invitingly skewed views of "normal" life: children who are light-years ahead of their parents when it comes to computers, siblings who could teach the CIA a thing or two about covert and "get-even" ops, and parents who stumble around in a slight daze as they deal with all the "amenities" of the modern world.

Jason, Peter, Paige, and their parents, Roger and Andy, deliver the laughs. They all bring their unique personalities and perspectives to the FoxTrot world, whether the subject is technology, tofu recipes . . . or a son convinced he could be the next zillionaire Martha Stewart. FoxTrot surprises. FoxTrot charms. FoxTrot always satisfies.Universal Press Syndicate newspaper feature:

*FoxTrot

Author's web site: www.foxtrot.com/

  Fifteen-year-old Jeremy Duncan is the heart and soul of puberty. A typical teen, Jeremy is shy, self-absorbed, and bored. He loves hanging out and playing the guitar. He lives in the shadow of his older brother's perfect 4.0 grade-point-average, athletic talents, and flawless complexion. Jeremy's girlfriend, Sara, loves that she can get him to do anything for her. His best friends are Hector and Pierce, whom he's known for-almost-ever. His parents? Uncool baby boomers. (Unless you're a parent, then they are two suburban professionals just trying to do the best they can with a teenager going through that "awkward" phase.)

  The enormously popular comic strip Zits depicts teenage and parental angst like no other. Teenage Tales is a cornucopia of Zits for die-hard fans everywhere. Zits can be seen in more than 1,100 newspapers, which is almost unheard of—only 18 other comic strips have achieved that extraordinary milestone. Zits has also won the National Cartoonists Society's Best Comic Strip of the Year award for two years in a row.

Patrick McDonnell possesses an elegance of line and narrative that both transcends and defines his medium. His artistry is in his Zen-like clarity, his simple direct address, and his unique understanding of the essential animal-human continuum. When one experiences MUTTS, one experiences genius." -Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones

"Dog-Eared"is exactly what this latest collection from cartoonist Patrick McDonnell is destined to become. The brilliant assortment of simple-yet-complex strips will have readers turning its pages again and again, eager to revisit the charm, truth, and humor found within.

McDonnell's strip, highlights the adventures of Earl the dog and Mooch the cat, best buddies who regularly come in contact with Shtinky Puddin', Sourpuss, Guard Dog, and Crabby-as well as an assortment of whimsically rendered humans. This cast is capable of endless antics, interspersed with poignant views on both the animal and human condition. And whether they're raiding garbage cans or basking in full-frontal belly rubs, Mooch and Earl always have a comment to clinch the scene.

MUTTS is the kind of strip that comic readers find irresistible. "Dog-Eared" is the same kind of collection. One strip leads to another, and before you know it you've turned page after dog-eared page to satisfy a growing MUTTS addiction.