"Doonesbury" it´s not

ANOTHER WEIRDNESS FROM DAVID LYNCH

One would think, since David Lynch is now a big-time, famous writer-director kind of guy, that publications around the country would be lining up to print his comic strip. Lynch has been drawing a strip called "The Angriest Dog in the World" for seven years, and it´s still carried in only a handful of alternative weeklies.

Of course, it is somethin of an overstatement to say that Lynch has been drawing the comic all this time - in point of fact, every strip is virtually identical: four frames showing the title dog tied to a stake in a backyard while a few smokestacks blast away in the background. The only thing that changes is the balloon dialogue among Bill, Sylvia, Pete and Billy, Jr., from the window of the adjacent house.

"The Angriest Dog" can be found in such papers as the L.A. Reader, Atlanta´s Creative Loafing, the New York Press, and Denver´s Westwood. No major papers have expressed interest in it. Lynch´s strip assistant says that although Lynch would love to have it syndicated, he hasn´t actively pursued it.

Lynch came up with the idea for "The Angriest Dog" around 1973: "I was curious about anger," he has said. "Like, once you´re angry, you´re really, really angry, no two way about it - this dog is angry."

James Vowell, editor and published of L.A. Reader, provides some interest into why the strip has such limited circulation: "It´s just the same bad jokes. They´re really pretty dreadful. You can quote me. But they´re still fun. I think sometimes he tests to see what it would take for us to throw him out of the paper."

Still, Vowell has found that "The Angriest Dog" has a definite audience. According to a survey, 40 percent of his readers regularly read the strip, and 17 percent rate it as their favorite feature. But Vowell estimates that "three quarters of the people who read the paper don´t know who´s doing the cartoon."

Lately, though, with the success of Lynch´s television series, Twin Peaks, readers seem to be catching on. One recently sent in a parody of the strip: in the place of smokestacks in the background, there were twin peaks, and in place of the dog, there was a log. The strip was titled "The Angriest Log in the World." ROB MEDICH