Man, I DO love drawing somewhat wild fight scenes like this. It’s a really nice break from the heavy talking strip last Friday.
That said, I think it’s a good time to give you new readers a little history on the dog Dandy is currently goin’ “Grand Slam Breakfast” on, Snuffles! Snuffles first appeared in 2003 as a background character in the “Dogs of War” storyline. Dandy’s ever evil double had succeeded in taking over the comic strip, and had used mind-control dog collars to keep Dandy trapped in non-speaking “Dog” mode in an evil Obedience School. Snuffles was introduced as little more than a slightly goofy, loopy dog in the School WITH Dandy. I really enjoyed Snuffles and so did the readers, so as the story reached it’s conclusion I decided to elevate Snuffles from a simple background character to an evil PLANT, working for Evil Dandy in order to keep an eye on OUR Dandy. And with that turn, Snuffles became on of the most popular supporting characters in the strip.
Snuffles would return again in the “Dog on the Run” storyline which found Dandy teaming up with Snuffles to escape the vet. (Where both were scheduled to be… uh… fixed!) It was in this story where I decided to have Snuffles kinda switch sides and decide to HELP Dandy out of his situation, beginning the trend of bringing Snuffles back to the strip on the OPPOSITE side of the fight from whenever he was last seen.
Snuffles would return again to court Maryweather, and then after eventually being dumped by her, as the leader of the radical Revolutionary Dog Cult, BITE CLUB.
It was during the “Bite Club” story, where Snuffles was revealed to be Dandy’s Older Brother. (A concept that had actually been planed FAR in advance and even hinted at when in a flashback adventure showing Dandy’s early childhood, his father in the pet store bore more than a passing resemblance to Snuffles.)
Though Snuffles was captured, he quickly escaped and hasn’t been seen until now. He’s a perpetually popular recurring character and I really hope that this story allows for even MORE interesting developments and twists. Enjoy!
