No one walks away from a Close to Home cartoon unscathed. John McPherson's lumpy characters and bizarre situations are tailor-made for gut-splitting laughs. And then there are the cartoons that leave readers shaking their heads, sputtering, "Oh my gosh" as a guilty smile passes across their faces. The Scourge of Vinyl Car Seats delivers what fans expect from McPherson: jokes about everything from parenting to dating to car repairs. McPherson takes his readers on a journey that's very Close to Home.

Pooch Cafe‚ is creator Paul Gilligan's first syndicated strip, and this book collects the strips from its successful first year of syndication. When Poncho's beloved master Chazz marries cat lover Carmen and forces them to move in with her and her feline brood, Poncho's world is shaken to the core. Carmen's attempts to bribe Poncho with cheese cannot overcome his inexplicable but undeniable disdain for all things cat, and now that his home has become a haven for them, his only recourse is to seek refuge in the cafe, where he, Boomer, and his other canine pals pore over their top-secret plans to construct a giant catapult with which to hurl all the Earth's cats into the sun. As much as he dislikes kitties, he's equally passionate about his love for Chazz. Poncho will do just about anything to keep his position as man's best friend secure, including enduring the physical torments of Chazz's passion for biking, camping, and mountain climbing, which he can only get through with the help of classic Russian literature and a nice cup of tea. Pooch Cafe‚ captures the intensity of the human-dog bond in a way that will resonate with pet lovers everywhere.

"The Fox household is a nonstop, always funny, battleground; humor that hits home for anyone who's ever been part of a family." --Bookwatch

There is no doubt that the Fox family is one of the favorites of the cartoon strip world.

Through the five Foxes in FoxTrot Beyond a Doubt, cartoonist Bill Amend creates a comic peek into what family life is really like: trying. Between son Jason's elaborate schemes, daughter Paige's attempts at cooking, and son Peter's indoor football games, life is rarely dull for parents Andy and Roger Fox.

In this treasury, which is comprised of bestsellers At Least This Place Sells T-Shirts and The Return of the Lone Iguana, the Foxes find themselves again surviving an amusing round of adventure, from their summer vacation at Fun-Fun Universe, to Paige's adventures in baby-sitting, to Jason's inaugural ice-cream date. At the same time, the Foxes also face a variety of real-life situations, from thermostat wars to forced vegetarianism to Roger’s challenges with a workplace efficiency expert. All in all, this spirited family of five gives fans by the millions a daily dose of reality with a side-splitting helping of humor.

The Fab Four of the funny pages come together again-this time in their first book treasury.

Rat, Pig, Zebra, and Goat, the central characters of Pearls Before Swine, are back in Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic, the first Pearls Before Swine treasury-supersized for your enjoyment.

But this is no ordinary cartoon treasury. Like the influential Beatles album that inspired the book's title, Sgt. Piggy is full of surprises. In addition to collecting all of the Pearls cartoons that appeared in BLTs Taste So Darn Good and This Little Piggy Stayed Home, cartoonist Stephan Pastis takes readers on a VIP backstage tour of one of the most successful comic strips in newspapers today.

In Sgt. Piggy, Pastis explains the genesis of Pearls (hint: it didn't begin at an artist's easel), why he was initially reluctant to show it to newspaper syndicates (and the surprising reason he changed his mind), the unexpected responses from readers to his work, and which Pearls strips worked and which ones didn't (and how he would have corrected the ones that didn't). The result is a rare and revealing glimpse into the world of Rat, Pig, Goat and Zebra. Full of humor and insight, sardonic asides and unexpected truths, Sgt. Piggy's Lonely Hearts Club Comic is a book that comics fans everywhere can enjoy anytime-even when they're 64!