There's Always a Bigger Cat

(Source) Since Scratch is the size of a 8-year-old human child, Hungry Cat's size relative to Scratch's seems to indicate that this new cat is probably some kind of panther that has fallen victim to domestication's wiles. He's either eating mud or about to plaster the mud all over the back of Scratch's head; either way, our introduction to Hungry Cat immediately lets us know that A) Hungry Cat is huge, and B) Hungry Cat is not to be fucked with. Honestly, I love Hungry Cat. What a great character design! He has a hint of Heathcliff striping to break up his broad expanses and help keep him from looking too featureless (The way Scratch usually does), a false brow (That's what I'm going to call it) that gives his face a very vague similarity to Felix the Cat's, and overall he just looks like a goddamn classic third-string cartoon character that you feel you're familiar with already but have never actually seen before. The kudos I give are serious and not the candy bar kind -- Hungry Cat is fantastic. For some reason I'm thinking of Shecky, now, and how much I abhor everything from his design to his character. I shouldn't have mentioned him. We're probably jinxed because of it, and will see three strips explaining how he also moved to Seattle. This storyline is not all Hungry Cat's, though. It's also about Kevin (Kevin was the child Skull mentored and sort of killed. The resemblance is vague, I suppose) Scratch's reverse-Hobbes doll! My memory tells me I didn't like what PvP did with the doll's potential the last (And first) time around, but so far? This arc is very good. (Source) The interaction between Hungry Cat, Scratch, and the doll is a bit confusing. In the previous strip, Hungry Cat is apparently calling himself "Hungry Cat" through the doll -- but he's telling Scratch that he doesn't like that name, here? If that's not what's happening, then Scratch is continuing to put words in the doll's mouth and Hungry Cat is even now coming up with the prognosis that Scratch is afflicted by dissociative identity disorder. I'd call attention to Hungry Cat's sudden Marilyn Monroe beauty mark, but the obvious answer is that its just one of the thousands of specks of food that randomly dot Hungry Cat's face every week.

The Plot That Wasn't There

(Source) When Miranda's time came to be introduced to the Seattle storyline, I was shocked. Look at this strip! Just look at it! I finally thought to myself, "Hey asshole, look at that! PvP just amazed you with its writing. The New Year's promise of better writing was real." Here I sat, thinking that Miranda would only make her random appearances so that boob jokes could be made and her general stupidity could be reinforced, and I'm slammed with a deeply effective portrayal of a sister feeling betrayed, forgotten, alone and sad -- without any words! This is an A+ comic strip: The first panel showcases an excellent update on the hotel room we saw last year (Or this year, when I blogged about it while recapping last year), slumbering Cole looks great, there's a joke RIGHT off the bat that uses subtlety to drive the humor home (There isn't an onomatopoeic jumble of letters ruining Cole's snoring by trying to make it more evident while failing to encapsulate what snoring actually sounds like). The dialog smoothly moves from the joke to the dramatic final panel, and the artwork's points of view are classic and shifted to great effect. Wow! How could you not look forward to what was coming next, after that? (Source) But what came next were boob jokes and reinforcements of Miranda's general stupidity. I must have imagined all of the dramatic tension earlier, because not once over the next three strips that continue this story thread does Miranda mention anything but petty jealousy as a motive for being upset. Wow. How could I have expected something else? Miranda's status over at PVP Magazine was a little unclear, though. I believe she had worked both for them and then for Max's company (Powerplay) at different points in the past, culminating in being fired. Then Powerplay and PVP "merged" (Without absorbing PVP Magazine, meaning Max just bought them out or something), then separated. Miranda kept hanging around the offices (That's unclear, actually. It's nigh impossible to tell the difference between when PvP characters are at home and when they're at work) infrequently, for boob jokes and enjoying being kind of dumb. So this little character arc did one thing: It told us how Miranda became employed again (By Robbie, who probably owns PVP Magazine now. Does that mean she works for PVP Magazine? I can't say. It doesn't seem like it, but expect to see her around their office anyway), and justified moving her out to Seattle with the rest of the usual suspects. It was interesting that Cole pointed out that Miranda is useless as an employee, because that was goddamn stone-cold of him (And it was also true. Her worth as an employee is exactly the same as her worth as a character). Exposition! What would we do without it? I think that maybe the setting of PvP is changing to Seattle, guys. What do you think? We won't know for sure unless they keep unnecessarily mentioning Seattle by name and using location-specific in-jokes, though. The Fremont bit was especially confusing -- I'm familiar with Fremont, California, but I guess it's a place in Washington as well. Is it a place IN Seattle? And we were supposed to understand the "Mayor of Fremont is a hobo" thing? Anyway, the worst of all of that exposition seems to be over. If I had to compare it to something, it would be the way the Star Wars prequels shoehorn hours of ridiculous and dry political exposition into movies that everyone thought would be fun adventures for all ages. Oh, and somewhere in that there was a theoretically-racy joke from Brent about "not nouning her verbly enough". Is this the most awkward punchline I've ever seen? It could be. Even swapping "noun" and "verb" doesn't help. How does a noun fit into that anywhere? Nouning is a self-contained oxymoron. Brent, you're supposed to be the clever one!

A Kinder, Gentler Tomorrow

Wait a minute, what happened to all of my posts from the year 2010? Just kidding -- I wasn't reading PvP regularly enough to make any. But it's been an entire year, so I should at least make the effort to recap it with PvP's best moments, right? We'll start by completely ignoring the first few months of 2010, and skip to the parts where I noticed landmark events taking place. Somewhere between July 15th and August 5th, Jade's bug eyes sank back into the recesses of her head that are known as "eye sockets". I believe I spat a beverage of some kind all over my dashboard when I noticed, since I was probably driving while browsing the internet on my phone (Guys, this is how you look cool to the ladies). Now, I'm not going to pretend that Jade's eyes never appear to be floating above her hair anymore, but they're about 99% restrained. There is hope that she won't eventually decapitate and devour Brent, after all! Looking good, Jade. On October 8th, there was a really funny strip. I'd already seen things that used a similar joke, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh. Curiously, there is a decent amount of fodder for critiquing in that strip (All in the last panel). But I really like seeing a giant roach perched on Cole's head, and I imagine it is probably rubbing his dinner-plate-sized bald spot and whispering. Who can concentrate on speech bubble placement, a background painting, or coloring in all of Cole's fingers when there's THAT going on? Nobody! Did you guys see these toys? Those are fantastic toys. Using one shape for three different characters -- and doing it so well -- is brilliant. It is merchandising at its finest and most clever, as far as I'm concerned. This kind of things makes me want to put on a hat so I can doff it in respect. Somewhere between November 22nd and January 4th, the hideous black widow markings on Cole's chest turned into something that people can recognize as a tie. Well, I mean, usually. What is that over to the right? I don't know. Tim Gunn didn't tie that Gordian Knot, is what I'm saying. In fact, the tie has a very odd single, skinny black line that winds along it diagonally -- unless that effect is just a coincidence, every time the tie is shown, brought about from drawing creases. I can't tell which is the case, but I'm definitely complaining about finding seeds in the delicious apples that just replaced my dinner of red circles at this point. On a sad note, this does mean that my amazing parody character "Fat Tie" is ruined. He died a warrior's death, though. Valhalla will welcome him. Hey, you know who else didn't show up for PvP for a year? We last saw Max Powers on Hell I-don't-know-whenth, 2009, when he ran a game company and dispensed business advice for rich entrepreneurs, and he returned last April 5th so he could stop doing that and join PvP Magazine's sitcom instead. Which is almost an exact depiction of events, according to the strip. Awkward, and self-referential humor like what we saw there is PvP's weakest link in a chain of humor and story-telling... but damn, he looks good. He also has Brent's hair color. Brent better watch his ass, if Max grows his hair a couple of inches longer. Also, Scratch's constant, radiation-induced growth finally got him within spitting distance of Skull's height, at which point Scratch pulled one of Skull's arms out of its socket. Happy New Year! This post is for our one subscriber, as well as Creatorian, who left a kind message that I greatly appreciated.