Footrot Flats is a comic strip by New Zealand cartoonist Murray Ball. It ran from 1976 to 1994 in newspapers, though unpublished strips continued to appear in book form until 2000. Altogether there are 27 numbered books (collecting the newspaper strips, with additional material), a further 8 books collecting the Sunday newspaper strips, and 5 smaller 'pocket' books of original material, plus various related publications. There was also a stage musical, an animated feature film called Footrot Flats: the Dog's Tail Tale, and even a theme park in Auckland, New Zealand. The strip reached its peak of popularity in the mid-1980s, with the books selling millions of copies in Australasia.
The comic's protagonist is a border collie sheepdog, called "Dog", owned by Wal Footrot, who runs a sheep and cattle farm called Footrot Flats near the fictional rural town of Raupo in New Zealand. The comic depicts the trials and tribulations of Wal, the Dog and other characters, human and animal, that come into their lives. The Dog's thoughts are voiced in thought bubbles, though he is clearly "just a dog", unlike the heavily anthropomorphised creatures of some other comics or animation. The humour draws on the foibles of the characters, which many farmers found easy to recognise around them. There was much "humour in adversity", making fun of the daily struggle that permeates farming life. The depictions of the animals are quite realistic and detailed, with a dose of comic anthropomorphism superimposed without spoiling the farming realism.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
History
Footrot Flats was initially rejected for syndication by both The New Zealand Herald and The Auckland Star. It was first accepted in 1976 by Mike Robson, editor of Wellington's The Evening Post. The strip appeared in hundreds of newspapers in Australasia and also gained an international following, especially in Denmark.
The strip's leading human character, Wal Footrot, is based on Murray Ball's cousin Arthur Waugh, who was a sheep shearer around the time of the strip's inception and went on to own a 2,100-hectare farm situated east of Pahiatua in the southeastern North Island of New Zealand.
Ball cited different reasons for quitting the strip, including the death of his own dog, and his displeasure with the direction of New Zealand politics.
Flats Cat Boat Video
Main characters
The characters are invariably known by their nicknames, such as Cooch, Pongo, Rangi, and Aunt Dolly. However, Aunt Dolly never uses the nicknames and always addresses them by their proper names.
Minor characters
Sport
Sport plays a major part in Footrot Flats. Wal plays all sorts of sports including cricket, golf, fishing, rugby union, tennis and snooker. The dog often plays with Wal and an ongoing joke in the strip is how Wal can never beat his little brother Rex in any sport.
Wal plays for the Raupo rugby club as a hooker and is often seen playing and training in the strip. At one point Wal was replaced by a younger man as he was getting too old, but the younger player wasn't as good. The final few strips ever drawn involve an unlikely chain of events which culminate in Wal somehow scoring a try against a touring international rugby side. Wal also coaches the Raupo School rugby team, with Rangi being one of its more prominent members and the Dog serving as mascot (a duty he takes seriously, often blaming himself if the team loses).
In the cricket season, Wal plays for an unknown team as an all-rounder, although he is sometimes pictured as the wicket keeper. Cooch often plays cricket with Wal and so does the dog, usually fielding in the slips or in the covers (wherein the dog's alias of 'The Scarlet Manuka' sometimes comes into play, as the Dog steals the cricket balls to 'rescue' them from persecution).
Cooch also plays golf with Wal, who has a homemade course on his farm. Cooch is better than Wal at golf, even though the course is very hard (the first hole is a par 14). When they do play on a real course Cooch usually wins. Wal claims that the trees are on Cooch's side. Wal and Cooch also play snooker on a small table in Cooch's house, where a tree hampers play.
Wal also occasionally plays tennis with Cheeky Hobson and fights for her affections with Nigel Erskine, another member of the tennis club. The dog is usually the ball boy.
Wal and Cooch frequently fish in various ways: whitebaiting, long line fishing, and most often floundering.
Other sports seen in Footrot Flats are boxing, polo, soccer, squash, badminton and shooting.
List of publications
Main series
- Footrot Flats 1-27 (1978-99)
- The Footrot Flats 'Weekender' 1-8 (1985-98)
- The Puppydog Footrot Flats 1-21 (1/11/95)
Pocket books
- "They've put custard with my bone!" (1983)
- The cry of the grey ghost (1984)
- "I'm warning you, Horse..." (1985)
- It's a dog's life (1988)
- "Let slip the dogs of war!" (1992)
- Footrot Flats Pocket Book Collection (1995)
Combined collections
- Footrot Flats: The Making of the Movie (1986)
- Footrot Flats: The Dog's
TailTale (1986) - Footrot Flats Collector's Edition (1987)
- Footrot Flats Collector's Edition 2 (1989)
- Footrot Flats Collector's Edition 3 (1993)
- The Footrot Flats 'Weekender' Special (1994)
- Footrot Flats Gallery 1-3 (2005-06)
- Footrot Flats Sports Collection (2005)
- Footrot Flats: The Wisdom of Dog (27/9/2010)
- The Art of Footrot Flats (25/10/2011)
- Footrot Flats: Luv from Dog (24/9/2013)
- The Essential Footrot Flats (28/10/2014)
- Footrot Flats Gallery 1 (27/10/15, Reprint)
- Footrot Flats Gallery 2 (26/10/16, Reprint)
Murray Ball Collector's Trilogy
- Footrot Flats: The Dog Strips (2007)
- Footrot Flats: The Long Weekender (2008)
- Six of the Best by Murray Ball (2009)
Misc
- Footrot Flats Collector's Edition Box Set (1982, NZ-Only Release)
- Footrot Flats Danish Album Series 1-27 called Fæhunden (1984-2000)
- The Mini Footrot Flats (1984)
- Footrot Flats - The Stage Musical (1984)
- Footrot Flats the Motion Picture: Prospectus (1985)
- Footrot Flats School Kit (1986)
- Footrot Flats Japanese Edition (1986)
- Footrot Flats Danish Book Series 1-12 called Fæhunden bøger (1989-2000)
- Footrot Flats in Focus - A 1990 Perspective (1989)
- Footrot Flats Chinese Edition - Counterfeit copy (1990)
- Footrot Flats UK Titan Books Series 1-6 (1990-94)
- Footrot Flats Swedish Books Series 1-4 called Fähunden (1991-94)
- Footrot Flats German Edition (1991, as "Dog Von Der Stinkfu?farm")
- Footrot Flats USA Edition (1992) (With Foreword by Charles M. Schulz)
- Footrot Flats Calendar: 1983-1992, 1997-2000
- Footrot Flats Astrological Calendar: 1987
- Footrot Flats Sports Calendar: 1987-1992
- Footrot Flats Zodiac Calendar: 1989
- The Ballad of Footrot Flats (1996)
- Footrot Flats Desk Calendar: 1997
- Footrot Flats - "The Dog's
TailTale" (VHS, DVD) - Footrot Flats - "The Dog's
TailTale" (Re-release) (DVD/Blu-ray) (1/12/11) - Footrot Flats 2015 40th Anniversary Commemorative Calendar (October 2014)
Miscellaneous merchandise included:
- greeting cards, postcards, posters, pencil cases, coloring books, notepad
- mugs, drinking glasses, beer stein, coasters, place mats, teaspoons, plates, beer
- clothing, bed linen, tea towels, aprons, beach towels, badges, lapel pins, transfers, patches
- activity packs, door hangers, stickers, wrapping paper, matches, key-rings
- stuffed toys, jigsaw puzzles, hot water bottles, ceramics, soap figurines,
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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