Every month, PopImage explores one of the great conventions of comic book history, looking at ten of the finest, strangest, or most influential of the type. This month, we turn our attentions to one of the most popular, and long established figures in comics history - a figure so important, we had to provide at least fifteen examples to even begin to paint a full picture. We refer, of course, to the critter that walks like a man. The anthropomorphic animal.

HOWARD THE DUCK - Only the 1970's could ever have produced a character like Howard the Duck. Though his cry of "waugh!" deserves to be as much a Marvel classic as the Thing's "it's clobberin' time", Howard was not your average Marvel hero. Instead, he was designed to satirise them. A street toughened, cynical, scholarly, cigar-smoking duck with a philosophical bent and a mastery of Quack-Fu, Howard originated in Duckworld but found himself in Cleveland, Ohio, when the cosmic axis shifted. Like Superman, he had to fight evil in a world that was not his own. However, what began as a commentary on superheroes soon became, in the hands of creator Steve Gerber, a treatise on philosophy, society, and the human condition. Howard fought super villains like Hellcow, Manfrog, and the classic Dr Bong, but he also fought against injustice, racism, and political corruption. Howard was a rare type of comic for a mainstream publisher like Marvel, and maybe that is why it could not last. In due course, relations between Gerber and Marvel broke down. With owner and publisher no-longer on speaking terms, and legal wrangling tying the character up in knots, it was no surprise that Howard ended up on the scrap heap of great-characters-gone-wrong - with a little help from an execrable George Lucas movie.

KRAZY KAT - In 1910, George Herriman created one of the first and greatest funny animals in newspaper strip history - the aptly named Krazy Kat. Originating in a strip called THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS, Krazy and his friend and rival Ignatz the mouse eventually earned a strip of their own, and won the affections of most of America, including the strip's publisher, one William Randolph Hearst. The influence of Krazy Kat and Herriman on newspaper cartoons cannot be overvalued. They set the standards for all other creators - and characters - to aspire to. Krazy Kat also remains one of the only comics in history to have inspired a ballet. A rare accolade indeed.

FELIX THE CAT - The influence of Krazy can certainly be felt in the person of none other than the mighty Felix the Cat. Born of the minds of Pat Sullivan and Otto Mesmer, Felix began life in animation in 1917, in many ways a near-relation to Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse. Though we all know today that Mickey won the battle for cultural supremacy, purists still regard Felix as the truer fantasist and innovator, both on the screen and in the daily funnies. Felix was once a global phenomenon, with a vast range of merchandising to his credit that keeps rabid collectors occupied for a hundred lifetimes. Quirky, brave, and a great entertainer, it seems a shame there are no theme parks or parades to commemorate Felix today.

FRITZ THE CAT - If Felix and Krazy are two fine examples of the popular, family-friendly anthropomorphic animal, then Fritz best illustrates the flipside of the character type. As popular as they are in the nurseries and playgrounds, talking animals have also proved consistently popular on the underground scene, as subversive spokescritters for the counterculture. Roger Crumb's Fritz was a sly, salacious, dirty beast, and ironically one of Crumb's most human creations. Fritz met a terrible end when a FRITZ THE CAT movie was released, which Crumb hated. His hero was stabbed in the back with an icepick by a spurned Ostrich Girl. At the time of the stabbing, Fritz was working in the movies.

RUPERT BEAR - One of Britain's most affectionately remembered comics, Rupert Bear (whose name, we are told, everyone knows), was the sentimental creation of Mary Tourtel in 1920. Rupert's ripping adventures were told in pictures juxtaposed against prose and rhyme, and matched the cosy familiarity and capacity for fantasy of the Enid Blyton books. Rupert Bear has lived a long and varied life, which contines to this day in his annuals, and can even claim the distinction of having worked with Paul McCartney on the notorious FROG SONG.

UNCLE SCROOGE McDUCK - 1947 saw the birth of the character who, to this day, remains the greatest funny animal of all the funny animals to have sprung from the house that rests its reputation on funny animals. Carl Barks, the man charged with the awesome responsibility of writing the Donald Duck comic strips for Disney, wrote a story called "Christmas on Bear Mountain" which introduced the world to the world's richest duck; Uncle Scrooge. As irascible as Howard, but with an equally golden heart (he made his money through discovery, not exploitation), Scrooge's comic book tales remain underrated greats, and are critically regarded as the best comic book work Disney ever produced. The House of Mouse makes its trade in saccharine nonsense like Mickey and Minnie, but it's their mule-headed Scots capitalist who deserves the real acclaim.

MIGHTY MOUSE - Another character originating in animation, this rodent pastiche on Superman perhaps fittingly saw his comic book debut as part of Timely, the publisher that later became DC's greatest rival, Marvel. Dedicated to saving the mice of Terrytown from the threat of invading cats, Mighty Mouse established himself as one of the most popular animal superheroes ever published. Indeed, even Superman himself never had a cry so rousing and well known as the Mouse's mighty "here I come to save the day". Then again, Superman probably doesn't have Mighty Mouse's operatic voice.

CEREBUS - As Mighty Mouse is to Superman, so Cerebus the Aardvark is to Conan. At least, that was the original intention. In short course, like Howard the Duck before him, Cerebus began wandering off into strangely socio-political territory, with the character becoming both a prime minister and a pope, and extensive reference being made to the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Oscar Wilde and Groucho Marx. Dave Sim's often controversial saga is finally in its home straight, with the entire thing collected in the famous 'telephone books' - but after twenty two years (and counting), Cerebus has become something of a fixture on the comic book shelves.

THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES - The popularity of Cerebus is credited with the upsurge in quirky independent black and white comic books in the mid-80s, which saw Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird pay homage to the works of Frank Miller with their TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. The self-published comic about a group of radioactively transformed turtles fighting ninjas and aliens became a sensational hit, with a global mania to rival that of Mighty Mouse or Felix. It made stars of its creators, and led to the creation of Mirage Publishing. But then, like Howard and Fritz before them, the Turtles bravely ventured into the world of movies - and came face to face with Vanilla Ice. No-one involved seemed to survive the encounter.

SPIDER-HAM - Sometimes the anthropomorphic animal is seen as the perfect tool to satirise or objectify politics, society, the media, arts, literature or history. And other times, it's an excuse to put a pig in a Spider-Man costume. Peter Porker, the amazing Spider-Ham, was another spoof superhero, with a book in Marvel's Star line - the same people responsible for Barbie comics. Spider-Ham is actually one of the best remembered example of that strange comic book tendency for self-mockery. Whenever a publisher wants to subvert his own creations, he either makes a "li'l" version or an animal version, with prime examples being Bat-Mite and the X-Babies - or even Li'l Death and a Li'l Dream. Spider-Ham was created when Aunt May Porker irradiated herself conducting experiments with a nuclear powered hair-dryer. The radioactive pig then bit a spider, and that spider became... Spider-Ham!

USAGI YOJIMBO - The strangest thing about 17th century samurai rabbit Usagi Yojimbo is that creator Stan Sakai - a letterer on Sergio Aragones' GROO - originally envisioned telling his stories through the character of a human samurai, Miyamoto Musashi. Perhaps inspired by the success of Cerebus and the Turtles, he instead went the route of the funny animal, and the star attraction of 1984's independent anthology ALBEDO ANTHROPOMORPHICS was born. Usagi rode the black and white boom into the pages of CRITTERS at Fantagraphics, and then on to Mirage, and finally Dark Horse, where the character survives to this day. In spite of guest appearances in the Turtles' cartoons, Usagi never attained the fame of his amphibian forebears, and perhaps that's for the best, as Usagi has remained ever faithful to his true fans, making his books one of the most consistently appealing independent series available.

HEPCATS - Antarctic Press' HEPCATS was a sort of strange hybrid between STRANGERS IN PARADISE soap opera dynamics and funny animal visuals. It detailed the ordinary lives of four Texas college students, Gunther, Joey, Arnie and Erica, but they -and everyone else around them - were anthropomorphic animals, ranging from the humble dog to the mighty rhinoceros. The book was an intimate exploration of human relations, in which no humans ever appeared. Its target audience was not the sort that would normally read funny animal books, and maybe that's why it struggled to sell, despite a loyal core following. Creator Martin Wagner cancelled his own book at issue #12, and seemingly disappeared off the map.

MAUS - Anyone who doubts the significance of the talking animal in comics history need only look to one of the greatest comics ever made for proof of their worth. We speak, of course, of the best-selling, Pulitzer winning MAUS. Taking the cat-and-mouse iconography so familiar to fans of comics and cartoons as its basis, Art Spiegelman's two volume tale tells the true story of his father's struggles during the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany. The Jews are mice, the Germans are cats. From the ghettos to Auschwitz to the lives of the survivors in modern America, it is a deeply affecting and emotional work. The use of animals in the tale does not trivialise the events of the past, but rather, brings the story uncomfortably close to the reader through its abstraction.

HOBBES - As we come towards the close of the Krazy Kat century, it is clear that the reign of the animal in newspaper strips shows no sign of ending, with Garfield, Dogbert, Shoe, Grimm, Opus and Snoopy all having proudly carried the banner. One of the true greats to have come and gone in the last twenty years is Hobbes, tiger playmate of Calvin. Hobbes harks back to the fine cartoon strip traditions of LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND, and all the other strips that played with the idea of children and their wild imaginations. CALVIN AND HOBBES creator Bill Watterson insists that, although everyone but Calvin saw Hobbes as a small stuffed doll, he was not an imaginary character. It was just that Calvin had a different way of looking at things. Of course, when your way of looking at things means you can have a walking, talking, tiger as your best friend, then who's going to argue? The anthropomorphic animal is one of the finest and most fantastic escapist traditions in the history of graphic narrative. And maybe Hobbes is the best friend a boy could ever ask for.

WILLIE THE PENGUIN - Finally, a little historical curio. In a twelve month period from 1951 to 1952, six issues were published of a children's humour comic book called WILLIE THE PENGUIN, also starring girlfriend Millie and cousin Silly. Not to be confused with the more famous penguin Chilly Willy, Willie the Penguin was the creation of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company. For over thirty years, Willie was the publicity figurehead for KOOL cigarettes, and was more than content to enjoy the occasional weedstick himself. Camel recently ran into all kinds of trouble for having the child-friendly mascot Joe Camel in their ads, but less than fifty years ago no-one thought anything wrong with running a comic book starring a smoking penguin. Nick O'Teen would have been proud.

Next: Beyond 2000.