Note: I do not actually condone duct-taping anything to a critter of feline persuasion. Do not try this at home.
Apparently it’s going to be April soon, and do you know what that means? Yes, it’s the start of my convention season! I’m hoping I’ll see a few familiar faces at Ad Astra here in Toronto, April 8-10, and a few new faces as well. According to the site, Saturday from 11am to 1pm will be free access to all to see what the convention is all about, and I think that’s a pretty nice gesture!
Oh, and the imminent beginning of April also means First Friday of the Month update! Be sure to stop by this Friday to see the next installment. EDIT: Oh, were you looking for that new update? You mean the one that was up on April Fool’s Day? Well, you might find something like that still lurking around here.
ROFL!! They do seem to lose their collars a lot, don’t they? And usually you can’t find it for days or weeks, and just get a new one.
That’s basically how one of our first cats, Fluffy, got her name. When she was a neighborhood stray of unknown name, we referred to her as “that fluffy cat.” Before we ever learned her “real” name and received her from her erstwhile owner (who had inherited her and had no real desire to own a cat), she had begun to answer to “Fluffy.”
These days, our Persephone answers to variations on “momma cat” as readily as to her own name, and Calliope, despite being around ten years old, comes to “kitten!” as readily as to her own name — which gets confusing at times, given that we currently have two actual kittens in the house (“Apollo” and “Max”).
I might say something here that people will not like much, but… 3 weeks largely spent on finding/feeding/idly talking about/ a cat? So far the talk in general has been idle, unhurried and somewhat whimsical.
Talk about people not feeling pressure over other people being in possible lethal danger down on the planet. O_o
Yes, I know… this is where the page-a-week thing fails me.
In our time it’s been weeks and weeks, but in story time they’ve only been at it, including dinner, for under an hour. A short break from the chaos, over which they have very little control anyway.
I remember getting that feeling a few times when I originally read through all the archives… ‘do these people not realize they’re lost?’ There’s always been a fair amount of characters being normal despite the situation. But when something goes wrong it doesn’t mean everyone spends all their time worried or scared, so I think it’s realistic & gets us a better view of characters. (But it is unusual amongst comics & I don’t think it’s just odd because of the update schedule.)
I don’t know about worried and scared, but there’d be a sense of urgency to a situation like this. Did the operators on the ground during the Apollo 13 incident – people who weren’t in immediate danger – panic?
Not much. But they were 100% on task to help those who WERE in trouble. A leisurely lunch while people’s lives are at stake? Sorry, but, thats not what happens. Thats not a responsible take. As captain, HER job is to do EVERYTHING she can. Thats why she’s captain. She has responsibilities. And since the incident JUST happened, I fail to see how she can be so relaxed and talking about how the ship was built, or about a cat that, frankly, nobody on the ship has time to care about.
I am sorry if my tone offends. I like this comic. Its not going to change my position on that. But I will not believe that people who have teammates/colleagues/friends in what is an hostage situation – one of possible lethal intent as far as they know (they can’t rule it out) – would be having a pleasant, happy lunch and then totally waste time talking about the ship’s cat.
I think its the cat for me. The cat is too much. It makes them sound… callous… about the planet-bound situation.
Well, cats and chaos are almost the same.
The continuum is preserved ! !
And here I thought the cat was going to be an important plot point! You know “The cat loves Patti, he’s small, sneaky and has Cat-fu, if we put a locator or camera on him and set him loose, we can communicate with the captured people……..”
Was I just assuming too much foreshadowing and planning here?
Absolutely. We have patiently learned to never plan on anything.
It always takes you by surprise, and its always a new twist.
I don’t live on a spaceship in the future or anything and yet my cat still has a tracking chip surgically implanted…
Oh yeah, what I came to the comments to say was, I really like te way panel 2 looks!
Heh, our cat used to do that all the time but these days he just wears a flea collar which is a lot harder to take off. Maybe that’s why he’s taken to bringing legos up and dropping them all around the house….
When I was a kid, my Mom had two cats (not at the same time), both named Kitty. She said that it’s what people would call them anyway. The cat she had as a kid never learned its real name (it kept hearing Kitty). Since then, I’ve had 4 cats but they’ve all been adult adoptees so they came with their own names.
BTW, the eyes in the second panel look jarring for some reason. Maybe it is because Tara usually draws irises in closeups.
You’d think in DA FUTURE!, there would’ve been great strides in subdermal pet chipping.
That’s what I was thinking.
The problem is that cats in DA FUTURE! have taken great strides and getting rid of such things … and nobody knows how.
Our cats have always had their own names, but our newest (“Freckles”) has so many nicknames (“kitty”, “little squirt”, etc.) that I’m not sure what name he identifies with!
The implanted chip is a very good idea, and don’t think we haven’t tried. The cat manages to lose himself every time we’re in port and have the opportunity to take him to the vet for said implant.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they found out that the eddy-currents produced by Galaxion’s space/time warp engines cause small integrated circuits to overheat, burn or explode depending on their size. For this reason the ship’s electronics gear has to be modified with shielding and overload protection, making it unfortunately bulky for implanted transponders with even the simplest beeper-locators (not to mention those with the more complicated bio-metric readouts.)
This makes me happy, because if a kitty had such a thing, then it would only be a short step to having the entire crew so tagged (purely for their own well-being and protection, you understand.)
Off topic and scantly touched upon earlier, but that room is for one person? On a ship, that would be HUGE. PALATIAL. THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE. Oh, wait, to be the Presidential Suite, it’d have to have two antechambers for guests to visit. (Antechambers? Living room? Torture chamber?) Still, quite spacious, even for a cruise ship cabin.
I want to join this paramilitary space service. Sounds like they’re very pampered.
Well, as explained a few pages back, most ships don’t have nearly so much room. Most of them are cramped boxes.
How the Galaxion turns a profit for TerSA I do not know.
I like that you chose not to continue using the name Aslan. When you showed the previous version of this scene it just didn’t sit right with me. I like Kitty much better. I am really enjoying the story and website. Keep up the good work!
Awww, the April 1st update is gone? :p
Not gone completely… just moved.