Footrot Flats is a comic strip written by New Zealand cartoonist Murray Ball. It ran from 1976 until 1994 in newspapers around the world, though the unpublished strips continued to be released in book form until 2000. Altogether there are 27 numbered books (collecting the newspaper strips, with additional material), a further 8 books collecting the Sunday newspaper strips, and 5 smaller 'pocket' books of original material, plus various related publications. There was also a stage musical, an animated feature film called Footrot Flats: the Dog's Tail Tale, and even a theme park in New Zealand. The strip reached its peak of popularity in the mid-1980s, with the books selling millions of copies in Australasia. At various times, Ball cited different reasons for quitting the strip, including th