Tips for Multi-Cat Households
Category: Comics
Cat Tricks
I’m a cat guy from way back. I grew up around cats & have had cats for most of my adult life, so I’ve learned that cats respond well to positive reinforcement. So eventually they’ll usually start doing tricks for approval. They’ll also learn effective ways to get what they want. It’s manipulative for sure, but I have to admire their ability to communicate.
Creature Comforts
I’m relieved to be able to resume posting comics again. Happy new year, too. Like I mentioned in my recent Patreon blog post, Kickstarter fulfillment took up a lot of my time & attention since it was the thing I prioritized. Now that that’s wrapped up, I hope to build a little consistency into the comics this year by scheduling these comics to post in advance. I’m trying to systemize these things!
The next batch of comics are ones that are printed in Hey Cat Volume 3: Return of the Fleas. If you missed out on the Kickstarter, you can still get a copy in the Grackle Studio shop!
Also, I’m thinking of breaking the comics up into panels in the future since it looks like it works well with this site’s theme. Lemme know if this works better for you!
Night Watchcat
Fresh from the Photoshop cleanup process, it’s the latest installment of Hey, Cat! I’m not sure any “long term readers” of this comic exist, but if they did they’d notice this one is a little different. That’s right, this is the first multipage installment!
Yes, this happened a couple weeks ago. I made a comic in the first or second year of this series dealing with death, but this impacted me differently. I found myself unable to discipline my poor cat for her instinct to be nice to me & offer the gift of a lizard. Not sure if the lizard survived outside or if one of the outside cats finished the job, but that’s a story for another comic or animated movie!
Mondays Revisited
Outside Cats
What choice do I have? I have a stash of cat food & they don’t.
These two don’t seem to have owners, & they’re the only cats I see around the house with the exception of a little white kitten I saw eating a lizard in the backyard.
Beary & Outsidey are both kind of territorial & seem to have worked out a schedule where they come by at different times. Very respectful stuff. Beary will hiss at me nearly every day, but it’s all bluster. She’s small & seems to be a little older, so she has to be like this to protect herself. We can all relate!
Of course I think about taking them in sometimes, but it would be too unpredictable of a situation & I have a suspicion I would bungle adding two feral cats to this household. It seems like a situation fraught with disaster & maybe even a little slapstick comedy. It would be good for cat comic material, but is that any way to live, folks? Tune in next time to see if I decide to go through with this!
House Arrest
In today’s comic I lay down the law.
As a cat owner, one of the first things you have to decide is if your cat is gonna be an indoor cat or a cat you allow to go outside. I’ve always been an indoor cat guy ever since my childhood when my cat got out & jumped the wall to the neighbor’s yard, where she was attacked by their rottweiler. She was lucky enough to survive but I’ve been jumpy about cats going outside ever since then. Plus outside cats attack birds & create havoc, it’s too much to deal with.
So you bet your ass these cats are indoor cats. I respect Noodle’s time as an outdoor cat, but I insist she leave those days behind. I used to let Bologna out into the backyard so she could run around, but one day she chased a squirrel beyond the fence & I got all stressed out about it.
There is hope for these cats, though. Once I’m able to find some cat harnesses that fit these two, I’m going to see if they’re up for some walks around the neighborhood. I don’t mind being the guy who walks his cats. Let the neighbors think I’m a nut. Who cares? What’s the big transgression, anyway?
Killer Instinct
Based on real events.
Based on real events.Listen, I know this comic hews pretty close to Garfield territory, but over the course of doing this comic I’ve realized that this happens sometimes. There are universal truths regarding cat ownership & I can’t do anything about this! Sometimes Jim Davis & I can have the same observation about cats.In truth, these cats will catch bugs occasionally, I think the frustration I share with a lot of cat owners is with the “occasionally” part of it. I don’t expect much predictability with the decisions these cats make, but I do wonder what the deciding factors are that lead to them actually going after a bug. They seem to prefer going after flies over roaches & crawling bugs. Also, I feel like this is a good place to defensively declare that I don’t live in a filthy house!!
Street Fighting Cat
A little backstory into Noodle’s past.
I may revisit this period of her life again in another comic, but the writing & rewriting for this one was a lot. It can be tricky to land the right sort of tone in a comic like this. Yes, this comic series can get heavy or non funny in a bunch of ways. But I didn’t want to mire readers in the sadness of an unhoused cat. I also didn’t want to draw any of that shit, the thought made me sad when I was figuring out how to visually approach this one. Plus, I wasn’t there to see how Noodle was affected by her time living outside, so it felt overly speculative & gross to portray her suffering in cartoon form. Maybe there’s a possibility I overthink things, huh?!
But her time on the street has had an impact on her behavior, so there may be more stories to tell. Listen, I spent a lot of time going to bummer places with a big batch of Human Stuff comics I made not too long ago, so I’m trying to keep these comics a little lighter. We all need some relief sometimes.
Cat Vs. Cat
In today’s comic, the balance is disrupted.
A comic years in the making! Introducing Noodle, a cat I met before Bologna when I was dating my famous wife Jessica. This cat was a rascal as a kitten & remains a rascal at nearly 10 years old. I intend to get into more backstory with this cat in upcoming comics, she’s been through some shit.