Kurtz says that the strip is "one step up from Garfield" today -- I beg to differ. There is nothing I don't like about today's strip (Awww...He’s just like MY cat). I can point to many strips that actually are one step up from Garfield, but the effort that went into this one blows most of the comics page away.
Although I'm not sure exactly what animal the lion is taking down, it doesn't matter, especially given the awesome look on the lion's face. The payoff is the second panel, where the intensity that comes out of both characters is jacked up right where it should be.
When I nitpick on seemingly minor stuff, like Brent's eyebrows, this is what I'm getting at. Show us the emotion!
I'm not saying everything needs to ramped up all the time; it's just that every moment is worth this level of attention.
18 comments:
I completely agree. I think that kurtz is back and swinging hard.
Today's strip and the circumstances around it beg the question. If he can do the art in this way that quickly, why can't he move more into the "realistic" style that we saw with Brent's parents for all the regular characters.
Scott's work with this strip is great (despite the new species of animal he created :) ) and could kick some major ass if he did it with every strip.
That's not begging the question. Argh!
To me, the funniest part is that Scratch fantasizes about being female.
Remember the orgasm Scott had when he received an autograph from Jim Davies? "A step up from Garfield" must surely be a compliment in his mind.
not to be a dick, i really like today's comic... but a lioness will break the neck of anything it gets it's jaws on (cubs excluded) within seconds. but like i said.. just nitpicking. great job scott.
I liked the art, but I couldn't make sense of who/where the speech bubble was coming from. Kirby at being attacked? Scratch at the fact that he's a cat and not a lion? A bystander? I guess I'm just a little slow on the uptake. Can anyone explain?
You probably forgot that the dog can talk now. It's the dog's speech bubble.
Actually, Slinky, that's inaccurate. Most big cats, lions included, suffocate their prey. A lioness could and probably would break the neck of a young animal, but an adult antelope, for example, has rather a thicker spinal column. It would be difficult for the lioness to break its neck while it's freaking out. If you want to get technical like that, the lioness should be attached to the thing's throat and not the back of its neck, although I think the strip is great just the way it is.
Id say that this is more of a step down from calvin and hobbes (or a sidestep even); its exactly the kind of joke watterson would play when he got tired of his art style for a day.
oh, and for the kleenex, a back story is that the dog isnt too bright, but loves scratch. when scratch tried to make him super intelligent (or a minion?) he gained the ability to talk. but saying 'why cat?!' is in kirby's character. it was clear to me.
Well its not that he was tired of his art style, he just threw something up quick, but nice art for something that wasnt planned
Frank Cho does this sort of thing in Liberty Meadows all the time, usually with dinosaurs.
i think the animal being attacked looks like some kind of prehistoric thing from ice age.. or some kind of dinosaur.
maybe its one of these things.
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I don't think it's supposed to be a lioness. Looked like a prehistoric scene to me.
Honestly, I thought it looked like a pretty good deer or calf sort of animal (Other than the lack of teeth and a nose). The only input I would add is that I think the joke would have gotten a little more punch if Scratch looked more ineffectual in that last frame. He is, after all, just a little cat biting into the scruff of a huge jowly dog's neck. The humor of the difference between Scratch's fantasy and the truth of the situation would have been improved a bit, had Scratch just looked a bit smaller and had more of a paw-with-nubbins instead of that big, sharply-pointed claw. It's a pretty minor suggestion, of course, since the joke already works fine on all of the levels it is supposed to.
Bunny, it looks like a lioness and its described as a lioness, and scott said he liked to draw lions
@jai:
I think that was my problem with the next strip -- I thought it was being sincere about Scratch's ability to take down the dog. If he was actually being portrayed as not quite as tough as he thinks he is, then he ought to, as you say, have been portrayed as completely ineffective in the previous strip.
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