Friday, June 13, 2008

Cats and Continuity

Apparently there was more to say about the last strip than I thought. The issue of Scratch's public sentience is burning up the comments. I don't really care much. I don't recall a time when other characters were clearly communicating with Scratch, so I just assumed this was the first time it had been revealed.

If someone can find a strip that proves this to be a retconning, huzzah, we will dine out on Kurtz' mistake for weeks. But even then, it wouldn't make me sad, just irritated.

Cole's mistake in today's strip (The Cat Whisperer) was using the ill-advised "tchk" noise, which, in my household, is reserved for calling squirrels. He would have been much better served by the more soothing "pssspssspsss."

By the way, what the heck is that schmutz falling away from Scratch in the last panel?

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a few questions;

1) What's up with Cole's tie?
2) Why does Francis have huge bug like eyes 5 times large than most characters.
3) Why does Marcy's breasts keep getting smaller with each strip. Soon she'll be flat chested again.
4) Why is Scratch's tail coming out of his lower back? It looks weird.
5) What's with the mitten hands?
6) What's with the copying and pasting in 3 panels?
7 ) What's that huge mass of black in the last 3 panels? Are they Cole's legs? Even if he was sitting in a chair his legs would not stretch out that far in front of him.

Anonymous said...

It has been established before that the others cannot understand Scratch (normally), for example here: http://www.pvponline.com/2005/11/25/fri-nov-25/

So as far as I can tell, it's not retconning or contradicting at all.

Anonymous said...

@cochrane:

Actually, checking the strip previous to that one, it could go either way.

They obviously heard him speak, but we don't know if it's because they are in wolf form, or if it's because they actually heard him speak.

My vote is for the latter, since that seems to be the whole joke, and Scratch's hiss is to throw them off.

Which makes the current situation even less clear. (They could hear him then, but not now?)

Anonymous said...

The writing in the wolfman storyline blows away anything that's been happening in PVP lately.

First strip: http://www.pvponline.com/2005/11/18/fri-nov-18/

That was a golden time.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I have to agree, the joke from that wolfman strip is that they've mistakenly assumed they can now understand animals because of their state rather than Scratch actually being able to talk.

Either way, it makes the recent strip somewhat disappointing/confusing and, in my opinion, Scratch's now Garfield-esque condition a lot less interesting.

Anonymous said...

What do you get when you merge Garfield and Stewie Griffin?

---

So when did PvP 'jump the shark'?

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Anonymus before my post. Scratch has been a character for at least three years, thanks again for coming late to the party.

At Joey Jo jo
3) There hasnt been a clear shot of her chest since she changed into her baseball shirt, and they weren't THAT big in the bridemade's dress (which do made boobies look bigger)

6) if your trying to attract an animal you generally don't make wild movements and stay still for them. The joke is that Scratch is on his head and he hasnt reacted yet.

7) I assummed he was sitting on a stair or crouching down (because Scratch's head reaches his knee without stretching up) which does cause your legs to come out more than plain sitting

Jai said...

Looking back on it, I'd have to say that wolfman story is definitely one of my favorites. But that's not what I'm here for today:

Uh-oh! It looks like Brent and Cole understood that! The follow-up strip would also be pretty meaningless if the restaurant couldn't understand Scratch. Sure, you could retcon that and say there's some sort of speech synthesizer Scratch is employing. It's not something that sprang to mind as something he'd have to do, though.

Then, of course, the werewolf story involves a joke where Cole and Francis think they can understand Scratch simply because of their lyncanthropic disease. If it actually IS because they're werewolves, then there is no joke there. The obvious intention behind that strip was that they thought up an incorrect explanation for what they witnessed.

Also, a common thread behind every Scratch / human interaction has been that he purposefully avoids speaking when he knows they can hear him. Scratch's sudden conversational outburst in Freak Out makes no sense at all; he's NEVER been like that with humans to our knowledge. We've seen many instances of him hissing while in the same panel as a human - are we to believe that he was actually saying something at those times? What about when he hisses at Skull?

And there's the most recent Kringus business, which has Scratch talking to a Salvation Army worker and then, of course, to one of Santa's "helpers". I'm not sure what the mystical nature of the odd, beefy faux Santa is, but the Salvation Army guy seemed pretty normal.

Yeah, that stuff can all be retconned into quiescence without much effort. It would really kill the whole "people can understand Scratch, he's just sneaky" vibe that PVP's been running with until now, but it can be done. For there to be a joke in Freak Out, however, the truth must be that either people normally can't understand Scratch or they just can't understand him starting now for some undefined reason. If it is the latter, Freak Out still has problems because Scratch acts as if he knows that they can't understand him OR that there is nothing unusual about a cat that talks. And the more I try to make any sense out of Freak Out (Simply operating from "Scratch is a talking cat" and "Normal people don't know Scratch's secrets"), the less funny the punchline gets and the more confused I am. Scratch is a bit absent-minded, but this is plainly a Scratch we've never seen before. Could be this is just the first time we get to see a new side of Scratch, but somehow I doubt that a large amount of thinking went into the creation of Freak Out. It was just a gag, and life was meant to be business as usual forever afterward. We'll definitely be happier if we ignore continuity and things that seem like breaks in continuity simply because nothing along those lines has come about before (I.e., Skull's special childhood assignment to Brent).

But you bet your ass that sort of thing in PVP makes me irritated.

Oh, and I have no idea what that schmutz in the last panel of Cat Whisperer is; that sort of thing is usually flying spit but it doesn't make any sense there. And I don't even know what sound "tchk" is supposed to be, so that was weird as well.

Anonymous said...

@sage the answer was Scratch.

Ti Chan said...

I was going to hunt down and find the same exact storylines that sage found, but it seems I don't have to.

I would like to add the comic where Kirby spoke to his vet, and a cover up was needed. If Kirby could be understood by humans, then why not Scratch?

There is something that is bothering me though. Everyone refers to Scratch's ability to speak "magical"... But that fact of it is that it WASN'T magical. If we all remember back, super smart Skull used the intelligence machine on him, so Scratch's improve IQ, and therein his ability to talk, has NOTHING to do with Skull being there, Skull being magical or any side ideas.

So... What is happening?


I wonder if Scott is going to comment here or anywhere about the possible retcon or whatever is happening, because all this storyline is doing is making his fans confused.

Ti Chan said...

I'm sorry. Jai gave us the examples. Not sage.

Unknown said...

Quoting Ti Chan here...

----
There is something that is bothering me though. Everyone refers to Scratch's ability to speak "magical"... But that fact of it is that it WASN'T magical. If we all remember back, super smart Skull used the intelligence machine on him, so Scratch's improve IQ, and therein his ability to talk, has NOTHING to do with Skull being there, Skull being magical or any side ideas.
----

Skull's "Intelligence Machine" was household items crazily connected together, not science. If it has any ability to function, it's a result of Skull, not the laws of thermodynamics.

With skull gone, perhaps everything he touched is fading away. For example... right as skull is taken away, the "age lock" on Francis and Marcy is removed.

Just an idea.

Chris Dunning said...

Just for some continuity to the conversation (because I'm not sure who's read the other comments in the previous post) here's my theory

I'm not sure... and this is just a theory... and it may be a bad one at that, but couldn't it be possible that, without Skull in their lives, the PvP staff is loosing some of their innocence/purity/whatever it is that allowed them to see Skull? As Scott has explained it, some peoples world view simply couldn't handle a blue troll as a reality, so they choose not to see him, or, like Max, they see him as something that does fit, like a dog.

Without Skull, the PvP staffers can't accept a talking cat as a part of their world, and so they choose not to hear his words.

Anonymous said...

Chris has a pretty cohesive theory, and one with plenty of potential too. I'd like to see how that would play out if (when) Skull eventually comes back to see them.

Anonymous said...

Heh. I never feel comfortable when people start throwing excuses around for a continuity snafu. I get a sense the author is sat there going "Yeah, let's say *that* is what I meant all along.", glad to be let off the hook.

Anonymous said...

I think Chris has the right idea about where the storyline is headed..

It's not so much a retcon as it is poor characterization. Scratch has gone to great lengths to hide his intellect from the rest of the staff, so it's confusing to the reader to see him suddenly being very open about his true nature in front of the staff.

Anonymous said...

In addition to what's already been posted, there's a few more instances of when Scratch has been talking to people. Most of the time the people only look stunned and don't reply, so it's possible to retcon those into saying they only heard meowing. But that's stretching it pretty far in my opinion.

Then there's an instance where Scratch is on the phone to a pizza place and they do reply and he answers, so obviously there were people understand him and he them:
http://www.pvponline.com/2004/11/25/november-25-2004/

Here are the examples of Scratch talking to people and them not replying, but their facial expression or actions indicating they do understand him. Especially the vet:

Scratch talking to the vet:
http://www.pvponline.com/2004/09/26/sun-sep-26/

Scratch talking to a stewardess:
http://www.pvponline.com/2007/05/21/may-21-2007/

Scratch talking to a Salvation Army worker:
http://www.pvponline.com/2007/12/08/kringus-risen-part-6/

These examples, plus the Santa's helper and wolfman storylines pretty much make it a clear cut case in my book that people other than Skull can indeed understand Scratch.

Next week will tell if Chris is on to something or not. But even then it won't be possible to know if it's Kurtz responding to his fans or if it was his plan all along.

Regardless, I think Scratch talking (or attempting to talk) to Cole and the gang was a mistake. It doesn't jive with his behaviour over the past several years.

Anonymous said...

Oh, forgot to mention, it seems to me the "schmutz" coming off of Scratch is simply "action clouds" or whatever you want to call them, indicating Scratch's leap through the air at Cole's face.

Scott said...

I have edited the strip to fit continuity and posted about it on the site. More about it here:

http://www.pvponline.com/2008/06/13/thats-why-god-invented-erasers/

Thanks for keeping me on my toes guys, that was sloppy writing!

:)

Anonymous said...

My favourite edit of a webcomic archive is from 8-bit Theater. Now persevered forever in the following comic as an in-joke that new readers will never get.

"...and you were wearing red a second ago!"

Anonymous said...

Nice edit Scott :)

Well done guys.

Anonymous said...

*applause*

I gotta respect someone who can admit when they've made a mistake and then try to correct it.

While perhaps not the most awesome solution ever, it definitely does work and I really appreciate not messing with the continuity.

Thank you.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Scott's Post:
You know how from time to time, a publication needs to issue a correction to something they wrote in a previous edition? Well, I need to offer a correction to one of my own strips.

In our June 12th episode, Scratch Fury is seen speaking out loud in front of humans. In the last panel, we see that from the human’s point of view, Scratch is simply making meowing noises. This has confused many readers, as the strip seems to imply that humans can not understand Scratch’s speech.

As established in previous strip continuity, Scratch is a hyper-intelligent cat capable of real speech. If accidentally overheard, humans would be able to easily making out the certainly perfect English that Scratch is speaking.

The strip on the 12th was a huge oversight on my part. Sloppy writing plain and simple. In the last panel, Scratch is simply making nervous cat noises, but that does not excuse the point that Cole, Marcy and Francis would clearly have freaked out at hearing a cat lecturing them in perfect English.

In the spirit of the old Marvel No-Prizes, I sat down to come up with an plausible explanation that would allow me to save face and explain my error. I believe I have come up with a suitable edit. Please let me know if you agree.

We thank you for your time.


Good edit Scott, the question is what will he talk about over the weekend?!?! (i love interobangs)

Anonymous said...

Oh wait, Scott's decided to scrap the new edit.

Now that I think about it, maybe he has made the right decision. Though I hope this experience hasn't put him off taking our comments on board.

Have a great weekend guys :)

R.W.McGee said...

I think his second decision is the right one. Listening to criticism from this website is fine...but unless we catch something huge, I think he should definitely err on the side of leaving up strips as posted.

In the end, he is the one who has the responsibility of pleasing his fans, not us, and thus it should be Scott alone who is determining strip content.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

I dont think it would take him from reading our critiques, varying in quality they are, just the fact that he might not change a strip so obviously from them (even though I think fixing a type is still a good idea)

My question is how much of the "silent majority" emailed him countering his change. Im not questioning the reason he changed it, just wondering the level of response.

I did like the open version of the strip, as it did generate a discussion on whethre or no people can actually hear Scratch (like if people can hear Stewie or not) and i dont remember the discussion going to that PVP sucks now that Scratch can't be heard or anything like that.

I did like the edit cause it was a handy way of changing it without wholesale changes. Plus it reminded me of old-school comcis that use the * or the <> to refer or translate text. (like Scott's reference to the Marvel no-prize.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

u beat me to it RW!

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

BTW (and yes i know its not in the right place)
Scott are you coming o ut with any more Xbox icons or themes?

Anonymous said...

Bit off-topic but what happened to the new Ding comics? I think the last 3 strips disappeared from the site.

Anonymous said...

when scratch goes to the vet in http://www.pvponline.com/2004/09/26/

Anonymous said...

Adhering to a strict continuity isn't inherently good in itself. What's good is acknowledging previous material, and building upon it, and rewarding readers who've been with you along the way.

Bart: I wish I an elephant.
Lisa: You did. His name was Stampy. You loved him.
Bart: Oh yeah...

Anonymous said...

So people complain about something in the strip and they're told they're in the minority. Then more people complain about something in the strip that got changed and suddenly it's the majority that's speaking?

It was also nice if Scott to single this place out when there's a 4 page thread on his own forums where the exact same discussion is occurring.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Scott got even more feedback after he decided to change it back.

What do we learn from this? You can't please everyone so try to get it right the first time.

Anonymous said...

I know this is PvP Makes Me Sad, but is it okay if I comment on the latest Ugly Hill comic?

Anonymous said...

I heard a rumour that Scott got fired from his Ding! job. Is that true? I hope not!

Anonymous said...

You all need to get a life. This whole concept is completely asinine. Enjoy the webcomic. If you think you can do it better, then start your own. Every little thing does not have to be paraded in front of you all and dissected to appease you.

Anonymous said...

Changing it back to the original would be a mistake. Maybe there was a few people who didn't realise Scott had messed up and concocted their own little (completely unreferenced and up until this point never posited) theories, but I'd rather Scott continue the comic with honesty rather than embracing some weak fanboy-offered get-of-jail-free subplot.

It's funny to see Scott whitter on about how he likes to embrace the 'constructive criticism' of PVP Makes Me Sad. It only feels like yesterday he was spitting his dummy and drawing neckbeards.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Matthew L.,

I usually try to be judicial when people say things like you do but,
shut the fuck up, its a website designed for PVP criticism, turn off the fucking site if you don't to see it.

Sage

Anonymous said...

Sage, you are a pathetic human being. I'm actually glad you don't have a life, since I am sure your contributions would harm humanity. I love the way you immediately jump to "STFU n00b" mentality like a 12 year old on Xbox Live. Poor little critics can't get criticized? This site should not exist. There's enough space on the PVP boards to do what you do here, and a lot more people to boot. I'm glad you proved how pompous and egotistical this site really is by using the word "judicial". However, since this is a free country, people are allowed to say anything they desire, as long as they are willing to pay for the bandwidth. I bet you're also the kind of people that freak out when something in one Star Wars movie doesn't mesh with the rest of the Star Wars universe. Oh yeah, and if I was to leave you alone, then your idiocy would go unchallenged. We can't allow that to happen.

Anonymous said...

Scott Kurtz: "I’ve been enjoying developing a relationship with the critics at PvP makes me sad."

Read it and weep Matthew l. The reason why this blog exists is because of fanboys like you on the PvP forum. Most of us give Scott a lot of credit for being brave enough to come on here and read what we have to say.

It's just as Scott said on another subject. We're like the Star Trek geeks who are such big fans that we like to pick at every little detail.

Oh and my apologises for sage's behaviour, he knows better than to feed the trolls. :)

Anonymous said...

P.S You're right Matthew l. Jar Jar Binks are you fucking kidding me? What the hell was George Lucas thinking when he came up with that piece of crap.

Chris Dunning said...

Matthew,

This isn't an attack on you, but I do want to point out that Scott himself finds the criticism offered here helpful. He's said it several times. That doesn't make us all great at offering criticism, however it does mean that we aren't hurting anything by doing so. You don't have to visit this site to see us comment on Scott's work, and if it really does bother you that we do it, I might suggest not coming here, not because we don't want your opinion, but because you have to understand that some of he folks here are going to have negative views on some of the strip. If it doesn't bother you, feel free to join in the conversation.

Anonymous said...

AH, so not all the poster here are self-absorbed asshats on high horses. I'm glad you were around to show me that, Moomin and Chris.

I am not a fanboy, though. I just hate it when people's works are subjected to intense criticism from people who think they can find fault with Starry Night or the Mona Lisa. Not that I looked too deeply into the blog, but the highest praise I saw Scott get was essentially 'meh, it's okay.'

I really don't believe artists should get away with presenting less than thier best efforts, but sometimes it just seems like this place is finding "bad" things just to say they were there. However, as Scott said himself, which I read on PVP and here, he IS using this as a growing tool.

My point is that you guys can help Scott, and any other artist that checks these sights out too. I feel the main blog and the majority of comments are overly nitpicky and incredibly stuck up. At the risk of sounding lame and quoting a famous line, "with great power comes great responsibility." I hope you guys use your relationship with the cartoonist to its full potential.

By the way, I love being fed when I'm a troll. Take my thoughts for what they are and carry on. I am glad this place has cool, collected, and obviously intelligent posters. Hopefully they come out, even when trolls aren't around. Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Thank you Matthew l. :) it's a shame that wasn't your opening post.

I agree that there can be far too much nitpicking, but like Scott I think an artist can learn a lot from criticism. So I hope he doesn't pay too much attension to that.

When you say "you guys" you have to remember that we're not all the same. A lot of the time we disagree with each other and I think that's a good thing.

It's a young community and it's still evolving so I hope things will continue to improve and maybe you can stick around and join in.

Oh I should mention, although it doesn't look like it today, we do give Scott positive feedback on his writing and artwork. Sometimes he nails it and no one has anything but kind words for the guy.

Anonymous said...

Scott it's been two weeks since the last Webcomics Weakly (excluding the con one you recored last month). What's up with that? I've heard you have 2 in the can already, hurry up and upload one.

Anonymous said...

Hmm. Gotta say I'm disappointed about Kurtz having a change of heart.

That whole thing about "not worry if a choice you make today invalidates one you made six years ago" just smacks to me of Lucas-style revisionism. I'm sure he told himself similar things when he came up with C-3PO having been built by Darth Vader.

Then there's the argument that "the only other times humans have understood Scratch was when they were equally magical qualifiers to the situation."

That is simply not true:

http://www.pvponline.com/2004/11/25/november-25-2004/


http://www.pvponline.com/2004/09/26/sun-sep-26/

http://www.pvponline.com/2007/05/21/may-21-2007/

http://www.pvponline.com/2005/08/08/mon-aug-08/

http://www.pvponline.com/2007/12/08/kringus-risen-part-6/

And that's not counting the Santa's Helper strips, cause it could be argued that he's magical.

Ti Chan said...

I would love to bring forth something someone said on the PVP forums. stagewalker says:

"It really does come down to what the strip is about, the joke or a consistent story. Personally, I'm a big fan of continuity. By adhering to the restrictions created by past actions, characters are forced to grow in more interesting ways. But PvP hasn't really followed that path in the past. Characters have shown awareness that they are cartoon characters, and behaved in a way that is gag based.

That's totally fine, and perfectly enjoyable.

The problem is that we also have Cole's disintegrating marriage, evolving relationships, and characters that do evolve and change based on what happens in the strip. Scratch can't be understood because it's funny if he's not, but now we do have a lot of issues (Kirby being the biggest one) that either make no sense or that we must never speak of again.

Ultimately, any plot point can be tossed aside if it doesn't fit the joke. Again, there's a good history of that. The Tick is neigh-invulnerable... meaning that he can only be hurt if it's funny. But the Tick also doesn't ever evolve as a character.

I haven't watched the Family Guy, so I can't comment on that comparison, but I can draw on the Simpsons, which has taken a similar line. Characters don't really evolve past their archetypes, and they've even mocked their own disregard for continuity in the show. No one ages, no one really changes, and each episode pretty much exists in it's own little bubble... unless someone like Maude Flanders dies.

Personally, it's Mr. Kurtz's strip, and he can take whatever tack he wants. But if characters are not constrained by established reality, and the convention is that the joke rules all, then I'm going to have a really hard time caring when he wants to explore more serious issues like Cole's divorce.

(Of course, what gets really sticky is when the punchline of a strip requires you to know that everything previously established is null and void and not a clever plot development. Then it just doesn't work. Whether Mr. Kurtz meant to or not, no matter what he does at this point is pivotal in how we understand Scratch, and the strip as a whole)"

And I couldn't put it in better words.

Anonymous said...

I had assumed from the recent strip that the presence of Skull was what had imparted Scratch's ability- that the machine Skull created was impossible except via the influence of a temporarily ingenius magical being. I thought that the sudden inability to be understood by humans was a sign that Scratch was starting to lose his powers now that Skull was gone, and would face the desperate situation of having to find a way to cling to his intelligence with Skull gone. It might have been an interesting subplot.

It has been made clear that I overestimated Scott. It was just a throwaway gag that disregarded previous throwaway gags. Hopefully he at least implements something like what I had speculated as an afterthought in order to preserve a bit of integrity in the strip.

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say that I in no way have a severe attachment to Kurtz "Translated from Feline" solution. In fact, I'd rather see what Mr. Disappointed and others have suggested. To simply ignore it would be the worst thing that can be done if you ask me.

Sure, I acknowledge that there's two camps in this issue: Those who care about continuity and those who don't.

But I don't see why both can't be considered when plotting the strip. The "Skull magic" solution is a good one, as long as it's actually covered in the strip and not just in the blog.

Jai said...

Thanks for that quote, Ti Chan. I can't put it any better than that, either.

I have to add that I don't think much of the "fix", but I certainly appreciate that Mr. Kurtz tried. I would say he tried because he realized he'd made a mistake, but it seems as if he's currently of the opinion that he was mistaken to think he'd made a mistake (Or to take steps to undo said mistake). I think even less of all that - but as a wise man once said, "You must do what you feel is right, of course." No matter what is done to "fix" what happened in Freak Out, that fix will always ruin Freak Out's punchline (That Scratch is talking out loud and it is revealed that the humans unexpectedly can't understand him). I would have recommended that Scratch use thought bubbles in that strip, but that would also ruin the joke. The joke is, sadly, dependant on breaking with continuity. Which could still be developed into something that makes sense, but it is all too obvious at this point that that was never the intention.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Matthew L.

If you don't like it when people have their works criticized, then there is a simple solution, don't take it public. However, most art relies on having an audience and audiences are know for criticizing those works. This site does a good job of offering fair criticism and we often debate each other (even our lord and savior FSM :P ) about whether the criticisms are right.

I also find it funny in your retort is that "this is a free country, people are allowed to say anything they desire", but I am not allowed to say what I am.

You, along with many others, have come to the site and said such pearls of wisdom as "its just a webcomic" and "enjoy it". However, Scott even on his first mention of PVPmakesmesad said it was a place of constructive criticism (that sometimes involves "flailing"). Its like listening to a sports talk radio station and being mad that people are criticizing the baseball team.

Plus what criticism did you level on me that i couldn't handle. You said get a life (i haven't been on the computer for 1 1/2 days and havent thought of PVP in that long) and just enjoy it (which is stupid for the type of website you came to) even though you didn't look to deeply into the site.

Im sorry for the quick response, but if I had time to be eloquent and more prose filled (as I was heading out the door) the response would have pointed out the laziness and stupidity in your initial response

Anonymous said...

Getting a little tired of Kurtz using the front page of PvP as a way to get favors from readers. If a regular reader who doesn't work at Gmail can't answer his question, then he obviously wants some kind of special priveleges because he draws a barely relevant rapidly-declining-in-quality comic strip.

Anonymous said...

I see the strip has reverted to the original makes-no-sense version. Shame the tortuous reader-supplied logic has won out. I guess that with Skull gone and the cat's ability talk apparently being some mystical effect of his presence, are we to assume that the cat's intellect will also evaporate? Or will their be a special get out clause for that?

Anonymous said...

All this back and forth switching, and in the end I just liked the strip the way it was originally. Yes, I understood that it didn't fit with the strip continuity, but that seems to be where a lot of people stopped, and then everyone jumped on the "Scott screwed up" bandwagon.

When I read it though, the first thing I thought was, why can't they understand him any more. Like a lot of people I tied it to Skull not being there anymore. Now, granted Skull not being there making Scratch lose his intelligence is kind of bad, because it means no more Scratch/Kirby etc. (although I feel that bit is a little played out, especially after the Kringus episode. Not one of my favorite arcs).

Now I understand Scott has said this was meant as a throwaway, due to all this discussion, and that makes me a little sad, since I had thought what I came up with was pretty good.

Basically, the reason they can't understand Scratch is not because he's losing his intelligence, but because they're losing their innocence, or more specifically, Brent is. Think about it, Skull was Brent's imaginary friend. Generally the way that works, Brent should have been the only one who could see him, except, the thing is, EVERYONE could (except Max). Random people could see Skull, people who didn't even know Brent. Hell, Skull had his own fanboy. But all of that is contingent on Brent believing in Skull. Now that Brent's moved on, that is fading from everybody around him as well.

Anonymous said...

I only mentioned my own turtuous logic in response to Kurtz changing it back again. I was fine with the edit if he hadn't intended to make everything fit with established continuity. Regardless of what anybody says about PVP's past, this is by far the biggest continuity change since the early days of Skull's personality shift.

Anonymous said...

I'll save my comments for the new strip when FSM opens a new thread. :)

I don't think anyone has said it before, but I really appreciate FSM doing the blog for us. Has it really been 5 months already?

Unknown said...

When I read this strip, I just assumed that Scratch was freaking out so much that while he imagines himself talking like normal and acting confident, he's actually reverted to a gibbering mess speaking in Feline.

Obviously that wasn't actually what the author had in mind, but it's probably the best actual answer...

Opinionerded said...
This comment has been removed by the author.

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