In a 1970 Beetle Bailey comic strip, a character known as Sarge shouts at his uniform-wearing dog, Otto, over a paperwork mistake. “Think, Otto, think!!” Sarge says. “We can’t all be Snoopy,” a sad Otto answers. This joining of two well-known comic strip dogs is being shown along with many other images at the world’s largest cartoon museum. It is part of a new presentation of the history of dogs in the world of cartooning. “The Dog Show: Two Centuries of Canine Cartoons” is being shown at Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in Columbus, Ohio. It will be open through October. The idea for the show came when the family of Brad Anderson, the creator of the cartoon dog Marmaduke, donated his collection in 2018. It included 16,000 Marmaduke cartoons from 1954 to 2010 and other works. Anderson died in 2015. The addition of Anderson’s dog cartoons started a discussion about other cartoons with dogs in the museum, said museum coordinator Anne Drozd. “There were so many comic strips and magazine cartoons and comic books, and so many different examples that have dogs in them.” Dogs’ personalities make them a very good fit for the comic strip, said show organizer Brian Walker. Dogs “aim to please, so they actually make really good cartoon characters,” said Walker. He is a cartoonist and cartoon historian. He is also the son of Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey. Though Otto first appeared in Beetle Bailey in 1956, he was a normal, four-legged dog until around 1970 when Mort Walker made him more human. He gave Otto his own uniform and desk. That change most likely came because of Snoopy in Charles Schulz’ Peanuts strip, Brian Walker said.
