Monday, June 16, 2008

Scratch Fury: Larval Stage Supercat?

I like the call out to Alien and all, but the story has taken an odd turn, one that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Is this the beginning of a new Scratch? And what happened to the updated version of Thursday's strip? I'd love to see some one-shot strips so we can finally be done with the wedding/sex/talking cat mishegas.

(FWIW, where is the doc looking in panel one? And there seems to be a mess of spare lines in panel 2, one of which might be a motion line from Francis' arm, two that seem to be sloppy versions of the doc's belly lines from panel one, and an extra line I can't identify.)

(Update: Ah -- I didn't notice the doc was listening to the stethscope in panel one.)

(Update 2: I am quickly tiring of Marcie's kissy lips. A fresh expression would be welcome.)

I am going to hope that the title of today's strip (Hang in There) is meant for us as much as Cole.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thursday's strip reverted to the original senseless version after an apparent outcry of fanboys offering their own continuity excuses convinced Scott that in screwing up, he'd created 'depth' to the characters (as opposed to a gaping suck-hole of plot confusion). Bizarrely, Scott also decided to removed his posts referring to the screw-up -> fix -> screw-up path he danced down.

I expect the he'll be milking the cat story for a little while longer so he can wedge in one of those fanboy continuity excuses somehow.

Anonymous said...

anybody got links to the fanboy outcry?

Jai said...

The doctor isn't looking at anything in the first panel - it's just a vacant-eyed look that one tends to wear when concentrating on the sound from a stethoscope.

Those panel 2 lines are nice and confusing. Near as I can figure, the extra one (And there are two possibilities) is one of the doctor's pocket lines that drawn too long (Something Mr. Kurtz does with regularity, as it produces nice strokes and the remainders are meant to be erased). Apparently, it was too well camouflaged for the eraser to catch and eat it.

Oh, and panel 3. It didn't seem to jive with what the doctor was saying when I first tried to tell what was going on there. I get what's happening, now, but initially I thought the second wraparound of tail was some heavy jowl action. Why? Well, if the tail is wrapped tightly around the neck, then it would be under Cole's habitually-loose collar. And that collar is still hangin' loose, even with two coils of tail wrapped "tight" around it. It's just (Yet another) one of those things that the use of shading or color would clear up and make me not even think to question.

Today's strip is an odd mix of "actual medical concern" and "entirely made-up medical concern", and those really don't mesh well for me. However, the fact that it resulted in two jokes makes it all worthwhile.

I wonder how long Cole is going to have to suffer fart breath (And worse!) before someone realizes they could tranquilize Scratch. Aw, that's just me being a smartass. You go on and do your thing, Mr. Kurtz.

Jai said...

"anybody got links to the fanboy outcry?"

No. It was, as I understand it, an e-mail outcry.

Anonymous said...

Here is a forum thread, post-outcry I guess.:

http://www.halfpixel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11748

Anonymous said...

Here's how I saw the lines:

As jai said, one of the lines is the doc's pocket. However, because Francis' motion line is an arc, its tail end blends in with the pocket.

The other two lines are the doc's paunch.

Messy. If the motion line signifying a circular motion had been left out, it would have looked much cleaner. Better yet, only Francis and the vet should be in panel 2, leaving more room for a cleaner exchange.

Very nitpicky, of course :) But still a valid one!

FistsOfTinsel said...

jai,

"Jibe", not "jive".

Nitpickers unite!

Jai said...

It's so hard to say "jibe" when I could be saying "jive", instead! "Jive" is definitely the cooler word. :(

Anonymous said...

anybody think to save the alternate thursday strip? i never got a chance to see it.

wonky73 said...

What was the fixed version of the strip? Does somebody have it.

Anonymous said...

As someone in that thread mentioned above put it...

"It wasn't much diffferent. Essentially, scratch's English was put in brackets with an asterisk to a note saying this speech was translated from cat speak."

It pretty much destroyed the joke but at least it stayed consistent with everything prior strips have been telling us over and over again.

Scott's comment on that thread - "It's art. Interpret however you please." strikes me as odd, considering he'd already admitted it was all merely a result of his own mistake and not some lofty intentional ambiguity.

tim said...

I've re-created the strip to the best of my recollection, take a look:

Freak Out: The Reconstructed Updated-then-Retracted Version

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

the thing i want to nitpick was that the nipplatory system was not in danger :)

The joke was very good, as I know that doctors in real life make comments like that, and Cole's incredulity while Scratch was on his head make me chuckle, as did the fact that you see Scratchs mouth wrapped around his head.

The one thing I noticed even before reading here was where did the doctor's stethoscope go? Even if he wasnt using it any more he didn't make any motion to put it down and as a result you assumed he dropped it on the floor. A quick wrap around the neck would be good.

However seeing how often they end up at the hospital he'll have another chance :)

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