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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*looks at the gallery* Cool! =P
“Fine art is the beauty of that single fleeting moment of explosion.”
BUT! “Fine art can also be something wonderful that’s left long into the future… eternal beauty.”
Ah, yes, the eternal argument between Deidara and Sasori.
Ahh! Someone got it! Good for you! ♪( ´▽｀)
hey, I got it first. http://www.housepetscomic.com/2011/08/08/the-artist-makes-no-claims-to-the-accuracy-of-the-views-expressed-herein/#comment-81662
“Except beauty has nothing to do with art! The scream? Art, but not beautiful, that weid face thing by Picasso? Art, but completely hideous to the eye!”
This is basically what I yelled at the TV when they had that argument…
…Wow. You put that so well!
After awhile Peanut just doesn’t want to say anything :s
I think he’s still sad about what Grape said about he will never be as good as an artist. It’s one thing to know it yourself, but it something else when someone says it… makes it more painful.
I feel so sad for him in the third panel
Quite amusing.
Summary: Art teachers are mean
actually, Literature teachers are mean, because the first three are literature teachers teaching art.
I wanted to correct myself earlier, but the website seemed to be having a bit of trouble. Else it was my own internet.
If I could edit my comment I would change “art” to “Literary”
Oh please, everybody is mean… Especially my spanish teacher.
You have a point.
Psh. I have an EVIL Latin teacher!
wait a minute. evil? Speaks Latin? YOUR TEACHER IS POSSESSED BY A DEMON!!!
or he’s just a jerk who teaches Latin for a living.
She does apparently own a lot of cats… I might have to go with crazy cat loving jerk who is possessed by a demon and teaches Latin for a living. A little from column A, a little from Column B, and a little from what I just said in this post.
This is *SOOOOOOOO* true! (Unfortunately)
lol
Hahahahaha, yeaah! XD He put in words what I think about this xD
i agree
I was amused the whole time, but the last frame is the one that got me. That was awesome!
yep. that’s the best one.
What about “Spot (Professor) teaches art”?
Then the work will in some way define the solution to an overly-complex problem to be punching something. Hard.
Either that or it would be an abstract representation of string theory and modern quantum physics in either a pointalist or post-modern style. Picasso wishes he could be so awesome.
Heh this is true and silly I love it
I really like that second panel
Just because Grape writes fanfics doesn’t make her all sorts of lit teachers.
this was 9001 times funnier and 20% cooler after reading your essay on why should you cite sources for essays.
Isn’t that how artists have always become successful? *points at his halo*
I thought the trend that artists were only successful after they died?
wow wouldn’t that suck never being able to enjoy your fame
No no, only -famous- artists are truly successful after they die, or do something ridiculously crazy like cutting their ear off *cough*. There are plenty of successful living artists – a lot of them lurk on deviantART, unfortunately – but the dead ones are usually ones whose paintings were shunned at one point and then, upon their death, praised for being innovative.
or in Van Gogh’s case, after doing something crazy AND dying.
I always thought that myself
*looks at halo*
Oh, sorry, my bad.
wow, never understood art until now…thanks grape!!
PS: I want to see the Cacti graphs for this server around midnight when a new comic is posted.
I had the last two panels as teachers last year… sad that they exist.
Time to show this strip to any English and Art teachers I know!
i still don’t understand modern art -_-’
Modern art or post-modern art? Modern art is mainly the resistance of the mainstream, delving more into the depths of Yeatsian symbolism (and other modernist notions) than previous Victorian superficiality. Post-modern art is more about exposing the contradicting natures in the world and asking the viewer to look at the bigger picture.
Even though post-modern art is often abstract, I think we can safely say that Rick has here done his own post-modern art. Yay Rick!
When people say they “don’t understand modern art”, they don’t mean they don’t understand modern art, they mean they don’t understand contemporary art. Or maybe modern-postmodern-and-contemporary art. I can’t wait to see what post-contemporary art is like. I wish they’d hurry up and get to it.
My dear sir, I think you’ll have to invent a time machine for that. Let me know when you do; I have a certain somebody I want to see in the future.
http://www.google.com/search?q=post-contemporary+art&tbm=isch
…I stand corrected. That being said, the term contemporary does not mean the same thing as modern, not in the humanistic sense. Contemporary means “of the current time”, whereas modern has come to apply to a specific movement in art beginning in the late 19th century. I am confused as to this concept…TO THE WIKI-MOBILE!
And even wikipedia has nothing. Methinks it’s just a misnomer for postmodern art.
Modern in the context of art started out meaning “of the current time”, but it became associated with a specific movement (modernism), and so became replaced by “contemporary”. Conversely, in architecture, “contemporary” doesn’t seem to mean “of the current time” any more, it’s become associated with the Guggenheim and houses that look like they should have a flying saucer parked in front. When you see a house advertised with “contemporary lines”, you know the architect grew up with the Jetsons.
uhhhh*brain fried from over-confusion*
*nods*
This.
This makes me thankful that I did engineering at university.
Then again, interpreting art just might be easier than solving differential equations or using Fourier series… ^^;
That might be true, but coming up with interpretations for art can be a head-scratching affair as well.
… Though it may still be easier than differential equations X3
Coming up with interpretations is just another way for the artist to not say anything, making the viewer find a meaning instead of putting your own into the work.
I didn’t mean an interpretation offered by the artist, I meant an interpretation offered by a commentator or a critic.
“People are always asking me what my lyrics mean. Well I say what any decent poet would say if you dared ask him to analyse his work: if you see it, darling, then it’s there.” – Freddie Mercury
A prime example of the last panel done extremely well: Andy Warhol.
he was better at art than Jackson Pollack.
I had to do a project on Andy for middle school art. I never understood why drawing Campbell’s products in different colors was good art
but at least it looked like what it was supposed to look like. Pollack’s stuff was abstract like the art shown in the last panel. just splashing paint on a canvas, something a baby could do. WHY ARE THERE NO FAMOUS BABY ARTISTS!!! I guess they don’t have enough money.
*splashes paint all over a canvas and gets a million dollars* Brilliant!!!
I would like to reference the one-off where Keene draws a smiley face and tells the butler to sell it
That was Duke, and that was a guest comic.
My bad
Reminds me of my year 11 art project.
I glued random crap to a hunk of wood and called it symbolic.
I got a B.
True Story.
*facepalm*
I think you misspelled ‘win’
I’m confused…
Modern art is stupid… just sayin’.
Look at “Guernica” and you might change your mind…
lol, that seems about right. I love the last one
best art ive ever seen
This comic is spot-on to what I learned while earning my English degree, except the modern lit professor managed to speak two sentences without saying “Hemingway” nine times.
ha artwork at its funniest form
Sums modern art pretty much for me. It’s not like I don’ get it, I DO! Just some days ago I saw a exposition/gallery in a fancy mall and there was this big canvas filled with uneven red squares of many hues and a big scribbled fish on top of that. The lineart was shaggy and I couldn’t help but wonder… how many $$$ did the mall shell for that exposition? O_o
Silly. Art, almost by definition, is a subjective term. Even without this, god IS subjective. I prefer calling things interesting. And that term is alsoo subjective. It’s a bit relative. I like Housepets CONSIDERABLY more than the Mona Lisa, but the Mona Lisa does fit my definition of awesome, though it isn’t an interest. Shutting up now.
good*
SUBJECTION!
I think this is a very objective way of looking at it XD
The first one reminds me SOOOO much if a scene from the book “speak”
Also, grape, it’s SUBJECTIVE not OBJECTIVE
No, see, that’s the point.
Classic lit and Classic art is based on the foundation that certain authors/artists were really really good. Because history says ‘this is good’, then it is good. QED. If you think otherwise, you are wrong, because there is a lot more history that says it is good than you.
They are actually of the further idea that it is SUBJECTIVELY good as well – everyone will have the opinion that it is good, based on their own experiences.
I have often wondered what it would take for such folks to consider a work produced in the past twenty years to be a ‘masterpiece’, worthy of the same renown as Shakespear or Da Vinci… probably holding a gun to their head.
To be honest. I never thought shakespear was any better than any other poet or play write
He’s not, people idolize him and his work to a point where they make themselves believe he is special.
Actually, of all of Shakespeare’s plays, the ones anyone have heard of were the only ones that were really good. The others are only okay, and one or two are sorta bad. Still, better track record than most playwrights.
Analysis by professors who came later thought up reasons WHY he was so great, such as one being that he subverted the expectations of the time while still playing into them. So in movie terms, you can compare it to that blockbuster that THANK GOODNESS didn’t follow the formula like the last ten you saw.
Basically, he was thinking at least three and a half steps above the more common playwrights. Though by that standard, the Cohen Brothers and John Lasseter are basically on the same level as Shakespeare.
The who brothers and what guy?
*nods* I mean if I was alive then I’d probably think differently. But I don’t like it personally because 1) I can’t understand it and 2) he set a new standard so it’s nothing I haven’t already seen
Amusingly, Shakespeare DID follow a lot of the formulas and tropes of the times. He even stole a few bits outright, here and there. Shylock was a VERY typical character in Elizabethan plays..
Well right, if he didn’t follow a large chunk of them, he’d be experimental, weird, and nobody would remember him
Ok back on topic XP
Um… back on topic? Hard to do with this particular thred, but let’s see… 90% of anything is crud. Most of what Shakespere wrote, or what Da Vinci drew, was also crud. However, most of what Shakespere wrote, or Da Vinci drew, has been lost over the course of the centuries (ever heard of the “lost plays” or the “lost notebooks”?)
I was just joking ^~^ but yes I know what you are referring too.
Ahh! THE MONA LISA!!! X3 it’s such an amazing piece of art, wouldnt you agree!!
I simply love,love,LOOVE IT!!! X3 ☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆
Meh
MEH! THATS ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY!!! COME ON SAY HOW MUCH YOU LOVE ART!!! IF YOU LOVE ART YELL, ARTE! (＞人＜;) Art is such a amazing thing. It’s so beautiful! ♪( ´▽｀) it’s like staring at life itself.
Again, meh
Meh.
Nowadays art is just meaningless lines on paper, it’s up to the viewer to decipher what it means. This lack of definition has made artists lazy and caused many to put little or no thought into the work. Even classic art is under scrutiny as for what the true meaning is, nomatter how obvious it was and will be. Personally I blame the art viewers for letting it get so out of control. They simply accept what is given to them and warp it to their whims.
You two have no appreciation for art/drawings!! Yehoshua and anon_omis ! You guys lack the sense of love for the arts! (/ _ ; ) and that makes me sad. 囧rz
I’m just messing with you. Yeah the Mona lisa looks cool but I just really base my like/dislike of art on whether or not it loos realistic or is asteticly (I know I spelled that wrong) pleasing to me
Ok but that doesn’t explain you Yehoshua.
Which reminds me, the real one is much smaller
Totaly true!
…
…I think they are just at a museum with oversized pictures of the original art works, or something.
I wonder where that museum is at.
I love museums. ^-^
I brought up that point in the forums already. http://www.housepetscomic.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=278946#p278946
Umm what’s that weird on at the end?
Abstract art
Either something by Pollock or something Pollocky.
I have the same cynicism towards modern abstract art.
Yeah, seems like literature teachers just try to sound wise when talking about art while art teachers say the honest opinion.
“also, you’ll never be that good”
Haha, oh Grape, you shouldn’t discourage our aspiring artist like that.
Why not? Barbie dolls do it all the time.
+10 internets
+10 internets
Hurrah for +20 internets!
THESE are the reasons why I never payed attention to those classes other then the geometric drawings.
“But it’s more evident here than in the last nine since the artist captured a series of shades and tricks of the light that don’t exist in our reality”
“Ultimately it’s all paint on canvas. The paint creates figures of people, but they are all shadows in the face of an uncaring eternity. The fact that I was denied tenure for the twelfth time has not influenced this analysis.”
I have never before viewed it that light. I will have to deeply ponder what this means for humankind and ultimately, the universe
The answer to your pondering is 42.
“It’s just lines on paper! I put lines on paper too, you know!”
The first three panels were nice, the last one hits the nail on the head.
The last panel is so very true.
Only ever having experienced the first one (high school lit teachers), I can say that this is accurate. The rest is just funny as hell.
Why is it that Picaso’s art is internationally renowned but when I draw like that, people see them as scribbles?
I don’t know about most of Picasso’s paintings, and, IIRC, his “Blue Period” paintings looked rather realistic, but, if I were in the middle of a town while it was being bombed from the air, everything around me just might start looking like like it did in “Guernica”… ^^;
I read this one with great Klee.
Rick, you just completely supported what my high school AP English Language teacher said about every English teacher with a PhD…. and herself, though she’d never admit it.
“If webcomic artists taught art”?..
*housepets comic*
Don’t think too much about it. Just laugh and go to the next one.
Haha! I love this one!
Too… much… intellectual… humor!
*brain explodes*
Grape’s true about everything.
Aww poor Peanut.You may not be a wonderful artist, but as long as people enjoy your stories then that is all that matters. Plus if get enough money you can hire your own awesome artist
I totally agree that the last panel was just artists figuring out how to get people to buy meaningless crap haha. I know there is probably some meaning there, but I sure can’t see it and I don’t see why you would draw something where everyone has a different opinion on what it is and supposedly they are all right when really it doesn’t mean any of it at all. I reference the South Park episode where the boys write a book of complete crap to get it banned, but everyone thinks it’s a terrific book and put stupid political and other meanings on it.
The first panel perfectly describes every english class I’ve ever taken. Wow.
The first one is clearly an anthropomorphic flying squirrel startled by being confronted by a postmodern artist knocking on her front door.
no, it’s the face of a violent detective-type hero who is misunderstood.
Journal Entry: August 8, 2011
Drenched cat in alley this morning, Footprint on burst water balloon.
This world is afraid of me, I have seen it’s true face.
The streets are extended gutters, and the gutters are full of water.
And when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown.
The accumulated filth of all their balloons and waterguns will foam up about their waists, and when all the dogs and cats look up and shout “save us!”
I’ll look down and whisper…
“Housepets! Rules.”
im sorry whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat
Watchmen reference. Rorschach.
To be precise its a parody of his opening Journal Entry.
It’s an ant.
AND IT’S HEADING STRAIGHT FOR US!
That’s no ant. That’s a space station.
Pfft, it’s clearely a giraffe. A giraffe doing backflips in the Amazon river while fending off ninjas.
I can just see the Ninjas XD
they aren’t very good ninjas if you can see them.
So is a giraffe a better Ninja than a Ninja?
O_o
He is a rogue ninja, fighting off members of his old clan after his ‘brother’ killed his girlfriend.
There are no giraffes because Alexander the Great’s horse was a horse of a different color.
Touché.
So true, pretty much all of this.
is the rest of the week gonna be like this
If by like this you mean unconnected one offs yes that always happens after arcs (except on a few rare occasions) But if you mean it always being about like art no it won’t be (ok more like a 99.9% chance it won’t you never know with Rick).
i meant unconnected one offs but ok
Teachers Need To Stick To Their Profession. Litterature Teachers Need To Stick To Litterature And Stop Putting Young Artists Down! >:P
Finally I can use this somewhere!
“Look at those fools. They have no appreciation for art. You have to feel art. And true art… is an EXPLOSION!”
quiet Deidara. real art lasts. like the paintings in this comic. or puppets.
You mean an EXPLOOSHION!
Housepets! has an art related strip.
Sandra and Woo had an art related strip and now even an art related story arc.
There’s currently our Woo vs. Mondrian advertising banner on this website.
I guess it’s a trend.
Total coincidence, I assure you!
I noticed this too. was wondering when someone else would notice the trend. Glad it ain’t just me!
PS: i don’t mean that in a total conspiracy kind of way either, i assure you. *hides*
I feel sad for art. It’s so true that art has become something from art nowadays. Gosh I hate modern art X( my teacher is one of those ‘wears nothing but black’ types that sees the world as pure philosophy and blah blah blah.
I hate those pseudo-intellectual armchair philosopher hipster punks… I don’t like Nietzsche either, but I’d like to smack them across the face with a copy of Thus Sprach Zarathustra and scream “This is philosophy, eat it!”
But can you prove that the world is not philosophy within the constraints of the person you are trying to convince? Philosophy is at its most basic “the love of knowledge”, though it has been expanded to primarily address the concept of meaning and existence and other presumably unanswerable questions. Art, much like that represented in this strip, is simply a facet for philosophy; what we create represents our understanding of the world, even if it is not literally accurate. Much like true artists seek only to pursue and hone their craft, so too do philosophers only seek to gain a better understanding of the world through the pursuit of knowledge. So my question to you is this:
Why do you hate somebody or something that is only seeking to better understand the world, or to better understand the facets which others view the world?
A bit off-topic, I know, but I did relate it to the comic!
Philosophy is about studying the processes that happen inside the human brain when it tries to examine the way it interacts with the physical world through the intermediary of the senses.
Personally, I don’t care if you get off-topic like this. If one of the mods bothers you about it, tell me so I can slap them upside the head.
I don’t even really consider this off-topic, but someone should tell Rick I’m being a jerk so I can have attention.
…
Wait, that’s a horrible idea.
RIIIIIICK!!! He’s Being Mean To Us!! XD
just kidding :-p
I would talk more about the arc but i have nothing :/
Me: RIIIIIIIICCCKKKKKKK!!!! Dissension looked at me funny!!!
Dissension: What? No I didn’t!!
Me: I thought you wanted attention!!
Dissension: Yeah but then I realized that it was a bad ide- *gets pimp slapped by Rick*
Dissension: OOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!
Me: Whoops, my bad!
RICK-SAMA
DISSE-KUN IS ABUSING HIS TITLE AS A MOD!
{JK}
sorry dont got one
I wanna post this up at my college. Might get in trouble for it, but it’d be so worth it. >=3
well, aint that the truth
the sad truth behind art is really that, your gonna end up having to get in bed with someone at your gallery
Figure one… two fish leaping in a stream, while being watched by a grinning cat who has Satan standing behind him.
I wonder what it says about me when I look at the ink blot in the first panel and think it looks like an upside-down pelvic bone?
I further wonder what it says about me that I was compelled to replace “inverted” with “upside-down”?
Why is Grape the Lit Utach? Peanut read more books in one weekend than I have for my entire life.
i swear that the last one looks like the map of the internet http://www.opensailing.net/download/20090803Internet_map_collage.jpg