Jeff MacNeely's Shoe was one of the best comic strips drawn in print

Arnold Buckley
 Political comics are not for everyone but one of the most amazing ones is a strip called Shoe written and run by Jeff MacNelly. The three time..three time Pulitzer prize winner has several books pout of his work and the one called "The Best Of Shoe" is perhaps the best collection of his work and I always look over when studying this mans work. He draws ducks that look like humans and act like humans in a straight forward pretty politically and insightful humorous  comic strip. The book of his collection are great and fully illustrate the talents and drawing styles of this incredible comic strip artist. He died in 2000 but his strip live son with a new comic strip artist who tries his best to retain the excellence of a MacNeeely.

The dialogue is often short and sometime predictable and but the drawings of birds in human form and the detail of the artwork makes up for any shortness of dialogue and MacNelly often has many of the same and unique settings for his birdbrains to dwell and contemplate situations and topics. this comic strip has an old feel but it has only been around since 1997 and in its heyday was syndicated in over a thousand newspapers.

At times in his strip MacNeely seems to pay homage to other classic comics from Peanuts and the baseball field to a school room desk and Calvin and Hobbes and Shoe is basically out there and everywhere with their settings.

My personal favorite is the mechanic shop often reminding me of Crazy Cooter's garage of Dukes of Hazard fame as well as his diner setting resembling  of the TV show Alice. This is a comic strip gem  of middle America and fly by country and the role of birds and duck-billed creatures in this comic strip are totally appropriate for this strip. Shoe is probably the most under-rated and mistook overlooked comic strip in print way better than Doonsebury and more worthy of its many Pulitzer Prize awards that have served Mr MacNeely well throughout his career.