Story Arcs
- Comic
- 01. Imaginate!
- 02. The Game
- 03. Cat Tail
- 04. The Raccoons
- 05. The Adventures of Spot
- 06. Fido's Return
- 07. Mouse Mouse Revolution
- 08. Thematic Arc of Questionable Quality
- 09. The Zoo
- 10. The Grove
- 11. Housepets Christmas
- 12. The Yarn Ball
- 13. The Further Adventures of Spot
- 14. The Vet
- 15. A Mouse Named Spo
- 16. Zap!
- 17. Fall of the Pridelands
- 18. The Continuing Adventures of Spot
- 19. A Sinister Shadow
- 20. Roadtrip Woo
- 21. Down At The Farm
- 22. Money Sharks
- 23. n-ple Date
- 24. The Uncanny Adventures of Spot
- 25. The Visitor
- 26. Oops I Arced
- 27. It's A Wonderful Dog's Life
- 27.5 All the King's Men (prose)
- 28. Ocean's Two
- 29. Imaginate, Too!
- 30. The Present
- 31. Spot McCloud Presents Comics
- 32. Dog Days of Summer
- 33. Theme Park World
- 34. The Adventures of Stripe
- 35. Movie Night
- 36. Scaredy Cats
- 37. Noob Tube
- 38. Hope of the Pridelands
- 39. We're Snowed In!
- 40. The Preeminent Adventures of Spot
- 41. The Arc Specifically About Being Naked
- 42. Not All Dogs
- 43. The Great Water Balloon War
- 44. Let's Imaginate Macbeth!
- 45. The Interview
- 46. The Case of the Aztec Gold
- 47. A Respite In The Country
- 48. Spots and Stripes
- 49. A Holiday at the Zoo
- 50. Housepets Babies!
- 51. Show Business
- 52. What Money Buys
- 53. The Mall
- 54. The Critical Review of Spot
- 55. The Trial in Heaven
- 56. Let's Imaginate Guys and Dolls!
- 57. Testing Grounds
- 58. Taking Cover
- 59. PsyCon
- 60. Getting Physical
- 61. PsyCon2: PsyConner
- 62. The Retroactively Continuous Adventures of Spot
- 63. Temple Crashers
- 64. All Hallow's Ween
- 65. The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Dog
- 66. One Cat's Treasure
- 67. Love And War
- 68. Jack Of One Trade
- 69. The King and I
- Guest Week!
- News
- Comic
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Or was it?… XP
Perhaps it was.
9-tail is doin a coverup
-ish
or was it?
Nope.
Always leaving things behind to remind them…
It seems more of assurance, at least in this case. Grape’s sign was kind of subtle, while this is a pretty obvious way of saying, “THIS HAPPENED!”
Or did it?
yeah
It definitely happened.
I dunno. I have weird gold statues pop up in my bedroom all the time.
And all I ever get is jade green.
I just get cats.
All I ever get are ninja assassins.
Lucky! All I get are Reese’s.
i got a rock
You get rocks! All I get are little prices of paper with the word rock written on them. Darn you, budget cuts!
i got a metal fan
I get dust, Again, Stupid budget cuts.
I got dirt, and I had to PAY for it, and walk a gazillin miles uphill BOTH WAYS to get it!
Save that dirt, when the world is drowned it’ll be valuable!
I got Phoenix Down, whatever that is…
You got Phoenix Down? Lucky…
How many heart containers do you have so far?
Only 4. I’m weak.
Nya ha! I have eight, and I haven’t even started the first dungeon yet!
(I actually did this, isn’t that sad.)
AGAIN WITH OR WAS IT!!!!!
Go us!!
Oh man, the Kitsune is as sneaky as Pete! Except that he actually gives you something valuable, not just stupid feathers.
Define “valuable”? :/
“Valuable: having significant monetary value because of being in short or limited supply”
Hmm.. I guess that would make Gryphon feathers valuable too…
I think he means monetary value, since it looks gold.
Could be chocolate wrapped in gold-colored foil.
Hope not! He shouldn’t eat chocolate in his present form!
Dog-safe chocolate was mentioned a while back
(If that helps any)
Yay dog-safe chocolate!
The Kitsune is about as sneaky as a naked guy with a pink baseball bat trying to buy a Ferrari with chocolate coins.
in what dimension is that even acceptable as language?
All perfectly good english words, good grammer, and a vivid image that communicates well. What more could you ask for?
We could ask for the chocolate?
Chocolate isn’t good for dogs, is it?
Argent, not the normal kind, no. Chocolate made with carob (which isn’t that great a substitute for cocoa, IMO, but that may just be because I’m a picky so-and-so
) and white chocolate are fine for canines, however.
Then you have to be specific. Say “we could ask for the dog-safe chocolate”.
(and I like carob fine)
Chocolate money is usually stale though; could we get some of the fresh boxed assortments?
Let’s make chocolate! Fun, fun!
A side note: giving white chocolate or carob to dogs is a VERY BAD IDEA. It teaches the dogs to like and seek out cocoa-smelling things that they might not otherwise have had an interest in. That 82% four-ounce bar of Scharfenberger? Now it’s desirable to the dog because you’ve taught him to think so, and it’s easily enough to kill.
Maybe the new pillow King is sleeping on is stuffed with extremely soft griffin feathers and Pete just happens to be bald in the next strip.
That would be a boon for King AND a punishment for Pete’s wrongdoings.
That is undoubtedly the best reward idea I have seen so far.
I don’t know, you could probably sell a feather that size for quite a good price
Even more….
MIND GAAAAAAEMS~
Aw, man! Keep your eyes on what you’re typing! That one letter out of place totally ruins the effect
Either that or he’s playing mind games with you.
Mind gaems are mind games.
MIND CRUSH!
Gets you drunk faster than orange crush.
But is harder to get rid of than just going to the bathroom.
And Orange Crush tastes better.
Everyone saw this coming
lol I hate it when they act like it was a dream! King didn’t even claim it to be a dream!
Or was it? I think that’s a clear sign that it wasn’t actually a dream. Kit just did some magic bazoozoo on King.
I think the “that’s life” line was worth the entire arc. That and seeing Pete’s face when they accused SD of being in love.
*Plays That’s Life by Frank Sinatra*
Loot!
That thing is likely to weigh thousands of pounds, dude. XD
that meens ssoooooooooooo much money
Presuming it’s not – say – gold-colored pottery. It’s not like pets have many options for banking.
in this relm they do, just look at the feerets they own a mansion
Not really; a human set up a court-administered trust for them, with a human to run things. The Ferrets don’t own a thing; they belong to the trust.
STOP RUININ MAI LOGIC!!! >:O
SPY SAPPIN’ MAH LOGIC XO
Thoth Sappin’ Mah Logic.
My logic runneth over.
So why not just sell it to the ferrets? They have more money than they could spend in several lifetimes, so I’m sure that anything remotely shiny or cool looking is going to be interesting to them.
Trade it away, even. I’m sure that the ferrents have lots of cool junk they got bored with.
They probably do have some legal standing or are protected by some legal contrievance. Dunno, maybe they can write their own wills or something.
Wait, why are we talking about the ferrets?
Why would we not be talking about ferrets? Ferrets are awesome.
Indeed!
But of course you’re not biased. Not at all!
No sir!
The tickets are now DIAMONDS!
Anything is possible when your man smells like old spice and not a lady.
I’m on a horse.
That was REAL subtle, wasn’t it?
Darn my forgetfulness!
I also meant to say… umm…
oh that’s right, did anybody else think of that song when they saw the title? You know, “oh oh oh it’s magic, you know; never believe it’s not so!”
sorry, random
I think that was the point.
Blast, now that’s gonna be stuck in my head all day!
Yes, and I thought of the original one. NOT Selena Gomez’s cover of it.
Same. Though I’ve never heard her cover, I’m guessing it’s horrible?
not really, but I still prefer the original. That and I think Disney is closer to ruling the world than Hulu is.
And, Spirit Studios, Nice rendition of the Spirit Kitsune. You win Spirit cookies.
I mean Great Kitsune*
..But you can still have those spirit cookies.
Brilliant. You knew people were going to complain and you did a “or is it” that is actually pretty funny. I want that statue!
inb4ragequit
What a great thing to wake up to staring you in the face.
OR IS IT?……………….0.o
Yeah, i’d be happy if i woke up to seeing JUST that staring at me in the face.
OMG I KNEW IT!!!!
I KNEW IT RAWR!
Is that PURE GOLD?!?!?!…… wait, you can’t sell that. Next up “King goes to the blackmarket!”
Throughout the ages, people have found that the best way to sell pure gold is to MELT IT DOWN!
Of course, it loses the artistic value, but you were selling it because it was gold for starters, weren’t you?
quick! get Cash4Gold here right now to say something that will brainwash us into consumerism!
Isn’t that the old guy who uses commercials with younger women in them to get you to give him your gold?
Lol, those commercials are so cheesy…I bet they work too…
cheese is the best gold! other than real gold
Wait. . . did King dream the whole Fourth of July cookout, too? And sitting under the tree with Fox? :O
No, he didn’t dream anything. Great Kitsune just sent him back to his world into his bed so it would seem like it was a dream, minus the statue thing.
Maybe King “passed out” at the party, from his Orange Soda binge and then got brought home by someone there, like Fox? I guess it wouldn’t explain the whole thing, but otherwise wouldn’t Fox have a panic attack worrying where he was?
The bandaids are still on his head, so at least part of it happened…officialy
this is y these dream things r annoying
Rick y do u enjoy messin’ with us? <:o
That’s a really good question. WHAT IF IT ISNT EVEN THE FOURTH OF JULY?!
Okay I’m done with the whole “MY MIND IS BLOWN” thing now. Probably.
HOLY CRAP MY COMPUTER CLOCK SAYS THAT ITS JULY FOURTEENTH
ITS A MIRACLE
Or maybe just an error in the display to the left of the date. Did you try wiping that vertical line off?
Yes. And it worked. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!?!?!?!?
We’ve just invented a time machine!
ha! in your face everybody who thought rationaly!
oh noes, brain asplosion
actualy it asploded earlier in the commic
Ew… brain debris…
Is that what those floaty things are?
The time machine is sending them back in time! (How else could they appear in the image that caused them?)
but actually july 14th -_-
Time travel!!!!!!!
awww, I didn’t time travel…
GUYS!
No weird time travel stuff! Quit breaking the rules!
Wait, yeah the bandage is still there, nevermind.
BUT WAIT: What if it is only there to make King (and us) unsure of what was real and what was a dream? No? Yeah, probably not.
Wait, everything’s floating now! Does it mean anything?
Also, take the images out of context for a moment. King is the size of a mini-marshmallow here. Not even the smallest rodent is that small. Scary!
Micros are awesome.
Not when you’re millimeters away from canine teeth as big as a car!
Even more awesome then! if the teeth are as big as a car and you’re a micro, you’re small enough to be near-impossible to swallow; you just have to slip between the teeth and hang on…
His canines aren’t even as big as a corgi.
Ah, but they would be if he really was the size of a min-marshmallow.
But if he was the size of a mini marshmallow that would be a normal sized fox not a giant nine-tailed spirit.
Well, the initial commentor was taking things out of context.
That, sir, is why we have a world context shortage.
GOLD! Sell that quick.
Ahh, it was all a drea…. O SHI- !!
*coughs* A cop out-!
I mean dream!
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WriterCopOut
This ^
http://www.housepetscomic.com/2008/11/26/maybe-there-was-an-emu/
^ That
That was no emu feather.
^ Those
Oh wow.
That was fun, the last one was… “Yeah, you might think it is a dream, but it isn’t,…. and hi.”
That Kitsune shows he may be a GM, but he is still a trickster and a goofball like all Kitsunes.
I wonder what the reward is now? Is it the statue? Or is it going to be the friday comic we get to see?
and I love the Kitsune and I hope he shows up a little more often. Nice guy.
I also like how he gets him to start playing and paying attention with the carrot, he knows carrots attract people’s attention more then sticks. But still, very nice.
You know, you catch more bees with honey.
What carrot?
You want a quick answer? There’s a statue that’s very likely solid gold just lying there in front of king. I’d say that’s a pretty good carrot.
No, that’s a solid gold statue, not a carrot
It would be funnier if it turned out to be solid pyrite.
Even if it were made of Fool’s Gold, I’m pretty sure it’ll fetch a good price
As long as it’s a pretty good carat
Until it becomes orange, edible, and tastes good only with ranch dressing, it is not a carrot
Knowing Kitsune mythology its most likely nothing more then sticks and leaves with some illusion magic over it to make it look like the statute.
Chocolate covered with gold foil.
Or maybe carrot cake. Deliciously moist carrot cake.
mmmmmmmm…..
karrat cake
The cake is a lie!!!
Yeah i went there…
All the better; no calories and no tooth decay, just flavor…
The ice cream cake is the truth!
Then what about Cheesecake pie? It’s cake, but it’s actually a pie. WHY?!
I doubt the statue is gold. But maybe the new pillow King is sleeping on is stuffed with extremely soft griffin feathers and Pete just happens to be bald in the next strip.
and with bad luck you also might catch a bear
maybe a new character will be introduced that could be his avatar? it’d be cool, and only as unlikely as the rest of everthing
Every new character from now on will be suspected of being Ninetails.
what if he introduced an entire group or association? then we’d go crazy!
guy: its the blue one!
person: its the one with the hat!
everyone: *assorted “aaahhh’s” and other screams*
I hope they don’t. If Kit started playing and got an avatar that would be fine, but a group is too much.
I propose a competition for designing a new housepet to be Kit’s avatar!!
Shiba Inu.
Im pretty sure its fox the avatar of Kitsune…I mean, his name is FOX! Kitsune is a nine-tailed FOX!
“Tarot, sweetie…we need to talk.”
i dont get it
“I already told you I don’t date humans”
“Already t– you mean all of that actually happened?!”
oooooooohhhhh thnx ; )
i wonder if that statue is solid gold
He could drill out much from the bottom without damaging the artistic merit of it! =D And that much gold would be likely to weigh thousands of pounds …
Artistic merit…of a many-tailed fox flipping you a G-rated version of the bird?
Could probably cut a seven-figure deal if he sold it to the Ferrets though. They love shiny things. But then what would King actually do with money, you can only buy so much delicious Rick Griffin’s fursona-shaped ice cream.
I didn’t interpret the gesture that way … I thought it was more like a kid making a weird face for laffs. XD
No, that’s the bird. Kind of like when people do the whole whole thumb-on-the-nose-fingers-waving-thing. It’s kind of a joke, but still the bird.
That pulling-down-the-eyelid gesture is a Japanese thing, I don’t know what it means exactly but it’s clearly impolite when Anime characters do it.
It means “Nah nah nah nah-nah!” and *stick out tongue* completes the gesture. Kind of like a “get me if you can”.
At least, that’s what I interpret it to be in anime.
*concurence*
I have a feeling when he rushes out to grab it, it goes
-Poof-
No more statue.
Maybe it’s got the map to the missing Milton millions in it?
And then he follows the map and finds out it’s in Lake Michigan after all.
http://www.housepetscomic.com/2010/01/18/pool-of-tantalus/
1060 W. Addison Chicago, IL 60636
Congratulations for Rick; a dream sequence that is clearly shown not to be a simple dream sequence, a nice tie in with Grape’s dream sequence, and an answer of sorts to the question of physical bodies and astral planes, all in one.
Also, something for Joel/King to look forward to. He’s been needing that.
Now, is Pete still around or is King now alone in the house? (Or, for that matter, a different house?)
Ooh! Maybe he’s living in Tarot’s attic or something! It would also fully justify the statue being there!
I doubt he’s in Tarot’s attic. Assuming that it wasn’t just a dream, as I’m sure we can all agree, having King is Tarot’s house would come dangerously close to her interfering with the “third party” or “enemy player.”
I’d guess that Tarot has free will and COULD take him in; and that it’s only the Spirit Dragon who can’t directly intervene.
Theoretically that could work, I suppose, but that still seems out of character to me. Even disregarding that, though, King has a nice-looking dog bed with his name on it; It’d be hard for Tarot to come across one of those on such short notice without help from the spirit dragon (unless, of course, more time than just one night has passed).
Well, that’s why “Could” instead of “that seems likely”.
Sabrina then (assuming she’s not the Kitsune’s avatar… wait even if she were, it would work; the Kitsune isn’t forbidden from interfereing)
Yeah, but again the issue of the dogbed with his name and the crown drawing on it? Most people don’t have a spare dogbed, just the one(s) that their dog(s) use, right? Plus, even if it was a “guest dogbed”, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t put his name on it.
Hence why I said “living in”. It’s possible quite some time has passed, since the bump on his head seems to have healed.
To be fair, dog beds are pretty readily portable, even if you don’t possess supernatural powers.
yes, but I highly doubt that too much time has passed, because people would start going out in the forest looking for him like they did when Zach dissapeared, ESPECIALLY since King keeps telling Fox about how bad his “dad” is.
So, I find it pretty unlikely he is anywhere else but in his own dogbed in his own home.
Sorry, I was not coherent enough to put this into words last night.
Oh, it does seem likely that he’s at home – but say that you had a friend who had just had a blow to the head, who then got wildly drunk on a rather small amount of intoxicant, who then wandered off into the woods, and whom you then found unconscious.
I’d call an ambulance or try to get him (or her) to a doctor. If that wasn’t an option, then it’s time to get him to bed, to provide warmth and supportive care, and to watch him in case he vomits in his sleep (which could easily suffocate him if he wasn’t being watched) or something else happened.
Depending on the situation, that might be at their place, at my place, or at a friends place.
In Housepets, since “Gaspar” may no longer be anywhere to be found, taking King to someone else’s house – where a sympathetic human who could summon emergency assistance if it seemed justified would be present – would be logical step. Picking up King’s own bed along the way would be a minor courtesy.
Ergo, the speculation that he might be at someone else’s house.
I see what you mean, but, just to nitpick a little, if “Gaspar wasn’t there, how would they get their hands on King’s dogbed without breaking and entering? And I don’t see the point of putting someone’s name on a guest bed.
Again, just nitpicking, you made some pretty good points.
Either Rick intentionally put King’s name on he dogbed o confuse us as to where EXACTLY he was or, more likely, he is (once again) astounded that we focus on the most minor of details, almost completely ignoring the fact that everyone is actually just a game piece is the ultimate form of D&D.
And yes, I AM nerdy enough to wish that I could play it.
Well, we already know that Pete didn’t lock his door – otherwise Fox wouldn’t have been able to just open it.
Going in and picking up the bed would still legally awkward for a human if anyone wanted to make a point of it – but there are some (few) advantages to not being legally responsible for much.
I do like to think that Rick pays careful attention to his details, and hopefully enjoys them when readers do the same. At the very least, it means he has their attention…
And the cosmic nerds did note that they simply used pre-existing universes as gaming locations – a bit like going to a park for a bit of live-action gaming and letting the other visitors be backdrop.
Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that (the door being left unlocked all the time). As a matter of fact, licks seem to be in short supply in this neighborhood: remember the first time the racoons showed up? “The salesman was either very good or very bad at his job”.
And also, how many games can you play where the npcs can surprise even the GM? I’ve never LARPed before, so I don’t really know that much about it, but a world where the NPCs can think for themselves? That throws whole new meaning into the roleplaying aspect. God, I am SUCH a nerd.
With all those dogs I bet licks are NOT in short supply at all.
*whisper whisper*
Oh, wait… nevermind.
No, not nevermind, I want my licks!
Sorry, that was supposed to be locks. DARN YOU FAULTY AUTOCORRECT SYSTEMS!!
What? Doc Prower doesn’t get his licks?
Well, locks are mostly useful in making a break-in more noticeable. With the number of pets and ferals around to be witnesses, their value as a deterrent goes way down.
There was a much longer segment on locks in the comment thread… here: http://www.housepetscomic.com/2010/06/23/king-knock-the-phone-over/#comment-30876
1) alright fine, maybe some licks,
2) I highly doubt most of the pets would bother breaking in if the door WAS locked, so… I forgot where I was going with that. But yeah. That’s what I meant.
Oh, I didn’t mean pets. We were informed that Fido has stopped some burglaries though.
ooohh that’s wierd waken up in some1 elses how it happened to me once i was scared cause i didn’t know y i was there O_O *shudders*
But you probably had a reason for it, like being drun on Orange soda… wait a minute…
he he close ^_^ i wuz drun on sumthin else (non acoholic)
How cool to have a golden statue of a kitsune. How disquieting to have it perpetually swearing at you in sign language.
I so want a statue like that! ベ〜ダ！
そうですか。おもしろいですね！！！
“Ho Ho It’s magic, you know…”
“Never believe it’s not so”!
it’s magic, you knooow never believe it’s so
never been awake, never seen a day break
Leaning on my pillow in the mooorrring.
XD
lazy day in bed, music in mai hed
Oh sorry.
(Ahem)
Crazy music playing in the mooorrriinnggg light.
I don’t know that part either
Of course, I kept quiet instead of posting “something something so-omething in the mo-o-o-orniiing light” 
I also didn’t know some parts of the song. Like most songs I listen to I look up the lyrics online.
well lets continue
*ahem* oh ho ho it’s magic you knooow
never belive its not sooooo
*some sort of special effect thats cool looking*
it’s magic you knooooow, never believe it’s not soooooooooooooo
to lazy to look up lyrics
i dun need to ai got them memerized ;P
If King was actually just dreaming, when did he begin dreaming? His bump is still taped up from after his fall.
So, it was just a dream.. Or was it? Gee now I really can’t wait to see what comes next.
But the bump is cured, so time has passed. How much has happened?
Not sure, but I’m guessing Tarot took him home.
Panel 7: “Ugh.. Not gonna say it… Not gonna say it…”
Panel 8: “…But he knew I was thinking it. >_<"
Heehee, that’s pretty much it!
Have I mentioned recently how much I like your comic strip?
You can never say it enough
especially now; this arc’s scared a couple people away.
wut about 3 or 4 *NOT sarcasticly*
…if that thing is pure gold, then I think its a nice start! XD
Interesting, I wonder if King will become this enemy player or something else? Either way there are prizes, two guaranteed in fact, based on what the Great Kitsune said.
We’ll see about the statue… but the current story arc definitely is pure gold
I believe we all win in that regard. ;P
ughh… you… just made me… lose.
More socks! Win!
No, my dryer imp does that for me.
That’s what you think.
or do they?
WE MUST DESTROY THE TUBE SOCK MENACE!
QUICKLY! TO THE MATCHES!!
Nice, I thought something like that might happen. On the other note, that statue is awesome.
OH SNAP
Oh, that’s brilliant! Perfect Kitsune-ness! =D
Also I really like that guy’s attitude! Couple that with the face I still wanna hug, and he’s likely to be my favorite character here … and I don’t often choose favorites.
i wanna hug stuff
I always wanna hug stuff. Too bad most stuff doesn’t wanna be hugged. XD And by stuff I mean people.
Or at least cartoon critter-people, but I can’t really hug them anyway.
it would be awesome if we could
i no wut i’d hug (2kinds)
YAAAAAY NATANI! *MAN-GLOMP*
Just make sure not to *MAN-GLOMP* on Flora, lest you be *TEMPLAR-ed to the FACE!* by Trace!
Then it’s a good thing I’m a dog person.
natanes mai fav caracter in 2kinds thats y im tryin to have lucid dreams of 2kinds ;D
Then perhaps you should try Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx”?
OMG COOL THNX XD
Heh it seems like my sister changed her pic just for you, sonic! XD
(see bottom of comments)
OMG THAT’Z SO NIZE OF HER ^-^ thanky
Oh right, the other thing I wanted to mention is my first thought after thinking of how cool that statue is, was that he better hide that thing from Pete ’cause he’d never be able to explain it — but DUH! *laughs at self*
*lafs at u*
ok guys … the thing i was actually hoping was to find king at a table, with pete and tarot and kitsune actually playing the game …. but king would have kind of exagerated the whole thing cause of the soda ……. i really didn’t want it to be “a dream or was it”
…
but it’s still nice
Maybe he was just drunk; it would explain the huge cans of soda
EVERYTHING IS A DREAM
*in deep vioce* how r u sure? *_*
Wait, everything? No! Don’t wake up! It’ll make my computer disappear!
EVERYTHING’S A LIE.
WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE.
The cake is a lie!
Or the statue is a cake. Ever think of that?
mmmmmmmm….
karrat cake
almond flavor actually, or arsenic, depending on how GLaDOS is feeling…
*sigh* It was a SONG LYRIC.
You’ve got to dream a little dream.
I hope the poor little guy manages to get out of this for once. Methinks the worst has not happened yet.
some how king is goin to end up in the middle of everythin
His bump shrank exponentially in this strip, from still a big bump to gone, does it make it a large time difference or another ‘gift’ from the Kitsune?
Maybe spending some time in the astral plane heightened his healing ability. He should hurry and see if he has any temporary powers! =D
Or his growing bump in the Astral Plane could have been some sort of metaphor for something (like increasing frustration with the situation or something.)
That could work too!
maybeh both?
Yeah, the bump is gone, but the bandage is still there, indicating that he must have been there for a while…but where is there?
I’m pretty sure it’s just a bruise going down. They can do that after a day or so. So, maybe it’s morning now, and it went down a little? Just because there IS magic doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING is magical.
Interesting point. And he was just seeing the bump as big because that’s how he felt it throughout the night?
Pretty much. I don’t doubt it hurt, so it probably was worse than it looked. My guess is that in the astral plane, your feelings can affect your appearance, and if so, doesn’t that say something about King? Just saying.
You make it sound like when you’re a jerk the astral plane turns you into a gryphon x3
The bump was pretty big before he went to the astral plane.
Yeah, but it was going down. (at least, I thought so.)
and it might be morning already. Swelling tends to get a lot less dramatic after a few hours.
Secondarily, it is nice to have confirmation that there is something in the game for the mortal players.
Whatever-it-is is likely at least a trivial bother for the magical players, otherwise Pete would have no (apparent) reason not to throw in the carrot as well as the stick.
“Yeah sorry about the whole ‘you got turned into a dog against your will and your human self is now a wanted felon’ thing. Here’s a giant a gold statue to make up for it.”
Which isn’t how the game is supposed to be played. After all, the Great Kitsune’s general statements about rewards were not limited to King; he just said that King was getting an extra reward to “compensate for Pete’s wrongdoing”.
It may or may not have anything to do with the statue.
The Statue is most likely nothing more then a trick its not real. Knowing Kitsune mythology its most likely just sticks and leaves with a spell over it.
I wouldn’t assign TOO much weight to Kitsune mythology; Pete is hardly a classical gryphon.
In any case, most classical Kitsune were simply foxes that had learned a bit of shapeshifting and illusion magic, not “Higher-Order Beings” with powers which apparently include genuine transformation (otherwise it would not take a seperate act of magic to turn King back into Joel), Time Manipulation (otherwise there would be no need to forbid it), the ability to handle near-limitless amounts of information, access to infinite numbers of dimensions, and essentially limitless resources.
Thanks to Wiki (yes I know it’s not the most reliable source) I have actually stumbled upon an interesting fact: “Physically, kitsune are noted for having as many as nine tails. Generally, a greater number of tails indicates an older and more powerful fox; in fact, some folktales say that a fox will only grow additional tails after it has lived 1,000 years. One, five, seven, and nine tails are the most common numbers in folk stories. When a kitsune gains its ninth tail, its fur becomes white or gold. These kyūbi no kitsune gain the abilities to see and hear anything happening anywhere in the world. Other tales attribute them infinite wisdom.”
Yep. At least according to most of my sources, the thing was that – in various japanese and chinese stories – pretty much ANY animal could wake up to sapience and start practicing magic – usually starting with transformations and illusions.
Thinking and practicing magic was, of course, unnatural for animals, making any of them that did so a bit of a violation of the natural order. That’s often been translated into english as “monster” or “demon” – thus, for example, the chinese tale of the “goat-demon” who set himself up as a godling and healed people.
Personally, I suspect that “Naughty” would be just as good a translation, but I don’t speak Japanese; I just read old stories.
In any case, given time – just like an ancient human sorcerer – such creatures could gain in power, and would often display that power in various physical signs. Using the thousand-year figure, a nine-tailed fox would thus have been practicing magic for eight thousand years – probably long enough to have fully mastered it and to have learned almost anything it considered worth knowing.
Thus the shapeshifting badgers, the tale of the rabbit, the badger, the hermit, and the earthen boat, and many more.
I think it was saying that the fox would only start growing extra tails after it’s lived a thousand years, not that they grow a tail for every thousand years that they have lived.
Some folktales have them growing a new tail every hundred or so years, so by the time they’re a thousand they have all nine.
Yep – but I just went with the thousand year figure because it was mentioned. I suspect you can pretty well master most fields of study in only a few hundred years – or even within a normal human lifetime if you’re talented enough.
Have you ever had a dream, King, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
…I’m sorry, I just had to put that.
Well, is he a butterfly dreaming that he is a man, or a man dreaming that he is a butterfly?
Neither, he’s a human stuck in a dog’s body…
http://instantrimshot.com
It’s a classical reference:
The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, “Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?”
i enjoy quotes like that, but i don’t have time to look for them, so i just try to say stuff like that myself. anyway, didn’t alice of alice in wonderland the book repeatedly say similar things about dreaming?
Both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass strongly implied it, but Chuang Tzu was a great deal earlier.
i should hope so, or else our leaders are simply copying 9 and 3 quarter year old girls
I always thought Chuang Tzu was a bit of a ditz.
Can’t argue there. But Zen again…
http://instantrimshot.com
well simple dreams r often distorted so look at like a clock hand or sumthin then u’ll no ur dreaming abd have a lucid dream
Perhaps a more modern-day analogy would serve to delive master Chuang’s message more simply: Hook yourself up to a machine that simulates reality. Now imagine that you “wake up” from the simulated reality, and go to leave. Half-way out the door, you “wake up” again. The guy running the machine apologizes and sends you on your way again. The experience feels exactly the same. How will you ever be sure that you’ve really “woken up?”
I still say “The Thirteenth Floor” is a better version of that than “The Matrix”,
“The Thirteenth Floor” better than “the Matrix”? Interesting. I might take a look at that now.
(Adds to list of movies to see in the Summer)
Also check out “Open your Eyes”, the third movie about that general theme that came out about that time.
I have heard of that but have not been able to find a copy of it around on the cheap. Personally, I don’t think either would be any better than the book The Reality Matrix from 1986.
I know what you’re thinkin’…I been thinkin’ it myself ever since I got here…
…why, oh why, didn’t I take the BLUE pill?
Hey you got it. XD
It’s OK Mr. Reagan, we’ll take care of everything.
…So no one gets the quote I posted?
Morpheus would be so disappointed.
We got it, but felt that it was perfect just the same.
But I’m sure the statue scared the bejesus out of king.
At least its not the clown from Poltergeist. XD
Morpheus… or Cowboy Curtis!? YEEHAW!
Well, Megatron, V (from V for Vendetta), and Elrond are all actually Agent Smith.
HAVE FUN BEING UNABLE TO STOP INSERTING “Mr. Anderson” INTO HIS SENTENCES WHENEVER YOU SEE ANY OF THOSE CHARACTERS EVER AGAIN!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA– *hack* *cough*
sorry about that.
But seriously, what’s up with his forehead?
“It seems… Mister Baggins… that you’ve been living two lives…”
http://www.acc.umu.se/~maswan/AgentElrond/
OMG YOU’RE RIGHT! I never noticed that Elrond was Agent Smith. Well, Elrond is a pretentious… son of the Noldor (srsly, either the Noldor or the Sindar/Moriquendi. Read The Silmarillion).
Yeah. When Frodo is recovering in Rivendell? EVERY OTHER WORD that came out of his mouth was immediately followed by a “Mr. Anderson” in my mind.
Well… That was funny. Who here thinks that Pete will do whatever it takes to get King on his side. Or he might just pretend nothing happened at all.
Why am I not surprised this arc took the laziest way out
Please get back to the real comic now that the bad trip is over
hey no reason to be mean >:0
Not sure why you’re complaining, the statue makes it amazingly clear it wasn’t a dream, unlike the more subtle hints usually invoked when the cliche form is used. That makes it not the cliche form.
no, it makes it a good cliche
a cliche none the less
More a lampoon of a cliche.
Eh, parody. Or something. Lampoon isn’t the right word. He acknowledges that it’s cliche enough that people expect a response, but when he denies that response for a joke that makes fun of the cliche, it becomes more interesting.
at its heart, still a cliche
A subverted (that’s the word!) cliche. Despite the fact it plays off of an overused concept, it still feels fairly fresh.
I agree … I probably will pretend this arc/the last few strips have never happened and return to the real Housepets! universe. And I guess as an artist, Rick most likely appreciates the cheers just as much as the boos
And, I said it before (but at the repost a few days ago the comments got wiped), this is the only time I wanted to criticise anything on Housepets! ever since the beginning, and that’s a praise from me, FWIW.
So, the whole “release Pete from imprisonment” thing never happened, there was no King, and Joel is still a human waiting on his lawyer to represent him at court where he’ll be let out with “time served”, without anything to make him consider he possibly may have been misguided in his blaming animals for his problems (read: character development)?
They’re all connected, and make it pretty obvious Rick intended them as an integral part of the overall story. The problem with dismissing something simply because you don’t like it is that the whole becomes a big mess.
[/soapbox]
Now, I wasn’t particularly enthused about this arc in general, but like with the tooth I had pulled last year, I’m not going to duck into fantasy and believe it didn’t happen.
When King first appeared, I was a fierce advocate of “this is all a dream, obviously sent by Pete to mess with Joel’s mind” What made me realize it was actually happening was Bino’s explosive gift. There’s no way Pete or Joel could’ve known Bino had been wanting to do that since the previous year.
If Pete was limited to normal sources of information, how would he know about Joel at all?
Googling on catsuiter forums.
Wouldn’t that be Joey?
Joey would probably know what his brother’s up to, but hardly anyone pays attention to him, so he’d take it out on a forum.
This is all hypothetical anyway, right?
Not with respect to Joel. With respect to Joey, I hope so – although he would probably LOVE being an avater; think what his D&D sessions might be like then!
Yes, I would rather have had them return King back to the forest to hang out with the other people, freaking out the whole time, which would have been pretty funny, but I still think this is a good wrap-up.
Until you are ready to write and illustrate your OWN DANG COMIC, don’t criticise the guy who actually writes and illustrates HIS OWN DANG COMIC.
That was at Eisfuchs by the way. I have no problem with people who have CONSTRUCTIVE critisicm, but the people who just say “that sucked I hate what you’ve done go back to what I like NOW and forget about where YOU want the comic to go” that really just… how do I say this in an at least PG rated way… cause me to explode in inordinate amounts of rage that are likely to be considered out of proportion to the situation that inflamed my temper. Was that okay?
no
Just like a real kitsune
Hmm. His hints on things not being a dream are more…
….
… overt.
Does a baseball bat to the head really count as a “hint”?
Compared to a live grenade down the (nonexistent, for King) shorts, yes.
well that acid (sugar?) trip is over…I noticed Pete still has the bump on his head
u mean king
Actually it’s not swollen anymore. The bandages are flat now.
Um… does anybody know a good reason why one would put band-aids on a swelling, anyway?
Cartoon first aid. Crossed band-aids are amazingly effective for cartoon characters.
Well, to pad it against additional (painful and potentially aggravating) contact, to keep any ointment (either soothing, or – if the skin was broken – antibiotic) you’re using from rubbing off or getting stuff stuck in it, or to stop any bleeding (also if the skin was broken). Things are bad enough having to work on furry skin anyway.
Of course, it’s also a cartoon convention for showing an injury without actually getting graphic.
du any of u watch doctor who?
So Joel died and regenerated into King? Would make some sense.
wut no, i wuz wuderin if u watch the new eps. of it
cuz there wuz one where they had to figure out witch one wuz a dream but then they figured out both were a dream and woke up
I do… but cuz of school and my summer work I can’t follow it all the time, but still cool.
Course here in Hungary we’re late by one season, I only just saw the Runaway bride ep. XP
lucky u still get to see david tennet but anyway did u see the blink ep.?
The last episode of David Tennet was so incredibly amazing. I will miss him. He was my favorite.
I know that episode was EPIC it was so cool O_o
The one with the “angels”? No we’re not so far in the story yet. XP
they made a new ep with the angels it’s not as good as “blink” though
WHY DOES THIS MAKE ME THINK OF WAREHOUSE 13?
makes me think of K-Pax
Lol I like the “Beh” look on the kitsune idol.
It’s like “Dallas” all over again! (But funnier)
Or was that “FalconCrest”? Sheesh, it was so long ago, I don’t remember.
Patrick Duffy in the shower was Dallas…as was “Who shot J.R.” Answer: It was Kristie!
“Panel 7″ The bump finally went down
.
That statue… I want it.
This seems like it will be fun.
So what is the point of this game anyway?
I know they used the dungeons and dragons metaphor, but everything seems more “Sims”-ish to me. The great spirits pick a world to occupy, take in ‘avatars’, and then simply live out their lives.
Unless the game doesn’t actually start until all players obtain a full avatar. But then that only raises more questions about this game. Rrrg.
But I guess if we knew everything right off the bat, it wouldn’t be very fun.
Good points there and true, what I’d wanna know is what was with the arena stuff and all? I wouldn’t like King and Tartot fighting. :p
Yeah cliffhangers and tension is always fun. X3
I think of the arena more as a set of challenges, a contest if you will.
Think “Survivor with mind-blowing riddles and Zero-Gravity Football”.
Yes, zero-fravity football. Stop judging me! I CAN FEEL YOUR JUDGEMENT!
I think Rick is “winging it”.
It was stated that they had a “Duel-Pact”. An “Arena” usually implies some form of conflict. Grape as first choice for Pete’s avatar may imply some form of violence, since it’s one of her major talents.
Ergo, some form of personal conflict seems likely. If so, we have getting set up and maneuvering for advantageous positions going on with the conflict, and wrap-up still to come.
yes, she has an aptitude for violence, but she is also pretty tough and pretty smart and physically fit. All of which would be useful in a set of “Survivor-esque” challenges.
The point about the “Duel-Pact” and “Arena” implying conflict stands, though. Hmm.
Okay wait, backing up to when Pete was first released, the forest animals said that Pete would usher in a new golden age, so that either makes him some sort of savior, in which case he’d be teaming up with the dragon to save the universe, or an evil villain who wants to recreate the world, which would mean dragon would have to use Tarot to fight him off…which actually might make sense since dragon is trying to prevent Pete from getting a full avatar…my head hurts.
all conjecture.
I’m pretty sure they’ll conjecture even if you don’t tell them to.
I’d guess that the forest animals have their own mythology and their own beliefs that may be entirely unrelated to Pete and the U&U.
Well, as noted at the time, “Ancient” and “Ancestors for Generations” may mean “Two or three years ago” for wild squirrels and rabbits.
Secondarily, Pete is a demonstrated dream-sender who has no problems manipulating others. The “Forest Critter Faith” may simply be a plant designed to make potential avatars and pawns trust him.
As far as Grape goes, she is indeed “pretty tough and pretty smart and physically fit” – but those aren’t especially unusual qualities in predatory pets in the Housepets universe. On the other hand, it seems like most of the pets – like most humans – tend to hesitate to use violence, and – when they do – most of them likely aren’t all that good at it (most maulings have apparently been fairly one-sided – and Jinx and Spo are both apparently still alive, whereas Karl-Lenin-Faust is hors de combat of – or hors de voure as the case may be).
Human armies spend a lot of time and money trying to teach new recruits the violence-prone qualities that Grape is starting with.
That’s still only a theory of course, but it’s the best one I can come up with for “Why Grape?” at the moment.
obviously, peanut is a key figure. why else would SD and Pete want avatars with romantic relations to him? it has to be a way to get at peanut. that is realy the only thing tarot and grape have in common.
Except that the apparent “in-game” reason for Tarot showing up to start a relationship with Peanut was to keep Pete from getting to Grape.
If Peanut was a central figure, it wouldn’t make much sense for Pete to ask why Spirit Dragons avatar was still with the dog; both he and the Spirit Dragon would know why – and that there was no fooling each other about it.
Now, it does look like the Spirit Dragon has developed some personal feelings for Peanut, but that seems to be an after-the-meeting thing. Fair enough; emotional compatibility can show up anywhere and doesn’t need to make logical sense.
1) i read the past few strips realy late so i was like a colonder and details were like water so i didn’t catch that part.
2) its possible (unlikely) that she chose tarot to keep pete away and get closer to peanut.
3) maybe peanuts use was exhasted, pete gave up on grape, but SD kept tarot for amorous purposes.
perhaps peanut was objective 1, and someone else who is friends with king (fox, sasha) is objective 2
…. i think this is all very ulikely, too
Or maybe Peanut’s still the key, but because Pete was unable to get Grape he thinks Dragon’s cheating by keeping Tarot close to Peanut.
Oh, it’s quite possible – I’m just not sure there’s anything we need that particular hypothesis to explain.
And of course Rick could be “winging it”.
Whoa, deja vu.
I think it was yesterday; there were comments that, like in D&D, there are multiple mini-objectives, and you can keep playing so long as you can keep making objectives up as you go along. Mini-objectives we’ve seen have been getting Peanut and Grape together (for Tarot), and getting someone to open the temple (for Pete)
But that doesn’t make clear what the final goal is. (And I never really cared for side quests in games anyway.)
i think its a metaphor about how the universe is run
Now that King knows that he needs to play along to receive these ‘awards’, the goals of the game might become a little more apparent.
Ok, first of all, I gotta say that is the PERFECT response right there, before King can even consider “was it a dream?”, Great Kitsune has the perfect answer for King right as he opens his eyes.
Second….. I am a bit surprised (though glad) that King didn’t get his memories of the event changed/erased. I have had quite enough of webcomics, normal comics, and even movies playing the “we will conveniently erase his memories in order to continue the status quo” route. Though I am confused why they would just pull somebody into their cosmic reality/dimension or whatever, tell him everything, then send him back with this knowledge intact…. the “nobody would ever believe him anyway” excuse only goes so far… (Not that King seems to be the kind of person to actually talk about this to someone anyway).
Agreed on the memory erasing part man, that irritates the hell out of me as well. XP
I suppose the point would be, even if he told someone, even if everyone believed him, what, exactly *could* anyone do?
The problem is, it would throw a severe wrench in the works for all those playing, even if they can’t really do anything about it.
Why should it throw a wrench into the works? It would complicate some situations and simplify others – but that’s all a normal part of play.
Basically, why should “one of the complications is that some of the locals know about us” be anything unusual or uniquely difficult for them?
Honestly, I was looking forward to some interaction between normal HP! characters. I’m glad it’s all over now. Nice meeting kitsune, though!
HEH DREAM sequence!!! X3 Don’ know why but these kind of things always irritate me cuz it takes your sense of control away… But I still love it awesome job! X3
I just love this ninetails guy, hope he’ll return later on… BTW should this statue realy compensate poor King for all Pete did to him so far? A nother game with a cheap reward right? … Ummmm, a cheap reward made out of solid gold, but get the idea already! XD
Wahaha! You called him Ninetales again!
Now, sense of control? Since when do we have any control of what goes on in the housepets universe?
“There is no control; that’s the illusion!”
Haha…Jurassic Park…
Yeah I DID cuz he is a ninetails! (And not ninetales as ya said. Ke-ke-ke-ke! X3)
… True, but I STILL controll YOU… ummm not you, but HER… okay maybe not her but I surely controll HI… nope specially not him. Okay I give up, ruin my fun willya? :p
I love that chaos guy. X3 … I mean his style, but you understand what I mean… right? >.<"
That was a typo. I have no idea how the “e” got in there. Maybe I just need some sleep…
I got so far to know it’s a typo don’ worry bro. XD
Well then GO-Go NAU!!! X3
Expanding on what a couple of other people said, I think making that statue into, like, a brass-plated miniature or something and putting it up for sale would be a very successful endeavor.
Of course, plastic would be cheaper…
Maybe it’s like the Maltese Falcon. Gold painted plaster with a real gold statue inside it.
Like those Russian dolls, with one inside the other? (Argh! Can’t remember what they’re called. Not just “Nesting Dolls”…)
but you know, with a shiny gold nugget in the smallest one?
Matryoshka Dolls.
Thank you. That was bugging me like ALL DAY.
This is just like The Matrix or Total Recall it’s all a dream O.O
While The Matrix is ostentably fake, there are many “or was it” moments in Total Recall; it might just as well have actually occurred
Im just going to have to go with beautiful. cant wait for the next few one offs and arc. unless this ones not done. in that case how many left in it? i miss peanut and grape D:
One consequence is that Pete/Gaspar will probably have to move out and sell King, hopefully to a better owner… the Sandwiches, maybe? Probably not to Jerry Arbelt.
Or the one with the chin! dan.. dave?
actualy i just thought how ironic that would be. having him around the police dogs :3
You mean Bill? Motorcycle cop guy, right?
I don’t get it, why does Pete have to move away? He still has to be in Babylon Gardens (Gaspar is his manifestation, but not his Avatar), so he needs a plausible reason for that. He can’t steal another pet from somebody else in Babylon Gardens, but he can make them his Avatar while thy live with someone else. Owning King lets him stay in the neighborhood, and thus the game, without raising suspicion
“You are forbidden from … entering the arena …”
If “the arena” is Babylon Gardens or Earth, he’s back to working indirectly through dreams.
Oh. Um… Yeah.
Hadn’t thought about that part.
Partly because I can’t stop thinking of the Arena as another holodeck thing.
*puts hands up* CALLED IT!
Was “its” line busy?
-_-
i finaly got that!
…..
did you call it something nice?
I wonder now.. since pete can now longer affect directly trhe life of King.. who will be his new “owner”?
I wonder if the kitsune will go commando as “GASPAR” (the other guru from chrono trigger) lol
1) go commando as gaspar? What?
2) I thought PETE was gaspar?
3) I can totally see Great Kitsune making Pete be a good pet owner as punishment for messing up King’s life in the first place, since he isn’t allowed to change him back.
Pete was never a “bad owner” to begin with. With the exception of taking away Joel’s name, he’s done everything a responsible pet owner should up to this point. The only reason we don’t like him is because he wouldn’t let King go to the barbecue.
But now we have a better understanding as to why he couldn’t just undo the transformation after King started learning his “lessons,” because of his role in Pete’s game. How their talk with Kitsune will affect the rest of Joel’s life as King, we don’t know yet.
Both human beings and pets – especially talking, intelligent, pets – need a good deal more than simple physical care. They need to feel secure, to feel loved and appreciated, to belong to a group, to like themselves, and – eventually to feel some sense of accomplishment. They need to have goals, even if they’re relatively simple ones.
Pete has apparently never gone past basic physical needs, has intentionally undermined any sense of accomplishment King might have had, (“Who ever said ANYTHING about changing you back?”), has been emotionally abusive, and has isolated king from any friends, family, or sense of purpose he had as a human.
Even if King had started as a dog, that would still be neglect at best. As it is, since Pete intentionally put him in this position, it’s abuse.
Pete’s a lousy pet owner.
while i agree, i should point out that king, unlike the other pets is an adult, and dosen’t need the same type of attention.
I agree. It’s true Pete was a conscientious animal caretaker, but not a good pet owner. A pet is a creature treated as a beloved family member, usually coddled and sometimes even spoiled. While King would not want or appreciate so much as a hug from the man, a pet needs emotional positive reinforcement of some sort.
Which gets me thinking; did the human Joel actually have any real friends? Why would he risk stealing a wolf to return him to the forest, unless he was trying to impress someone? He doesn’t seem the type to have been a true fanatic about that sort of thing, so I have to imagine he was either trying to impress the guys, or to impress a girl who admired guys who did things like that. (Maybe if I went back again and reread his history again, it would make more sense.)
I dunno, someof the pets seem pretty grown up. Fido, for example, seems to be the oldest. And while fox originally tagged along with Bino, he is a heck of a lot more mature.
fox and fido seem more like good buddies with their owners than children
@howls like a wolf: he did it for PETA
Well lets see…
NobodyYouKnow: Humans – and presumably sapient pets, who seem highly compatible with humans – continue to need those things right up until death from old age. There’s disagreement over the heirarchy of such needs, and children are more vulnerable to deprivation than adults, but they are fairly universal.
Howls Like Wolf: Joel was apparently working for animal rights (despite some issues with personal contact with animals), wound up in jail for reasons as yet unknown that showed up on a background check and prevented him from rejoining the ASPCA after his release. He joined PETA because it was the only animal-rights group that would let him join without a background check – and was going along with Fatty because Fatty was in charge and because Joel hadn’t even attended orientation.
His dossier is over here: http://www.housepetscomic.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=199
Oh, secondarily, Fox is not a wolf. I believe the general conclusion was that he might be a husky.
Otherwise… Who said they were or were like children?
I think it’s because they referr to their owners as parents and because a lot of them, especially near the beginning, acted about 8 years old. Peanut, Bino (some of the time), and even Grape (mostly when playing pretend) remind me of kids the most.
Bino despite the fact that Joey is his YOUNGER brother.
Oh, I understand why the comparison: I was unsure of why it was being considered related to this particular set of comments. Ah well. Perhaps we need to install a topic drift meter?
Only because “no one else would have him without a background check.”
Note that the actual quote is “…forbidden from doing anything more to king or entering the arena…” I would assume that this doesn’t preclude psychic communication or stuff like that. It could, I guess, but Pete would be completely unable to do ANYTHING in that case and the match would be forfeit.
I’m speculating without base that Pete will let King be a stray for a while and then offer to take away everything that he’s going through as a dog if only he’d be an avatar. Or he’ll find somebody else and King will still have a brief period as a stray/in pound.
Honestly, I was expecting more out of the Kitsune. Come on, a solid gold statue? You can do better than that, YOU’RE THE GM!!! It would’ve been better, and slightly more ironic, if he just woke up to a can of soda and a card from Tarot. I’m just sayin.
Maybe it’s vorpal?
if it aint vorpal, it aint dead. no way no how
Why assume that the statue is anything more than the Kitsune’s sticky note saying “It wasn’t a dream!” (stuck next to King, presumably, on the theory that King doesn’t need any more confusion)? The “Reward” could be something else entirely if it’s even somethimg tangible.
well i dont see why GK wouldnt kill two bird with one stone. i doubt he wants to give him one valuable thing, much less another in addition to the gold statue.
Because a gold statue is of relatively little use to King – even if it is gold, and not simply gold-colored. As noted above, it could be foil-covered candy, cake, pottery, iron pyrite, an illusion, or a wide variety of other things.
After all, even if it is gold, and he had an easy way to convert it into money, it wouldn’t help with most of his current basic problems – like no legal rights, no way to own property (or money), shortened lifespan, legal problems (if he ever does get back to being Joel, he might get a better lawyer – but would then have to explain where the money came from), and so on.
just because its of little to no value to king doesn’t make it not a reward.
Nope – but something that wasn’t of much value to King wouldn’t be much “compensation for Pete’s wrongdoing”
missed that detail too
well, we dont know what its made of or whats inside anyway, so we can’t asume its worth to king
I still like the “Candy” theory myself. I’d kind of hope that the “reward” was a little more personal and permanent than a simple physical object even if it might be made of valuable metal.
i doubt its anything other than gold, or it will ever be mentioned again
I want that statue. XD
Pilot – Oh Ho Ho, Its magic, you know, NEVER BELIEVE ITS NOT SO! I love that song XP
we are still doin a big thing on that in the comments up there -_-
I’m a bit confused as to why everybody seems to think the statue is the supposed reward, I didn’t even consider it until others started mentioning it.
I mean, think about it, what could he possibly do with it? What would a dog do with that kinda money? Especially someone like him? Not to mention that a GM of his reality, who is a frigging Kyuubi no less, can come up with something much better and original than simply a monetary reward/gold statue….. of himself essentially flipping King the bird in a rated G way. I highly doubt its valuable anyway, I saw it as nothing more as a snarky way of saying “its not a dream” to King before he can even question if it was, chances are we won’t find out what the reward was until next strip….. or next appearance of King if the viewpoint shift to another character in the next strip.
This.
And the statue is probably chocolate or something else useless.
never call chocolate useless!
Very true!
He’s a dog, he can’t eat chocolate.
Except if its white chocolate
Well, we do know that Grape can safely consume chocolate-covered espresso beans (and gets the standard cartoon high-speed vibration from doing so). Evidently animals in the Housepets universe have fewer biophysical differences from humans than real animals – indicating greater compatibility with humans, and each other, than is normally the case.
I think that was an exception; possibly because it was extreemely small ammounts of chocolate. But the Halloween strip from (if I remember correctly) the inaugural year, and the strip where Sasha “sorts through” Fox’s present, both confirm that dogs can’t eat chocolate unless it’s a special dog-safe chocolate.
Unfortunately, the expresso beans are just as bad.
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+1677+1684&aid=2238
Caffeine is quite similar to the toxic chemical in chocolate. Commons source include caffeine pills, coffee beans and coffee, large amounts of tea, and chocolate. The symptoms typically begin with restlessness, hyperactivity and vomiting, often followed by panting, weakness, drunken gait increased heart rate, muscle tremors and convulsions. A vet will usually induce vomiting, administer activated charcoal, and provide supportive care with fluid therapy and medication.
I figured out as much. Perhaps the right answer is “It’s a cartoon! If Bino can survive falling from a third-floor balcony, then Grape can most certainly survive expresso beans for the sake of a joke.”
[forced laugh]
“useless” is a pretty good description of something that’s a potentially deadly poison to one, though.
Dog-safe chocolate. SO THERE!
deadly dosen’t equal useless
it equals useful in a bad way
IIRC, isn’t one way of counteracting poison with…. another poison that has the opposite effects? Thereby ingesting both nullifies the poisonous effects of either one, when either one alone could be harmful or fatal?
And the Akwardness begins! xD I wonder how King would react when he sees Tarot? XD You think he’s going to blurt out that Tarot is the Spirit Dragon? I doubt king would do that on the fact that Pete would tell King to keep his mouth shut! X3
Would Pete turn King back to Joel in front of Fox to make sure that Fox would depise him for lying to him the whole time? Is this one way that Pete could lose that extra luggage and get fox to be his avatar? I’m sure Pete would be pretty upset at King for altering the game. He would do everything to make sure King would be far more miserable than he is now.
Though, these are just theories, but it’s fun to throw out ideas!
Pete WOULD do that. Unless King manages to come clean to Fox… maybe once once Fox gets to know him better, he might forgive King. Meh, probably not. Ignore me; I get weird when I’m tired.
Sorry, the whole turn King into Joel in front of Fox thing is what I was referring to.
I suspect that Fox has already figured out that King is easily towed around by almost anyone – thus dragging the socially-isolated friend to a party – and has had plenty of time to think about the fact that one of his kidnapers was protesting and supporting his arguments.
He may not have known which one apparently “escaped” at the time, but I’d be surprised if turning King back to Joel would really make him mad at Joel. After all, Fox puts up with BINO for friendships sake.
Son of a-
biscuit eater.
biscuit-eating bulldog. (Orbit, I believe.)
what the french, toast?
And now, folks, my story is ended
I think it is time I should quit
If any of you feel offended
Stick your head in a barrel of
Shaving cream, be nice and clean
Shave everyday and you’ll always look keen.
Benny Bell with Paul Wynn – Shaving Cream.
what is the relevance?
(i hope that doesn’t sound rude)
I’d suggest starting at the top.
15% chance i get it
If going from progeny to buscuits and French toast is valid, going from that to shaving cream should also be valid (as long as we don’t cross over “the line”, I guess).
Depends on the rules you’re using, London (Tudor or Wimbledon), New York (via the Edison and Tesla variants), or Colonial (pre- or post- reformation).
son of a biscut eating bulldog and what the french toast are both lines from the orbitz commercial
… Awkward…
Before I go, I just have to say that this reminds me of that one episode of Futurama where Fry got stabbed by the bee and died but then Leela kept dreaming about him and he kept asking her to wake up.
Then it turned out that the stinger had gone through him and into her and she had been in a coma… the… whole time, OH MY GOD!
Wait… crap. Epiphany gone.
And on that note, G’nite!
thats kinda weird cuz ive ben watching that (im up to volume 3). haven’t got to that one yet though
Darn, sorry for the spoiler than.
ill get over it
“That would be telling.”
“we want information. INFORMATION.”
I AM NOT A CORGI, I AM A FREE MAN!
/60s series reference.
The Prisoner
You know, when I found that there were 200+ comments only 4 hours after the comic was posted, I realized: Too many people hang around the website waiting for it to update. I’m one of them.
Anyway, not sure if this whole arc will have an adverse effect on the rest of the series, but I doubt Housepets is going to delve any further than this.
Also, Rick, you REALLY like calling up old jokes, like Mr. Bigglesworth +10 and the old man who only spoke in limericks. And now this.
…
Now we get to see Peanut and Grape again! Wheeee~!
I just happen to be pulling an all-nighter. When I saw it was 1 AM, I remembered and came here.
Also, I don’t consider them “old jokes”, Rick simply was planning that far ahead
Some of us also happen to live in other time zones, you know. For example, strips are usually posted around 8am where I am. Perfect for checking them before beginning work.
Yup, and in Ontario (EST), the comic updates at 1AM…just a bit to late for my liking unfortunately…
Only 10 pm where I am. I don’t EVER get to sleep THAT early.
11:00 on my end, wich is cool because after 2 weeks ive officially transfered to nocturnalism. i go to bed at sunrise and sleep till 4:00
king gonna strut through this game and end up winning that reward.. for the rest of you.
Haters gonna hate
WANNA PLAY A GAME???
*robotic voice*
How about a nice game of chess?
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Bishop to Queen’s Bedroom (the Rasputin Gambit).
I see what you did there. I COUNTER WITH LEVEL 4 INEPT CONSPIRATORS!
5 aces!
Let’s see, under Tudor Court Rules I can beat that with New York Public Library and a hotel on Leicester Square.
it was ms scarlet in the kitchen with the knife!
Dangit, 3 jacks. I didn’t need a shronk.
Don’t forget, if you’ve got at least 30 armor in any single stack then jacks are wild.
ha! trump card! go back to base and don’t come out unless you role a 1
My pH is too low for a base!
oh
Unless you’re making soap, and you don’t use enough fat, and you end up with high pH soap…
In which case, the cake is a lye.
Wouldn’t that make you a lyre?
Are you giving me the bird?
Anyway.
We already determined I’m not a base.
I mean, really, Leicester Square to NYPL in one step? that’s obviously an acid trip.
This comment “thread” gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Then you win forever!
OH GOD IT HAPPENED TO ME AGAIN D:
The reward is the statue in panel 8. D:
(Yes, i’m joking)
Funny, I was thinking it WAS the statue. =P
Especially given the nice bed he’s in, I’m guessing a certain family might’ve adopted him.
Oh, I do hope so!!!
is dog days of summer a common expression?
if so, what does it mean?
The hottest days of summer. Usually it’s connected to August when Sirius, the Dog Star, appears over Europe at night. The expression dates back to the Roman Empire, and they thought Sirius had something to do with the hot weather.
oooooohhhh. i wandered why i had heard it before
…that is EXACTLY what I would do if I was a spiritual being.
OR IS IT?
(Oh god, I can’t believe I just said that.)
So, where does King go from here?
Nice touch leaving the statue, GK. But with Pete currently banned from “the board”, who’s gonna be King’s owner/dad/mom?
only time will tell.
and by time i mean rick
and by tell i mean show in comic form
and by- no, thats it
Mysteriously vanished? Is now a stray dog? Or… uh…
I can see King continuing to act like everything is normal, he is fully capable on his own, just vertically challenged.
So long as he can mail-order dog food online, all he needs is a credit card.
My guess is that he’s been adopted by another family…. possibly Fox’s.
if i want to know more about kitsunes, should i look up kitsune lore or kitsune mythology?
Yes, though like most legends and folklore there are going to be some contradictions in accounts.
wich one?
I think he means both; but take ‘em with a grain of salt.
no, should i look up the former or latter? that was my original quarry
Let me rephrase then: look for both
(or hunt for, since you’re using a quarry)
Look up both. The two can get hard to distinguish at times. Take any information you may find with several grains of salt.
thnx
So…does this mean he’s NOT going for walkies with Sasha?
Depends on when the “dream” part started. It was obviously after he fell downstairs. I think it was in the forest.
I hope they still go for walkies someday ^^
Of course you do.
Hmm…. Lets start a vote on what you think the first gift is! Cause we all know the last one will be him given his human form again or stay doggy forever. Either or. So the first one? I think it’s Sasha’s love o.o or everyone’s respect.
I don’t think they can manipulate everyone to the point of respecting him, but more than likely to keep him ‘playing’ he’s being teased with the notion of being human again. Seeing how popular king is, its unlikely he’ll be going anytime soon.
It would be awful to lose everyone favorite Corgi
Well that could. Remember what the Kitsune said last comic. It doesn’t matter if they want it, if it’s for the greater good. But other than that, I guess it could be Moving in with Fox? since Pete is no longer his owner?
It’s also against their free will rules. They can’t manipulate peoples minds or change their opinions without their consent, which would be weird if everyone or even just Sasha and/or Fox were to find out about the spirits.
King COULD move in with Fox, but then King would be in constant fear of being found out since Fox’s dad is part of the police department, and I assume the K-9 unit comes over every once in a while.
The ‘reward’ Kitsune talked about is either materialistic, or spiritual for King and only King.
Or possibly something he wants for everybody. A splendid opprotunity if Rick has come to the point where he wants to revise one or more of his world assumptions a bit.
Of course, we still don’t really know whether or not the Housepets universe normally has any magic or psychic powers beyond those innate to dolphins.
I’ve been leaning towards “limited psychic powers and (possibly) a bit of magic” (if it’s possible to distinguish betweent the two), but the actual evidence is scanty enough that it could be used to support several other theories.
Occam’s Razor says that if all dolphins can do it then it’s probably not limited to the dolphins. Any solution that can be found by evolution once is likely to be found multiple times.
That’s one of the reasons why the “limited psychic powers and (possibly) a bit of magic” is currently the most attractive theory.
Some of the other bits include: that most of the pets seem to accept Tarot being demonstratably and powerfully psychic withough a murmur, that Joel/King accepted Tarot “being psychic” as a normal enough explanation, that no one finds the dolphin’s abilities all that extraordinary, that a trace of such abilities would help explain why (for example) the local ferals speak english (when an imported otter apparently speaks it’s own countries local language), how the small animals (such as mice) all get around the frequency and volume problems with their varying voiceboxes, and a variety of other minor problems which are only important to those who find amusement in compiling details.
“how the small animals (such as mice) all get around the frequency and volume problems with their varying voiceboxes,”
Not to mention having a brain the size of a pea.
And how the wolfcubs can be playing chess when they’re only a couple of years old.
Ah well; that only requires more efficient neural architecture, which might also help explain the learning curve (if not the reasons for human dominance).
Rick did note over on the Dossier thread that it wasn’t direct telepathy, but it might still be related – or it might just be the nature of the Housepets universe (even if I find that a bit unsatisfying since it means there’s no puzzle to amuse myself with).
“how the small animals (such as mice) all get around the frequency and volume problems with their varying voiceboxes”
This raises the question: how do those animals deal with all the ultrasonic devices we have around? Or can they just not hear them in the Housepets universe? Or are they made even higher-pitched so as not to get complaints from them?
@Argent: The actual brain size is not important, if it’s still big enough compared to your body
And, we don’t know how old the wolfcubs are. They could be only months old for a compounded freakiness effect!
That sounds like Poul Anderson’s novel “Brain Wave”, or Bruce Sterling’s “Our Neural Chernobyl”, or several others… the thing is you wouldn’t expect humans to be some kind of exception… why aren’t humans all 200+ IQ geniuses if a brain the size of a mouse’s can be sapient?
Telepathy could explain it… the animals are sharing their minds, and borrowing information from the humans around them. They act the way they do instead of some kind of Martian hippies because they’re taking their cues from their humans.
They’re brains are bigger, compared to their bodies, than tose of real mice. Look at my avatar and then look at Spo. Radically different.
Of course, their brains would have to be bigger than humans’ brains (proportionate to their bodes) to allow for the… uh… sapience explosion at the few months of age
…or they could undergo synaptic pruning earlier (see Freefall for an interesting take on what happens when it occurs later) or something. I’m no neurologist, so there may be other possibilities left to consider. I guess I’m just saying that just because we can’t think of a way for it to happen, doesn’t make it impossible.
The problem with the Telepathy theory is that they’d have to act differently around different people, because what you can get out of each person is different, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.
If Telepathy operates through the Dirac continuum then similarity of structure is critical but distance is almost irrelevant. See Toynbee, Korzybski, and Gosseyn’s papers on non-Aristotelian implications of symmetry-breaking handwaving when walking Mach-Planck networks.
Okay, you weaseled out of that one.
“But I’m a ferret!”
Gah! Whatever.
What happens when the person they were (for want of a better word) leeching their knowledge off of dies?
They’re hooked into the Jungian collective subconscious, first to their family, then their breed and species, and then to all animals everywhere. If their family is a different species, well, that just broadens the mind. Someone like Peanut has a mind so broad it needs its own zip code.
That’s why they’re obsessing over The Game instead of how to overthrow the human leaders.
Besides, brain size relative to body size only indicates how much of the available neural capacity is devoted to running the body, it doesn’t expand the amount available. A very small brain simply won’t have the information-processing capacity or storage capacity it would need to support a human-like consciousness – unless it has a radically different neural architecture (a finer-grained structure) or most of the processing requirements can be offloaded. Given that Rick has established the existence of an astral plane, it’s possible that the brain is only the link between the body and the mind in the Housepets universe, and most of the actual sapience is handled on the Astral level.
That might be a good explanation for human dominance actually; if the astral aspect can handle personality, facts, and data storage (and presumably “grows up” as the physical body does), but actual processing requires physical neurons, then humans will be much better at logic, foresight, and similar functions than most members of other species – even if they do learn and mature more slowly.
Or else Rick is winging it!
Whoa, deja vu!
Always possible of course, but no fun to try and figure out.
I think his last reward will be realizing that he doesn’t want to be a human again!
Or realizing that he really really does…
BAHAHAHA “Or was it?”
Best…. whatever that was… ever 83
And now I must steal the statue as my avatar.
But it’s not as cool as my MS Paint’d Black-and-White-Villain Kitsune avatar.
darn your supirior avatars!
And tomorrow King will hunt you down for stealing what was obviously his… that is, if he notices it’s missing…
OK… he was in the forest and now he’s in bed…
King:
“Hey Pete, can we move that statue? Its giving me nightmares!”
That would be a real Shyamalan.
“Sure, King!’
*CRASH*
*EXPLOSION*
“PETE! WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT!”
“I moved it. Into low orbit. What, wasn’t that what you wanted?”
Not sure what Shyamalan has 2 do with this, But I meant that something will be in the back of King’s memory telling him that statue has been there for a while (a month? … or since they moved in?), regardless that it may have popped into existence just now.
And @ Val.
Yea, Pete’s probably gonna be mifft enough… (at King and/or the Kitsune) …to do that!
Shyamalan’s schtick is (or was, before he took to jumping sharks for a living) that extra twist at the end, the unreliable narrator or the misleading clue that the audience only gets shown the real meaning of well after the setup. That the statue had been there all along so that King can rationalize what happened as a dream … but we see it as proof that it’s NOT a dream … that’s a “Sixth Sense” kind of twist.
Setting aside the joking comments I just made, what Great Kitsune said in panel 3 makes me think that he, too, is concerned about Joel!King.
“That’s life. Deal with it for once.”
Y’know, like accepting responsibility for your actions and not blaming others, like Joel had been doing prior to running into Pete (and a bit during it, too).
Well, some compassion for creatures which are – from your viewpoint – small, helpless, and injured – is fairly normal.
Unless you’re Pete. Then you just laugh.
What’s that little green thing Joel/King threw into the air in the first panel? And why wouldn’t he want to become an enemy player? THAT WOULD BE AWESOMESAUCE!!!
It looks like the metaphorical game pieces are drifting off in the distance while King gesticulates at Ninetails in the foreground.
awesome opossom
Because it would apparently be helping Pete?
I think its a die
The little green thing, I mean
DIE!
Err…That’s what it is. A die (plural: dice).
So umm… what prize did he get? The kitsune statue?
We don’t know! Rejoice in the infinite possiblities of the unknown!
I think I caught something….
Kitsune just manipulated the rules to not change King back because he is trying to make King HIS avatar O.o
Great Kitsune is now my favorite character for that last panel. Good job with the Japanese culture-like thing! ^_^ (It reminds me of one of those “lucky cat” statues…)
Maneki Neko? It…. actually kinda does…
http://www.google.com/images?q=kitsune+statue
Well well
did I or did I not see this coming?
(for the record:I did!)
Anyone knows what the little green bal is in frame 1 (just above King’s right hand/paw)?
One of the dice?
I was just thinking that. Also: I’m betting that the paper floating nearby is a page of the rule book.
It’s probably the cheracter sheet we saw earlier (you know, the one where “GRA|” is scratched out and replaced with “KING”)
we all asume Gra to mean grape. has anyone considered something else? it could have been gravatar as a pun on avatar. i know thats kinda stupid. can anyone think of anything else?
…wow… I see smaller details but NOT the paper
It’s WAY too small to be one of the dice. Can you imagine those GIANTS trying to roll something THAT small?
it could be far away, or shrunk for dramatic effect
I vote far away. Everything’s floating in this strip
Ustain: WE’RE DRIFTING OF!!!
I most certainly do not stain!
Rats are dry-clean only!
Darn my tendancy to think in two dimensions!
*BOIT* I just also noticed something (well, I noticed it a few minutes ago but then the web starting being cranky…). Um, Rick, dunno if this really is enough to alarm ya, but panel one has a period at the end of a bubble instead of nothing or some other punctuation mark…o _o o_ o
OMG it does! PROPER GRAMMAR ALERT! CODE RED! CODE RED! *drinks Mtn. Dew* CODE RED!
Mtn Dew Live Wire’s better
Wut?! D:
(Sorry, didn’t understand the question.)
Spirit’s being funny, Elwood’s stating an opinion, and I was referencing the way the comic usually is: When a sentence normally ends with a period and it ends the text in a speech balloon in “Housepets!”, there is no period, like many comic strips (good example: Garfield).
And my late boss says I’m lousy at improv.
@FuRrY321
*Gets out purple puppet* Neee-Yowm! *Slides puppet hand quickly over top of puppet head*
bryan regan is 10x funnier
I understood you perfectly fine, FerreTrip.
*gets angry but fails to turn green*
darnit…
What I was referring to was when Elwood said “Mnt. Dew Live Wire’s better”. I’d never tried the Live Wire flavour before, so when I saw the comment I thought it to be a different drink altogether. It doesn’t help that people around here don’t use proper grammar… >.>
That wasn’t so much bad grammar as bad marketing, Mountain Dew has been trying to pass itself off as Mtn Dew (spelled short like that) for about a year.
Live Wire is the Orange-flavored and colored variant of Mountain Dew. It’s newer than Code Red (which is cherry flavored) but older than Voltage (which is dark blue and who knows what the flavor is).
Heck, I don’t even know what flavor Mountain Dew is supposed to be. It tastes like Mountain Dew to me.
does anyone know why raspberry flavored things are blue?
(i think i said this earlier but i don’t see it anywhere)
I just skipped through almost the entire comments again D:
*shrugs*
You know, it’s not entirely implausible King could be in someone else’s house. That label on his bed looks like it’s just some paper that was slapped on it.
That’s par for the course for their beds, Peanut and Grape have similar tags on their ones.
I think he’s in Tarot’s house.
I don’t know what to say. I’ve read the comic at least 10 times this morning and I’m still sitting here speechless.
Sorry. No witty comments or insights from me today.
Oh no!
I want King’s bed. :3
ME TOO!
Oh come on! It’s just a basket! Why do you want that?
Well, they might need to go to heck in it. They might as well have a comfortable ride.
But where’s the reward?
Will be coming soooooon. I think it’s moving in with Fox
Or getting Sasha has a girlfriend cause she realizes Bino is an idiot
Oh, I think she knows it. The time she “got smart” in the doghouse – at least to me – confirms it. Besides, King’s done so much for her already, including keeping her warm and comfy when her owner kicked her out (again), building the aforementioned doghouse, etc…
Why, it’s almost like they’re a couple already!
I FINALLY realized that at least part of the purpose of the doghouse is that she has someplace to go for shelter if her dad kicks her out again.
Wait, maybe I’m just over-analytical, but was there some other purpose? If it was to establish a relationship, why would King be needing to make drunken approaches at a party?
On second thought, I KNOW I’m over-analytical – but what were you thinking it was for? An alternative theory is always good!
I just thought it was a cool gift, I never really thought about it. I can be a little slow sometimes…
It’s been happening slowly at first but now I’m almost certain that the great kitsune just overtook king as most beloved character in my book. His toothy grin and thoughtful relaxed style are just too great. Though I do wonder how Grape and Peanut will play into this as they were referenced as some importance
My first comment here, and I have to say I’m loving this surprise turn in the story. So we are all toys in someone’s game, and we may or may not be their helpless pawns. And only King, the one who hates dogs, knows that the game is afoot in the first place.
I can’t wait to see how this story unfolds. Good work!
That’s a bit cruel.
I don’t see how. Bad things happen in life, you need to learn to deal with them. The Great Kitsune is already telling King that he’s in for at least two rewards (there may even be more if King plays along).
I meant teasing him with the statue in his room.
Again, I don’t see how. He’s promised King some sort of compensation for what Pete did to him. The statue is likely there simply because the Great Kitsune has a sense of humor. Besides, if King also finds it funny (or reassuring) then it’s far from a cruel thing to do.
Never mind. Obviously I can’t explain it properly.
Why? Joel/King now knows that he will be getting something out of this, that there are “plenty of rewards AFTER you earn them”, that some of those rewards are apparently good enough that a cosmic entity thinks them worth mentioning, that Pete isn’t allowed to mess with him any more, that at least the Spirit Dragon is willing to change him back, and that at least two of the three major supernatural beings involved with his universe are apparently benign and agree that he’s been mistreated.
Judging from what little we know about Joel’s history, and how we’ve seen Pete treating King, the last few strips – even with being locked in a cage, a fall down the stairs, a blow to the head, assorted rejections, and making a complete fool of himself – may still qualify as the best day he’s ever had.
300+ comments and I didn’t catch a single Cowboy Bebop reference. I am disappoint.
I think everybody dropped their anime bombs back when Kitsune first appeared.
I probably can’t recall which one it is, since it’s been so long, or it’s because I haven’t watched every single episode, but…all I know is that if there WAS a ref, it would probably be to Spike. (Or maybe Fey.)
King is kind of like Ein…well not really but they are the same breed.
You know Rick, that title made me want to revisit some of the old music my dad listens to. Of course, instead of doing that, I just listened to the newer versions (i.e. I got the urge to listen to “Take Me In” by Petra, but instead I listened to the Kutless version).
hahaha, sounds like something I’d do if I were the kitsune
King – you need to go ask Tarot what it’s actually like being an avatar, some time when she’s being Tarot…
He knows, he just cant remember…
http://www.housepetscomic.com/2010/07/12/slave-to-details-2/
panel 8?
I don’t think that level of direct control is actually compulsory. Tarot doesn’t give the appearance of being pushed aside like that: there’s no confusion when her eyes turn from green to gold at the end of the imaginating.
Just for the sake of playing “devil’s advocate”, it could be that Tarot has just gotten used to it, the way Pete said to Joel!King that everyone gets sick on their first astral teleport, when they arrived in Babylon Gardens.
Because I want Spirit Dragon to be a “good guy” (so to speak), though, I’m going to say I prefer it being more voluntary than what Pete did to King in the last strip.
I lol’d so hard at “OR WAS IT..?!”
now I really want that kitsune statue. Whether or not it’s gold, it’s pretty awesome.
“Always playing by rules you didn’t agree to.” … The Game in real life? By existing, you are always playing “The Game”… xD
…I lost.
Be free!
http://www.xkcd.com/391/
+1
“But that’s not how you play The Game!”
Oh Peanut, thy words of wisdom shall be remembered for the rest of my so very, VERY short attention span.
get over yourself.
JK
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.
the Gravatar of cute evil… epic.
I love how this is just like what happened to Grape, and the fact that he made gold statue of him self like that ;p
Rick, if you’re reading this, I just want to say how much I LOVE the Kitsune as a character. I’m practically falling love with him! His expressions and attitude of being calm, confident, playful, stern, and just a bit smug/cheeky make a wonderful mix. :3
God I love that Kitsune. He’s so…well, awesome.
Alright if one of those rewards ends up being some sort of spiritual enlightment thing, then I vote the kitsune worse GM sinse General British.
Only Paul the Oracle Octopus can tell us when King will be back to human again!
Dr Who might be able to help reverse the magical effects on King!
And yes I just love Kitsune’s grinning expression!
That is the best waking-up-after-dream-or-was-it EVER.
King: “I can never remember why I bought this statue.”
http://www.housepetscomic.com/2010/07/14/never-believe-its-not-so/comment-page-1/#comment-35928
THE REWARD AT THE END OF THE GAME IS CAKE.
mmmmmmm…karrat cake
Then have him yell out “The cake is a lie!”
Considering the ingredients are more harmful than a fire, yes, the cake IS a lie…
Fire tried to burn mah Companion Cube…
BUT IT FAILED
Companion Cube used stand in place
ZOMG! It’s super effective!!
BEST RESULT: King didn’t remember a thing when he woke up, but THE STATUE!
Also, after reading all the comments that talked about how the statue’s expression was supposedly offensive somehow, I was inspired to go look up ASL swears. Thank you Rick and the Housepets! community for inspiring my quest for knowledge.
you wanna share the knowledge?
Okay, just thought, how would Spo react to this? Reminds me of the whole
“Your owner is a dork”
“You don’t even know which one is my–”
“IT DOESNT MATTER, DOES IT?”
he’d commit king
I meant if Spo was the one being shown all of this. I’m sorry, I don’t seem to be very good at projective telepathy anymore. Hmm.
he’d commit himself
SOMEONE FOR THE LOVE OF GAWD MAKE A KITSUNE IDOL ICON! YIP!
look up
This comic just gets better and better! Does anyone else feel the desire to travel in time just to read the whole series from beginning to end?
Cal: Nerd!!!
*hits Cal over the head with a skillet* Quiet you!
I’m sure there have been other people here who have delved through the archives.
I think he means forward, so that he can read what was, what is, and what is to come.
But who shall play the ghosts?
i volunteeer to play future! black robes are cool.
Ah looks like king had a mid summer nights dream lol
hehehehe nice one! now king is going to be confused
wow what a crazy dream OR WAS IT is obviously what its kicking at
I love the kitsune “I got my eye on you!” statue! I want one!!!
I sooooo want to see more of that kitsune and his hijinks.
Crazy fox… and he’s RUNNING this game? Ho boy….
*facepalm*
hey rick did you ever work with or meet with a uy named Victor moscoso cause I just saw a documentary on comics and he mentioned you
I will quote my gallery profile:
“I am not the surfer artist Rick Griffin who did posters and comics from the 60’s to the 80’s. The name is a complete coincidence.”
i one met this guy with the same name as me and it was kinda funny cuz he was like the exact opposite of me
“Naughty, naughty birdy!” *ZAP!*
and that kids is why you dont drink anything at a party
not even if you bring it yourself
“But mo-o-o-O-O-O-o-om! I’m thirsty!”
“Hush up. The grown-ups are talking.”
“That’s only funny when Johnny says it”
“As I was saying, when I met the dutchess…”
“she invited me to play croqet with flamingos and hedgehogs”
aww rick why’d u erase my comment
Now now, don’t automatically accuse Rick!
It could have been Foxstar or I.
And it probably went because it broke PG rating, or it didn’t add to the discussion in any way. With us regularly getting over 500 comments these days, things need to stay a tiny bit more organized. Understandable, right?
organized? I don’t even read half these replies because they are all unorganized! xD
Gotta love that sly fox face
there is no statue. only your mind. free your mind!
“Do not try to bend the spoon, that is impossible. Instead try to realize the truth.”
“No see look, all you have to do is get some leverage, and voilà! Bent spoon!”
“You aren’t really getting the point, are you?”
“There’s a point?”
only knives forks sporks chopsticks skewers and toothpicks should have points!
I don’t dare. It keeps going out and hauling more random junk home to stuff into my head, and there’s only so much room in there!
Oooweeeeoooooooo…
Okay… I’m now totally lost and a bit freaked out.
Does this mean that…
“Life is but, a DREAM?”
No, life is 42
Life is a magazine.
As is Time
merily merily merily merily
tell you the truth king kinda looks like (in the first panel) he’s controlling the little ball in the background.
i wonder if king realizes that the kitsune said UNFORTUNATELY he exists meaning the kitzune is saying king shouldn’t exist.
I think he means it like “Unfortunately for you, that fact that you exist means you are Always playing by the rules of reality, whether or not you want to.”
Rick tries very hard for this comic or at least i would think so what are ur thoughts?
the first time i saw the statue i thought it was poorly drawn but then i looked at it and realized it was just a realy weird position, especialy for something made of gold and i thought why thats not bad artistry at all!
700
no! snatched from me at the last second!
It was about that time….reality was reintrodunced into King’s story. Then again, those 3(Fox Dragon & Pete) are apart of a bigger reality, allowing them to con….and then………………. :S confucious….
And then there’s an even bigger reality: ours!
and then theres an even bigger reality… (place reality here)
I want to read a story by Spot (Superdog). I’ve never visited a fifth-order reality before.
Oh, snap! Deniability DENIED!! XP
Hm…. solid gold?
Hmm…… Pawn Shop, here I come!!!!
For some reason I dislike the ‘Wake up’ panel
lol no time to even say “it was all a dream”
also theres far to many comments here for just 1 webcomic