Housepets!

Wow, I mentioned it in passing about his parents not being home but now that it’s happening. awkward. Now it’s just sad as I sit here and laugh. BUT we have a full name. Marion Ward. Yay, more information.

Hopefully his dad won't be busy.

Might I say Rick Griffin did an amazing job drawing this. Each panel has a completely different expression and they all convey a different emotion so perfectly. Now we know the answer to if someone heard the scream (at least from inside the house). Think on the bright side Marion, at least you won't have to be embarrassed by that long rambling message.

Xane wrote:No punchline to-day, only existential sadness.

The Title Text is the punchline.

fenrirblack wrote:Wow, I mentioned it in passing about his parents not being home but now that it’s happening. awkward. Now it’s just sad as I sit here and laugh. BUT we have a full name. Marion Ward. Yay, more information.

Assuming Julia didn't keep her maiden name or other name shenanigans.

What is up with "moms" in this comic. Between Joel's mom, Marion's mom, heck even Max's mom, they are not coming out great. Keene's mom was good but she did die.......

Champion Wallace wrote:

fenrirblack wrote:Wow, I mentioned it in passing about his parents not being home but now that it’s happening. awkward. Now it’s just sad as I sit here and laugh. BUT we have a full name. Marion Ward. Yay, more information.

Assuming Julia didn't keep her maiden name or other name shenanigans.

The thought crossed my mine but I'm going to live dangerously and proclaim that his last name is Ward.

Nice tail check in #3.

How do I tell you this?
The events are all blurry.
The thing you need to know is:-
Mom, I’ve gone all furry.
I don’t mean I’ve got chin hair
although I certainly do,
but I need you to be there
for what I’m going through.
Mom, can you come home?
I really can’t tell you why.
When you see why I’m alone
you’ll see I need an ally.
(Or, I’ve no real doubt,
you’ll see the chance to throw me out)

So the name Ward come up before? I’m trying to figure out if there might be a pet in that house (gonna be awkward if a dog chases him out). Wonder if Rick thought it be funny for Ste-ward to go after the Ward family, or if that was just a coincidence. Regardless, I hope the squirrel gets a hug at some point in this arc, he clearly needs one

Ah, another parental figure who’s not around when needed. Marion and Sabrina have something in common (besides the fact that they’re both adorable fluffy animals).

*Puts on his tinfoil hat of conspiray deduction* So Marion's last name is Ward, eh? As in "protection" or "protector"? But protector of what? Or from what? FROM WHAT?!

D-Rock wrote:In the words of Piccolo, "huh, that's convenient."

Yeah, I gotta say. Guess our new protagonist will have to fend off for himself for the moment.

Xane wrote:No punchline to-day, only existential sadness.

Champion Wallace wrote:Might I say Rick Griffin did an amazing job drawing this. Each panel has a completely different expression and they all convey a different emotion so perfectly. Now we know the answer to if someone heard the scream (at least from inside the house). Think on the bright side Marion, at least you won't have to be embarrassed by that long rambling message.

Boy, ain't these the truth!

I hope this doesn't end up as one of "those" situations where Marion has to hide their secret and/or their parents don't believe them.

Whatever the case, you've got me hooked!

It's time for a new segment I'm calling "What do we know?" This is where I discuss the new character introduced and the details that are slowly added as well as make assumptions based on what is shown so far. I could be wrong about a lot of but that's part of the fun.

Marion Ward. Age (approximately) 16 (I'm basing this on the fact he is a teenager and is old enough to shave.) Species: Eastern Gray Squirrel and former human. Height: Approximately 1' 6''. Favorite color: I'm going with blue.

Julia Ward, Marion's mother. Age: unknown. Appearance: unknown. Occupation: unknown. Now this is tricky so let's study what we know. It is currently seven a.m. sometime during the week, for convenience lets go with Monday. She is most likely at work and it's early during the day which means that either she left early to get to work or she works odd hours. Judging from the full inbox she is either very important and receives several calls during a given period or is too lazy to delete them. She most likely is somewhere in the city judging from Marion's "Mom you have to come home!" Of course there is no way of knowing if she is out of the country or something but if she was why would Marion be left alone for an extended period of time and if he does have a father (or anyone for that matter) in the house with him, why not call for him?

I'm going to assume that the father is not present since again he did not call him either on the phone or simply by screaming. If the father was an option why call the mother who has the full inbox (Marion must know that his mother is unreliable but is desperate enough to try).

Now, it was stated before that the mother not appearing or even answering was "convenient" which is true. I stated before the odds of the parents becoming involved were slim. So the parents are out at this point which does help keep the cast list down. At least we got more information about Marion's mom than Joel's. Not even a name for her. This leads Marion with essentially two options. Sit there and cry or seek help. Help could come in the form of the mysterious "L" who we still do not know the relation to Marion just yet. Odds are that will be the next person he calls or he will attempt to find "L" in person.

I must say, I love how it's shown how much they have shrunk. That phone looks like a giant tablet in their paws.

fenrirblack wrote:It's time for a new segment I'm calling "What do we know?" This is where I discuss the new character introduced and the details that are slowly added as well as make assumptions based on what is shown so far. I could be wrong about a lot of but that's part of the fun.

Marion Ward. Age (approximately) 16 (I'm basing this on the fact he is a teenager and is old enough to shave.) Species: Eastern Gray Squirrel and former human. Height: Approximately 1' 6''. Favorite color: I'm going with blue.

Julia Ward, Marion's mother. Age: unknown. Appearance: unknown. Occupation: unknown. Now this is tricky so let's study what we know. It is currently seven a.m. sometime during the week, for convenience lets go with Monday. She is most likely at work and it's early during the day which means that either she left early to get to work or she works odd hours. Judging from the full inbox she is either very important and receives several calls during a given period or is too lazy to delete them. She most likely is somewhere in the city judging from Marion's "Mom you have to come home!" Of course there is no way of knowing if she is out of the country or something but if she was why would Marion be left alone for an extended period of time and if he does have a father (or anyone for that matter) in the house with him, why not call for him?

I'm going to assume that the father is not present since again he did not call him either on the phone or simply by screaming. If the father was an option why call the mother who has the full inbox (Marion must know that his mother is unreliable but is desperate enough to try).

Now, it was stated before that the mother not appearing or even answering was "convenient" which is true. I stated before the odds of the parents becoming involved were slim. So the parents are out at this point which does help keep the cast list down. At least we got more information about Marion's mom than Joel's. Not even a name for her. This leads Marion with essentially two options. Sit there and cry or seek help. Help could come in the form of the mysterious "L" who we still do not know the relation to Marion just yet. Odds are that will be the next person he calls or he will attempt to find "L" in person.

Nicely done. =)

Ms. Ward needs to clean out her "message box" ..... Obviously her "squirrel-son" suffers from communication device neglect. Still, if his campus was like ours, he'll soon find a supportive community to take him in. And chipmunks, too.

Xane wrote:No punchline to-day, only existential sadness.

Oh, very nice. Alt-text from https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/20 ... ite-space/ AND HOW EVEN DO I REMEMBER THESE THINGS??

Gosh, I know mobile phones have been getting bigger and bigger in recent years, but this is just ridiculous. Oh, wait now... he's just a really, really small squirrel, isn't he? About the same size as the ferrets, I guess.

Don't worry Marion, it could be worse. You're super floofy, you're gonna fit right in

Just posting to say I'm excited to see where this goes... I know people mentioned him running into someone for help, but how about the first "person" he runs into is King. Obviously King could lend him an ear, and offer some level of help.

That being said though, I am intrigued by the idea of seeing who he first runs into, or who first comes across him? First interactions will be interested to say the least.

Raku wrote:Just posting to say I'm excited to see where this goes... I know people mentioned him running into someone for help, but how about the first "person" he runs into is King. Obviously King could lend him an ear, and offer some level of help.

That being said though, I am intrigued by the idea of seeing who he first runs into, or who first comes across him? First interactions will be interested to say the least.

Okay, I’m just gonna make a list of some of the likely candidates for who he can run into, and we can figure out even if they don’t happen, who’d be the most amusing to see.

King: One of the few humans turned animal (presently, hopefully soon to change), likely parallel meeting to when he and Fox first interacted.

Fox: Parallel to when Fox met King, also can highlight how much Fox has changed based on subtle differences likely to showup

Peanut/Grape: Same reason for each of them, protagonists are obligated to occasionally just walk into the plot.

Zac: Squirrels are technically kinda wild, so the animal that’s involved with both the wild animals and the pets would likely not be too out of place being the first person Marion meets. The fact he’s acted as the protagonist of a few arcs does help his case as well.

Bino: Pray for the kid

Mungo: Very mild parallel to the fox interaction with King + the guy is just so friendly that it be the ideal first interaction.

Wolves (most likely one of Mile’s kids): Close ties to Miltons and King, likely already formed connection if Marion is the kid Hawk talked to in the high school

Steward: I mean, he doesn’t know who caused the change, so the badger might take advantage of that.

PETA: Rick may want us to really feel this kid’s suffering, and after Bino, this is the worst case scenario.

Tarot: Still has the psychic powers, might be good to have one of the few pets that knows he’s not lying about being human finding him first.

There are more options I’m sure, but this is more than a good enough starting point

What happens if he had a pet dog. "SQUIRREL!" And comparing his size to the bed, he has shrunk. All the pets will be bigger than him.

Hhhmmm.....a person with the name Ward...which is one letter off the word "wart" was a human and got transformed into a squirrel...I think I see a reference there

I just wonder if Steward just randomly transformed Ward into a squirrel or if he wants to recruit Ward into for his purposes.

Timmie wrote:What happens if he had a pet dog. "SQUIRREL!" And comparing his size to the bed, he has shrunk. All the pets will be bigger than him.

Now I'm imagining a scene where he's running away from the dog set to music from The Great Race

Okay, now whoever does the website needs to go back and add "answering machine" as a tag wherever we encounter voicemail. Like in Jungle Fever:

Keen-eyed readers may catch this subtle detail: he is very smol
I hope Marion doesn't keep this a secret. It'd be neat if he started bonding with King since they've been through the same thing.

Champion Wallace wrote: Think on the bright side Marion, at least you won't have to be embarrassed by that long rambling message.

It occurred to me that the inbox could be because he had Already left several Other long rambling messages before this particular one. That could have been what Rick was implying with the full inbox.

Champion Wallace wrote:Assuming Julia didn't keep her maiden name or other name shenanigans.

Gameb18oy wrote:So the name Ward come up before? I’m trying to figure out if there might be a pet in that house (gonna be awkward if a dog chases him out). Wonder if Rick thought it be funny for Ste-ward to go after the Ward family, or if that was just a coincidence.

I want to examine this real quick because I’ll be honest I forgot that Steward is the last name. At first I didn’t put a lot of stock in the whole “Steward would use the coin on his own family” theory but given what we now know there might be something to it. So far there is no father that we know of and their last name is Ward. It’s not a lot but if true would explain why Marion was changed and, if Steward was involved, how he got access to Marion’s house.

Gameb18oy wrote:Regardless, I hope the squirrel gets a hug at some point in this arc, he clearly needs one

Yeah, I want to retract my earlier statement about his parents not being home as a good thing. If he’s just going to start to cry then it already takes the fun out the situation. Now all I want is for his mom to come in there and comfort him and tell him everything is going to be okay.

Timmie wrote:What happens if he had a pet dog. "SQUIRREL!" And comparing his size to the bed, he has shrunk. All the pets will be bigger than him.

From my estimate, aside from Spo and Squeak, he must be the smallest character at this point. I would say shorter than the ferrets.

This is like something by Fur-ranz Kafka.

fenrirblack wrote:What is up with "moms" in this comic. Between Joel's mom, Marion's mom, heck even Max's mom, they are not coming out great. Keene's mom was good but she did die.......

Well, Disney gave dads the short end of the stick for decades. Maybe it's just moms' turn?

fenrirblack wrote:Julia Ward, Marion's mother. Age: unknown. Appearance: unknown. Occupation: unknown.

In other words, "Leads: none, witnesses: none, and you're not in the computer system yet, so resources: none!"

fenrirblack wrote:She most likely is somewhere in the city judging from Marion's "Mom you have to come home!" Of course there is no way of knowing if she is out of the country or something

What if he's in college, "home" is just his dorm, but he knows his mom will understand this? Conspiracy theory time: It's part of the ferrets' plan to get animals accepted into college to more than mail-order courses (yesterday we were arguing whether it was Steward's coin or just one they pulled out of the rubble)

fenrirblack wrote:I'm going to assume that the father is not present since again he did not call him either on the phone or simply by screaming. If the father was an option why call the mother who has the full inbox (Marion must know that his mother is unreliable but is desperate enough to try).

In any desperate situation, most children will call for "mom" first, so I wouldn't discount "dad" just yet

Ryusuta wrote:I hope this doesn't end up as one of "those" situations where Marion has to hide their secret and/or their parents don't believe them.

"Okay, I'll need a trenchcoat, fedora, ... stilts, those grabby arm gizmos from TV, ... uhh, a fake moustache ..."

Raku wrote:Just posting to say I'm excited to see where this goes... I know people mentioned him running into someone for help, but how about the first "person" he runs into is King. Obviously King could lend him an ear, and offer some level of help.

King's advice would probably focus on accepting the situation with dignity, though, which may not be something a newly minted non-human wants to hear.

fenrirblack wrote:From my estimate, aside from Spo and Squeak, he must be the smallest character at this point. I would say shorter than the ferrets.

Almost. Hopefully Marion wasn't an aspiring singer.

Gameb18oy wrote:Okay, I’m just gonna make a list of some of the likely candidates for who he can run into, and we can figure out even if they don’t happen, who’d be the most amusing to see.

Tarot: Still has the psychic powers, might be good to have one of the few pets that knows he’s not lying about being human finding him first.

I like your thinking, but mostly because I just want someone to say "oh yeah, this totally happens all the time"

Hey Fen, out of curiousity, where did you find that one pic of Marion? I’m still of the mindset that that was a roughdraft piece so elements like the necklace may or may not appear in the comic + still haven’t seen that odd patch of fur on his right foot that is a different shade from the rest of him, but I’m wondering if there are more possible future characters that can be discovered around it... and yes I am gonna see if there’s an otter amongst them, don’t judge me

Frank wrote:

fenrirblack wrote:She most likely is somewhere in the city judging from Marion's "Mom you have to come home!" Of course there is no way of knowing if she is out of the country or something

What if he's in college, "home" is just his dorm, but he knows his mom will understand this?

That would be the nicest dorm room I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen and stayed in some nice dorms. If he wasn’t “home” he would more likely say, “Mom you have to come get me” instead of telling her to come home. Also if he was in a dorm he would have a roommate(s) which would cause several issues not to mention adding another character(s).

Frank wrote:

fenrirblack wrote:I'm going to assume that the father is not present since again he did not call him either on the phone or simply by screaming. If the father was an option why call the mother who has the full inbox (Marion must know that his mother is unreliable but is desperate enough to try).

In any desperate situation, most children will call for "mom" first, so I wouldn't discount "dad" just yet

I’m not ruling him out yet but based on the information at hand it might be safe to assume he’s not coming to help. Plus if my idea that he’s already left a hundred voicemails prior to this one is true then that definitely means Dad is not an option.

Gameb18oy wrote:Hey Fen, out of curiousity, where did you find that one pic of Marion? I’m still of the mindset that that was a roughdraft piece so elements like the necklace may or may not appear in the comic + still haven’t seen that odd patch of fur on his right foot that is a different shade from the rest of him, but I’m wondering if there are more possible future characters that can be discovered around it... and yes I am gonna see if there’s an otter amongst them, don’t judge me

Rick’s Twitter. The odd fur patch is partly visible in the second panel.

Nathan Kerbonaut wrote:Keen-eyed readers may catch this subtle detail: he is very smol
I hope Marion doesn't keep this a secret. It'd be neat if he started bonding with King since they've been through the same thing.

I couldn't agree more!

Aww, poor Marion. He's so confused, and his mother isn't neither helping with her full messages inbox. Well, he should try later, then...

Gameb18oy wrote:Okay, I’m just gonna make a list of some of the likely candidates for who he can run into, and we can figure out even if they don’t happen, who’d be the most amusing to see.

Bino: Pray for the kid

I love your list. This one was my personal favourite though.

By the way, when was he confirmed male? I keep seeing everyone post "him" and "he" for Marion.

The voicemail being full signals to me that either she's extremely busy with work and hasn't gotten to all her voicemails, hoards voicemails for future references, gets over 700 spam callers a day and is too bothered to erase the voicemails. or she rarely checks her phone. I'm going with the hard worker since that's the usual cliché. I don't believe the possibility of him leaving a whole bunch of voicemails before this due to the third panel being uncertain. He's starts saying trying to explain what's going on before he just gives up and says "just come home" in the fourth panel.

Julia: "That's a weird voicemail, it cut right off and it was in a high squeaky voice I couldn't make out at ALL."

shadowlucario50 wrote:By the way, when was he confirmed male? I keep seeing everyone post "him" and "he" for Marion.

Well, he apparently shaves.

Now we know another thing about the squirrel formerly known as Marion. His last name is Ward apparently.

Amazee Dayzee wrote:Now we know another thing about the squirrel formerly known as Marion. His last name is Ward apparently.

“Formerly known as”? He’s still Marion. The only thing that’s changed is his species and appearance. There is no guarantee that his voice has changed either. When magic is involved the voice usually stays the same.

I went with formerly known as because I was joking as seeing how when Joel and (possibly) Steward had changed, their names also overwritten with new names.

The answering machine, my true favorite character