Dog Eat Doug by Brian Anderson for February 20, 2010

Quiet, Sophie, we want to hear the story!

Yea, What Marg Said!

Hi, Tabby!

And now, here’s………………………………….The Rest of The Story!

Ahh shut up a yo snout, Sophie. (Sorry I just got that song in my head and it won’t go away)

Look at the expression in the bloodhound’s eyes! I literally had to force myself to move on to the third panel. I can’t wait to see how the ‘tale’ progresses. When it’s done I know I’ll be clicking back to read it all over again in one session.

Bad puppy, Sophie! You should know better than to step on another dog’s tale!

FYI: Late yesterday, notinksanymore asked whether Anderson is making this up or whether there’s a precursor somewhere.

Googling the phrase “demon cat georgia” turns up no clues. “Devil cat georgia” brings up lots of references to the Devil Cat Art Gallery in Duluth GA, but nothing (that I saw) about any sort of traditional legend. Maybe Anderson’s working in an oblique plug…

Beware of cat scratch fever.

It’s weird, as the dog is talking I swear I hear Jimmy Stewart in my head.

Newworldmozart: Me too!

The dictionary definition (yes I looked it up) of “tale” is “a type of story.” So if the bloodhound isn’t telling a story, he cannot possibly be telling a tale.

It’s about a cat, so maybe it’s a yarn…

Naw, commerce, it just reminds me of a comment made a long time ago by another Georgia boy, a certain turtle with purty gold-speckle eyes:

“These silhouettes sure saves a mess of drawin’.”

The old religion’s gods often become the new religion’s demons.

Doctor Toon said:

Ji2m - He’s a bit “tetchy” about being called JAD too.

Easier to list the non-tetchy things, but I think he was going for a homophone (tale/tail) pun. Course, I’m probably wrong and that’ll be one more tetch.

Where it seems to me that you’re falling down is that you’re using imagery and symbolism, whereas the genuine article hews closely to literalism ad absurdum. A paragraph on how we should know that the tree in the final panel is a cypress, followed by pointing out that pigs rather than dogs have snouts and the older dog should have told Sophie to shut her muzzle would have been closer to that particular form of irrelevance.

I love the line “Small items have been disappearing”, though. It’s paranoid, without explicit accusation…

The etymology of “manifest” is unclear, but apparently is a combination of Latin manus - “hand” and festus - “struck.” Something is manifest when it is obvious, clearly apparent, or “within a hand-strike”; as such, I quibble whether an abstraction such as a “disappearance” can be called “manifest.” The items themselves, certainly, are no longer manifest, being rather its opposite.

But granting the fact of the items’ disappearance, there remain the questions of agency and/or motive. Not “Where is my cheese?” (it has been moved), but “Who has moved my cheese?” and “Why has my cheese been moved?” Even if the small items reappear, these are serious questions. Quantum mechanics might account for spontaneous de- and re-materializations, but only if the items are truly small indeed. Qui bonum? Storm clouds gather on the horizon. A King will forsake his Kingdom; Life and Death will clash and fray; the Oldest Battle begins once more.

I suppose, though, I might have read a connecting thread between the three paragraphs of your post (black and white, Apocalyptic undercurrent, disappearances) of which you had no intent. Maybe I’M the one who’s paranoid. That’s what you’re all thinking, isn’t it? That’s what you want ME to think, isn’t it?

Have you read Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum?

I had cheese, but then somebody moved it. It was nacho cheese. I know that, because as they took it away they shouted “Fritz, this is nacho cheese!”

There are only three mentions of cheese in the Bible, and all three are in the Old Testament: 1 Samuel 17:18, 2 Samuel 17:29, and Job 10:10. Of the three, the last is the only verse with poetic (as opposed to documentary) value. Job says to God ”Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?” In the context of the rest of the chapter, it’s unclear to me whether this is plaint or praise, but the Book of Job is notoriously heterodox in its interpretations.

When they moved MY cheese, I suffered as Job suffered…

The only book I ever recommended that cost me a friendship was J.G. Ballard’s Crash. In my defense, I asked her whether she could handle “disturbing”, and she said “Yes.”

I don’t relish relish, sweet or otherwise. Nor mustard, mayo, onions, pickles,… A cheeseburger (rare), just ketchup or Tobasco, that’s what works for me.

I’m reasonably catholic when it comes to cheeses, though. Feta, Gouda, Edam, Jack (the only major varietal of cheese to have been originally developed in the United States, or so I’ve heard), Camembert (I don’t care how expletively runny it is), Mozzarella (the good stuff, made from buffalo milk), Parmesan, Provelone, Cheddar, even American and Velveeta (I ain’t proud). Bleu, teu, in small quantities. But I don’t care for Swiss… (There’s a “holey/angels” joke to be made there, but I’m not up to finding it.)

Doc T has two subjects which sap him of his comedy powers: cats, and his lady love. I “toon” him out (HAH!) when he gets gooey like that. I’m also not a fan of the Nuclear Coffee theme, but others seem to like it…

Oh, I also had a HUGE argument with a close friend over Madame Bovary, but we patched things up and agreed to disagree.

How RUDE to that little dog!!!