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.

MUTTS is, to put it simply, the best comic strip produced in North America today." -The Infodad Page's five-star review

Giant events, earth-shaking themes, complex issues...all of these can make for captivating cartoons. But it's the artist who can take the simple, keep it simple, and still tell a story that really stands apart from the crowd. Patrick McDonnell, creator of MUTT's Mooch the cat and Earl the dog, is such a cartoonist.

The quickest way to absorb McDonnell's mastery of his art is to pick up this third MUTTS treasury, in which frame after frame and strip after strip he consistently displays his wit, cleverness, and ability with a pen. Mutts is the perfect way to escape into what appears to be an easygoing, carefree world. But just beneath the characters' banter and endearing mannerisms are the universal concerns of animals and people alike. The cartoonist's sparing style and gentle humor invites readers to fill out the frames with their own imaginations.

Nationally, McDonnell has received awards ranging from Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year to Newspaper Comic Strip of the Year. He has also received such worldwide praise as being named the Swedish Academy of Comic Art's Best International Comic Strip Artist. This strip's a winner the world around!

Touching the hearts and tickling the funny bones of readers since 1971, Ziggy is a cultural icon. Who knows how many yellowed and curling clippings of the cartoon are displayed on refrigerators, computers, doors, and bulletin boards across America? Some of the most cherished panels are ones that feature Ziggy performing small acts of kindness and good works. The best of these are collected in the latest Ziggy book, Character Matters.

The charm of Ziggy is that he lives a sweetly simple life. Things often don't go his way, but he always perseveres and maintains his sunny outlook. Ziggy is Everyperson, the part of us that harbors warm feelings and good intentions, but sometimes gets stepped on by a reckless world. In the great tradition of Ben Franklin, Roy Rogers, and Forrest Gump, Ziggy delivers his own homespun philosophy and retains his individualism and character, regardless of the transforming forces at work in a swiftly changing world.

Comforted and inspired by his steadfastness, his tenacity, and his gentle spirit, Ziggy fans have been intensely loyal for over three decades.

Syndicated by United Feature Syndicate, Get Fuzzy appears in 250 newspapers, from the Los Angeles Times to the Detroit Free Press to the Philadelphia Enquirer. Darby Conley's first book, This Dog Is Not a Toy, sold more than 115,000 copies; his second book, Fuzzy Logic, more than 85,000.When he was a child, Darby Conley used to wonder what his beloved pooch was thinking. That curiosity led to his creation of the hilarious strip Get Fuzzy in 1999, which has rapidly become one of the most popular cartoons in newspaper syndication. Showcasing the relationship between Bucky, a temperamental cat with an attitude; the sweet and sensitive dog Satchel; and their mild-mannered human companion, Rob Wilco, Get Fuzzy has cornered the market on anthropomorphic antics.

Anyone who finds animals both amazing and amusing will find this new Get Fuzzy collection one of the most bitingly funny books ever printed.