Housepets!

Theres seem to be no kids at all in Babylon gardens seems very very odd. O.O

I mean if your whole goal is for equal rights of animals and people then why not have families live there so the kids can grow up influenced by that goal? Rather then childless couples and crazy cat ladies?

There was a kid in the background of Hey, It’s That Cat Again scratching a cat behind their ears. Also, presumably there will be one more human child 16-36 months after this event. While there are more kids then none at all, there are still hardly any, much fewer then a normal neighborhood. There could be several explanations for this (not saying any or all are 100% correct, just throwing out ideas).
1. Henry Milton was too good at advertising BG as a pet-friendly neighborhood; an overwhelming percent of the people who moved did so because they had pets. Once most of the homeowners are pet owners it would be harder for someone to come in and raise a human family without felling like an outcast. Pets are more expensive to take care of in this universe and fulfills similar roles as kids so parents are less likely to have both.
2. Pets and kids don't interact. This comic follows the perspective of some housepets (and the occasional demigod); if none of those pets hang out with kids they won't be seen on-screen. Mose people make friends at school and pets and kids have different education systems (obedience school and K-9 academy vs. K through 12) let alone different schools.
3. Maybe Rick Griffin doesn't want to draw kids. If he wants to create a story about furry animals and kids don't fit into the narrative, he has the right to not include them.

Champion Wallace wrote:There was a kid in the background of Hey, It’s That Cat Again scratching a cat behind their ears. Also, presumably there will be one more human child 16-36 months after this event. While there are more kids then none at all, there are still hardly any, much fewer then a normal neighborhood. There could be several explanations for this (not saying any or all are 100% correct, just throwing out ideas).
1. Henry Milton was too good at advertising BG as a pet-friendly neighborhood; an overwhelming percent of the people who moved did so because they had pets. Once most of the homeowners are pet owners it would be harder for someone to come in and raise a human family without felling like an outcast. Pets are more expensive to take care of in this universe and fulfills similar roles as kids so parents are less likely to have both.
2. Pets and kids don't interact. This comic follows the perspective of some housepets (and the occasional demigod); if none of those pets hang out with kids they won't be seen on-screen. Mose people make friends at school and pets and kids have different education systems (obedience school and K-9 academy vs. K through 12) let alone different schools.
3. Maybe Rick Griffin doesn't want to draw kids. If he wants to create a story about furry animals and kids don't fit into the narrative, he has the right to not include them.

I don't see a kid int he first link, i see a cat scratching another cats ear.

1. Well they could give preference to families with pets. Even then just seems kinda weird,
2. They would if there are kids, I mean it would at lest see how normal kids interact with their older pet or a puppy . Because the only pet/kid interaction on page we saw is a kidnapping. I guess its just me thinking it would be interesting to see a relationship of a beloved pet and a kid growing up.
3. well kinda makes the whole school thing kinda pointless if true.

Champion Wallace wrote: Maybe Rick Griffin doesn't want to draw kids. If he wants to create a story about furry animals and kids don't fit into the narrative, he has the right to not include them.

The few times we see kids, they aren't shown to be decent people.

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ut-of-you/

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ill-exist/

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ry-and-44/

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... r-of-eggs/

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ow-breaks/

Then there is Grape's comment https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ll-travel/

There was one child in at King's Wedding. Then there was young Joel.
And that's it. I scanned through all the strips and those were all the appearances of children I could find. Not even teenagers.

In a lot of ways these comics are like the opposite of Charlie Brown. We see the animals and the adults but not the kids except rare moments.
Even the adults are limited. It took years before we saw what the owners looked like above the chest. Joel was the first human character to see his face. Even the moments of Joel are limited. The first chance he got he went back to being King. Mr. Milton was a ferret when we saw him. Steward and Thomas are the only other human characters we see plenty of and they were turned into animals.

Champ's intuition that the absence of children reflects Rick's disinterest in using them is probably the southwest explanation for their invisibility. Kids in comics do have a way of crowding out other characters or becoming a pairing with an animal to the detriment of other players (ex. Calvin and Hobbes). Since many of his stories revolve around pairings like Peanut and Grape, King and Bailey, Tiger and Marvin, Keene and Breel, or Jessica and Zachery, who needs kids? Romantic elements certainly wouldn't work, either. As often remarked, many of Rick's characters are more children than adults (Peanut, Bino), again, who needs kids?

Or maybe just preference, the same way the pets don't do sports teams; Rick would just rather find his funny some place else. Maybe.......

It is a comic about animals from the perspective of animals. There is a simple reason for the lack of kids. Rick would have to take the time to actually draw them. That is way too much work for characters who would not have any kind of point in the animal centric plot. The same goes with any kind of literary work. To take the time to include characters for the sake of world building would take too much time and attention away from the central characters. Even if kids do live somewhere in Babylon Gardens, they are not seen because they have no purpose. If you want to look at it from a HPU perspective. They are probably at school or anywhere outside the panels. Not to mention when you look at some of the owners, they aren't exactly lady magnets or too desirable in general. Table top dorks, drunks, Cat lady, Bill apparently isn't dating as far as we know. The Sandwiches don't have kids because that would ruin the Peanut and Grape dynamic.

I don't know about ruling out romanic storyline. I have my fingers cross that one of the cubs might hit it off with some human girl at school. Saucy.

I would like to see interactions with children, myself, though I will concede that it would be tricky at best to implement.

fenrirblack wrote: I don't know about ruling out romanic storyline. I have my fingers cross that one of the cubs might hit it off with some human girl at school. Saucy.

Please no.

RokukeShiba wrote:I don't see a kid int he first link, i see a cat scratching another cats ear.

It's hard to see, but the one petting the cat is actually a child who happens to be behind the front cat.
I also agree that the lack of kids is probably mostly for the same reason that adults were always cut off at the chin (which wouldn't work with kids, being the same size as the pets): human faces are really hard to draw well because we're so used to looking at them that small flaws stand out strongly.

fenrirblack wrote:

Champion Wallace wrote: Maybe Rick Griffin doesn't want to draw kids. If he wants to create a story about furry animals and kids don't fit into the narrative, he has the right to not include them.

The few times we see kids, they aren't shown to be decent people.

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ut-of-you/

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ill-exist/

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ry-and-44/

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... r-of-eggs/

https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ow-breaks/

Then there is Grape's comment https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ll-travel/

There was one child in at King's Wedding. Then there was young Joel.
And that's it. I scanned through all the strips and those were all the appearances of children I could find. Not even teenagers.

In a lot of ways these comics are like the opposite of Charlie Brown. We see the animals and the adults but not the kids except rare moments.
Even the adults are limited. It took years before we saw what the owners looked like above the chest. Joel was the first human character to see his face. Even the moments of Joel are limited. The first chance he got he went back to being King. Mr. Milton was a ferret when we saw him. Steward and Thomas are the only other human characters we see plenty of and they were turned into animals.

Now I see, through if theres a school arc for Miles three wolf kids there will be a ton of them. Now I want to know how are those three..

D-Rock wrote:I would like to see interactions with children, myself, though I will concede that it would be tricky at best to implement.

fenrirblack wrote:I don't know about ruling out romanic storyline. I have my fingers cross that one of the cubs might hit it off with some human girl at school. Saucy.

Please no.

this would probably come off being either hilarious, or disturbing, or possibly both. and would depend more on the reader's views on several topics than the writing which category it falls into.
might be too much of a minefield to attempt.

I imagine there are a lot of childless families in such a pet-friendly neighborhood. Especially in a universe where pets are basically as much work as children.

Buster wrote:

D-Rock wrote:I would like to see interactions with children, myself, though I will concede that it would be tricky at best to implement.

fenrirblack wrote:I don't know about ruling out romanic storyline. I have my fingers cross that one of the cubs might hit it off with some human girl at school. Saucy.

Please no.

this would probably come off being either hilarious, or disturbing, or possibly both. and would depend more on the reader's views on several topics than the writing which category it falls into.
might be too much of a minefield to attempt.

Yeah, it's not happening. Fun to think about but yeah right. Although we have a magic coin floating around...

oh, and along with a magic coin … there's a little dino-demon straight outta Pandemonium flittin' around !!