Patrick McDonnell

Early life Patrick Luigi McDonnell was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the son of an Irish father and an Italian-American mother. Early artistic influences were Charles M. Schulz, George Herriman, and E. C. Segar. graduating in 1978.

Career At SVA, McDonnell met a group of underground cartoonists, such as Peter Bagge and Kazimieras G. Prapuolenis (Kaz). It was also while matriculating at SVA that he designed the intertitles for characters on The Uncle Floyd Show which included Julia Stepchild, Don Ho-Hum, Flojo the TV Clown, and Don Goomba. His punk rock band Steel Tips would later be the first of many musical acts to perform on the show.

Moving to Hoboken, New Jersey, shortly after graduating, McDonnell had some of his earliest professional drawings published in The Village Voice, and as "Jerseyana" in New Jersey Monthly magazine. Bad Baby was adapted into an animated TV movie in 1997. During that time he also was a regular contributor to Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, Forbes, Time, and many other national magazines. McDonnell's illustrations for magazines, books, and greeting cards earned him two National Cartoonists Society Awards in 1991.

Mutts became syndicated, distributed by King Features Syndicate, starting in 1994. It won the Harvey Award for Best Comic Strip in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003. Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz said of Mutts, "To me, MUTTS is exactly what a comic strip should be." A book of McDonnell's life and work, Mutts: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell, was published in 2003 by Abrams Books.

In 2003, McDonnell illustrated the front cover of Vivaldi's Greatest Hit: The Ultimate Four Seasons, an album containing Antonio Vivaldi's famous set of violin concerti and eleven cover versions of selected movements. The artwork features Earl the dog conducting a quartet of trees playing musical instruments, and Mooch the cat dancing to the music.

In 2005, McDonnell curated an exhibition — "Top Dogs: Comic Canines Before and After Snoopy" — at the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. In 2011, McDonnell's children's book Me... Jane was published. It is a story about naturalist Jane Goodall growing up and her awakening curiosity about the lives of animals around her. A sequence of Mutts strips led to Goodall's interest in working with McDonnell on the book. Me... Jane won a Caldecott Honor in 2012. In 2010, the Mutts comic strip was appearing in more than 700 newspapers across 20 countries.

Personal life McDonnell has been a vegetarian since around 1990 and a vegan since 2005. McDonnell is a member of the board of directors of the Humane Society of the United States, the Fund for Animals,

McDonnell and his wife Karen O'Connell — whom he met in the late 1970s while both members of the punk band Steel Tips — reside in Princeton, New Jersey,

Awards Helen Hayes Award for The Gift of Nothing musical (at The Kennedy Center) – Best Adaptation 2015 Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, 2011, given at the Eisner Awards PETA Humanitarian Award 2001 National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year 1999 National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award (nominee) 1997 and 1998 Germany's Max & Moritz Prize for Best International Comic Strip 1998 Swedish Academy of Comic Art's Adamson Statuette 1997 Harvey Award for Best Comic Strip (for Mutts) 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010 Ark Trust Genesis Award 1997, 1999 National Cartoonists Society Award for Greeting Cards 1991 National Cartoonists Society Award for Magazine and Book Illustration 1991