Liberty Meadows

Liberty Meadows is a comic strip and comic book created, written and illustrated by Frank Cho. It relates the comedic activities of the staff and denizens of the titular animal sanctuary/rehabilitation clinic.

Publication history

Liberty Meadows is the evolution of University² (University Squared), a strip Cho wrote during his college years for The Diamondback, the student newspaper at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Originally, it was syndicated and appeared in many newspapers, while also being collected in comic books produced by Insight Studios. At the end of 2001, Cho ceased syndication, partly because editors kept censoring it, and announced he would publish it directly in comic book format.

Cho self-published the comic book at first, with Image Comics taking over printing and distribution with issue #27. The comic book went on a hiatus in early 2004, after issue #36. June 2006 saw the publication of issue #37, and Cho commented at the time that he would be "trying to have couple of issues of Liberty Meadows out per year".^[1] Issue #37 was the first issue that did not contain material previously published in newspapers and is the last issue published to date.

From around 2008 until May 2011, the rights to Liberty Meadows were in the hands of Sony Pictures Digital which wanted to develop it as a downloadable series, and then Sony Pictures Television which wanted to develop it as an animated television series. After a change in executives at Sony the projects went inactive, and the rights reverted to Cho, who hopes to now have issue #38 out in late 2011.^[2][3]

Style

Cho freely mixes visual styles in the strip, drawing the majority of the cast like Walt Kelly's anthropomorphic animals, borrowing Dave Stevens's pin-up look for Brandy, and routinely throwing in savage musclemen, apes and dinosaurs in an elaborate homage to multiple illustrators, including Frank Frazetta and Barry Windsor-Smith's work on Conan the Barbarian. He also uses frequent literary and visual references from sources ranging from Michelangelo to the movie Deliverance to commercials for Crest toothpaste.

Cho also makes references to other comic strip characters. The Liberty Meadows denizens have found themselves sharing their strip with Calvin & Hobbes, Lil Abner, Hagar the Horrible, Dilbert, and Cathy, among others.

Characters

The humans

• Brandy Carter - A beautiful animal psychiatrist.
• Frank Mellish - A nerdy veterinarian. Frank is in love with Brandy but afraid to tell her.
• Tony - An accident-prone maintenance man.
• Julius - Owner of Liberty Meadows animal sanctuary and an avid fisherman.
• Jen - Brandy's roommate. A sexy rocket scientist who enjoys toying with men.
• Al - Owner of the local bar where many of the other characters hang out. An educated man who believes in numerous conspiracies.
• Roger - Brandy's ex-fiancé who's trying to win her back.
• Barbara Carter - Brandy's controlling, malevolent mother. Hates Frank. Schemes constantly to fix Brandy up with Roger.
• John Carter - Brandy's doting father. The complete opposite of Brandy's mother.
• Evil Brandy - Brandy's evil twin from a mirror universe. A megalomaniacal criminal mastermind. In volume 3, she tied up Brandy, duct-taped her mouth shut, and shoved her in a closet in an attempt to impersonate her and kill Frank.
• Alternate Frank / "Ace" - Frank's super-studly twin from a mirror universe. The most feared lawman in the world and Evil Brandy's arch-nemesis.

The animals

• Ralph - A midget circus bear with a perpetual squint and a penchant for inventing dangerous gadgets. He also seems to be the subject of many physical harm inducing jokes. In many strips he is physically hurt or insulted, even once having all of his fur removed in a prank that was not even meant for him. Both Ralph and Leslie seem to antagonize Frank and/or mooch off him.
• Dean - A lecherous, sexist pig with a drinking problem and an addiction to cigarettes. He' is at the clinic for detox but keeps breaking the rule forbidding smoking. Brandy found him in a college and rescued him. A recurring segment has him hitting on various women in bars, only to have them punch him in the face for his boorishness. Frank Cho stated in one of his comics that he was based on a friend of his, but he later attributed inspiration to Ted Kennedy.
• Leslie - A dim-witted frog with hypochondria. Ralph's sidekick.
• Truman - A cute and naive young duck. Unlike most of the main animals, Truman seems to care about the conditions of his caretakers and is constantly polite. He calls the humans "sir" and "ma'am."
• Oscar - A mischievous dachshund and Truman's best friend. Oscar is the only animal in the strip who is not anthropomorphized.
• The Cow - A psychotic villain who suffers from Mad Cow Disease.
• Khan - The Biggest Meanest Catfish in the Tri-State Area, and Julius' constant nemesis. He appears in strips that depict the characters fishing.
• Mike - A raccoon with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
• Sheldon - A turtle who mostly serves as a filler character.

The author

• Frank Cho, aka "Monkey Boy" - Creator of the strip. Appears in the strip as a chimp to break the fourth wall. In the early newspaper strips, Cho often portrayed himself as Frank, a professional, bespectacled member of Liberty Meadows' medical staff. The main characters with their various issues and exploits were constantly getting Frank into trouble.

Collected editions

The comics collecting the daily strips have themselves been collected into a series of books:

Awards

Frank Cho has won many awards, including: the prestigious National Cartoonists Society’s Awards for Best Book Illustration (2001)^[4] and Best Comic Book (2001),^[4] the 2008 Eagle Award,^[5] the 1994 Charles M. Schulz Award for Excellence in Cartooning,^[6] College Media Association for Cartooning, and Germany’s highest award, Max & Moritz Medal, for Best International Comic Strip. He was also nominated for the coveted Harvey and Eisner Awards.

Won the 2008 Eagle Award (category - "Art: Drawing"), during the Bristol International Comic Expo.^[7]

Notes

External links

• Liberty Meadows official website Liberty Meadows official website.
• Frank Cho official website Liberty Meadows daily strips and Frank Cho's art blog.