The Angriest Dog in the World
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| The Angriest Dog in the World | |
|---|---|
 "It doesn't get any better than this" |
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| Author(s) | David Lynch |
| Current status / schedule | Ended |
| Launch date | 1983 |
| End Date | 1992 |
| Syndicate(s) | L.A Reader |
| Genre(s) | Humor |
The Angriest Dog in the World is a comic strip created by film director David Lynch. First appearing in 1983, it was one of the originators of the constrained comics movement. Many readers admired the strip's absurdity, while others derided it as pretentious and frivolous.
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[edit] Publication history
The idea behind The Angriest Dog in the World was conceived by Lynch in 1973, during a period he was experiencing feelings of great anger.[1] First published in the L.A Reader, the strip ran from 1983 until 1992.[1]
The strip is introduced with a small caption, sometimes omitted by newspapers:
The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl. Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis.
Visually each strip is the same. The first three identical panels feature the black dog growling, straining on his chain. He is between a tree on the left and one wall of a house with a window on the right. The fourth panel is the same, but at night with a circle of light coming from the house's window.
[edit] Quotes
A word balloon appears in one or more of the panels, indicating speech from a member of one of the house's unseen family, either Bill, Sylvia, Pete, or Billy, Jr. Usually the speech is in the form of an aphorism or a non sequitur. Such sayings include:
- "If everything is real...then nothing is real as well."
- "At Cannes there is the Croisette."
- "Bill...Who is this San Andreas? I can't believe it's all his fault."
- "The only way you have exceeded my expectations is in weight."
- "Green wood shrinks."
- "The psychological origin of the idea of space, or of the necessity for it, is far from being so obvious as it may appear."
- "It must be clear even to the non-mathematician that the things in this world just don't add up to beans."
- "Unfortunately, life contains an unavoidable element of unpredictability."
- "Curiously, due to the fact that we have recently discovered that Pete is a Bonafide idiot, we can now appreciate why his arguments are not convincing."
- "It doesn't get any better than this."
[edit] Homages
- In 2003, the strip was parodied by cartoonist Ted Rall with his comic The Angriest Liberal in the World.[2]
- In 2004, the clip-art comic Dinosaur Comics made a direct reference to the strip.[3]
[edit] Sources
- Don Markstein's Toonopedia. The Angriest Dog in the World.
- Footnotes
- ^ a b The City of Absurdity. The Angriest Dog In the World.
- ^ The Angriest Liberal in the World, 6-12-03
- ^ Dinosaur Comics, September 21 2004
[edit] External links
- The Angriest Dog in the World strips on davidlynch.de
- The Angriest Dog in the World strips on lynchnet.com
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