Ozy and Millie

Daily comic strip

Ozy and Millie was a daily webcomic that ran from 1998 to 2008, created by Dana Simpson (originally published under D. C. Simpson). It follows the adventures of assorted anthropomorphic animals, centering on Ozy and Millie, two young foxes attending North Harbordale Elementary School in Seattle, Washington, contending with everyday elementary school issues such as tests and bullies, as well as more surreal situations. The strip mostly concentrates on character interaction, but sometimes veers into commentary based on author Simpson's own political views.

Ozy and Millie originally started as a printed comic strip in a Washington college newspaper, the Copper Point Journal, in 1997, with Simpson using ink and brush as drawing implements. Simpson claims to have been influenced by various comics and cartoons such as Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, The Simpsons, and Pogo. It became an irregular webcomic in early 1998. In June that same year, it was changed to a Monday Friday daily strip. The comic led Simpson to win the Scripps Howard Foundation Charles M. Schulz College Cartoonist award and a College Media Advisors: Best Strip Cartoon award. The comic was part of Keenspot from 2001 to 2003, going independent for several years before returning to Keenspot in November 2006. New strips were released on most weekdays, though the strip's run ended in December of 2008. Since then, it has been re run intermittently on GoComics. Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall included six pages of interview illustrated with Ozy and Millie strips in Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists.

Ozymandias Justin Llewellyn is a ten year old anthropomorphic fox of an unidentified species (also called an "Adolescent Gray Zen Fox") who attends North Harbordale Elementary School in Seattle with his friend, Millie. His full name, Ozymandias Justin Llewellyn, is a reference to the famous poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ozy is recognised by his large top hat, which he got from his adoptive father, Llewellyn. The only other clothing he wears is a vest, which makes him the target of some of Millie's practical jokes. He is adept at letting Millie's pranks pass by without effect, but he does suffer bullying at the hands of the school jock, Jeremy, who likes to stuff Ozy into trash cans. Ozy is also quiescent and serene, usually playing the "straight person". Under Llewellyn's guidance, Ozy also practices Zen (or rather, a humorous version of it).

Millicent Mehitabel Mudd, better known as Millie, is a ten year old red fox girl who is best friends with Ozy. Millie is usually seen wearing a set of blue denim overalls. Unlike Ozy, who is calm, Millie is chaotic and crafty, both in the destruction she leaves behind and the ways she devises of avoiding work (or attempting to). She, like Ozy, often tries to answer the most important questions in life, but her method of finding the answers makes her unique. Millie's mother, is a lawyer, who is an older, wiser, more temperate version of Millie. She was like Millie in her childhood, and as a result knows how to deal with any trouble caused by her, much to Millie's annoyance. The strip (the books, specifically) has also received decent reviews from outside sources and other critics. In 2002, the strip won the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards for "Best Anthropomorphic Comic". Ozy and Millie also won the 2006 and 2007 Ursa Major Awards for "Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip". In 2009 (the year after she ended the strip), she won that year's Comic Strip Superstar contest.