This is a sad ending to a short, pointless story. Comic relief, no doubt. Still, I am left wondering just how the cat broke into the house. I am also confused by Violet’s sudden turnabout with Banjo Cat, given that her harp was supposedly wrecked a few hours earlier in the day. On the other hand, I have to give Violet credit for so quickly repairing and restringing her wrecked instrument!

But Panel 2 is a slap in the face. Are we to believe a cat decided to stand on its hind legs in order to play the harp? Fiddlesticks! Banjo Cat Apologist Cherry offers up a ridiculous rationale, while Violet is somehow clued-in enough to repeat the “keep cats inside!” mantra that Cherry has been beating us over the head with all week long. All I can say is thank goodness that Doc Davis was able to come up with such a clever and original quip to close out this otherwise lackluster story, even though it contradicts his libertarian sentiments about Banjo Cat earlier in the story.

Cherry deserves better! Jules, please get Cherry away from these people for a while and into a new situation with new (or different) characters. Come to think of it, we also deserve better.

Howdy, folks! Well, my first reaction today was that I had accidentally called up some kind of grade school education project on “taking care of your pet cat.” It just has that simplistic grade-school look about it…as does Monday’s strip. There are those damned badly-drawn trees again:  Note the oddly leaning firs in front and the “hatching” in the rear trees, like cheap props in a school play. Go compare the Monday and Tuesday strips.

I’m trying to account for today’s strip. I think I suggested on Monday that maybe Rivera had somebody ghost that day’s strip, though my logic was not well substantiated. But something is not right, something egregious. This all sounds so ominous, doesn’t it? And let’s face it: This is not the most engaging story Rivera has presented.

Definite story padding going on today, as the first two panels reiterate yesterday’s strip. That means Jules Rivera could have created a single-panel panorama today to spread out the distance between Banjo Cat, Cherry, and Doc Davis, while leaving room for a nice looking landscape. That would have been much better than the cramped view we are getting in panel 3!

However, placing Banjo Cat in the foreground with Cherry and Doc in the background is a common artistic technique to emphasize “what was located” (Banjo Cat), while also showing the distance back to the searchers.

This looks like a reworking of yesterday’s strip! And like biking uphill, the pacing of this story has slowed considerably. I wonder if Cherry and Doc will even make it back to his office before Saturday!

<Sigh!> It can get soooo tiring:  I don’t know why Cherry keeps repeating the same PSA Mantra to her dad: “Outdoor cats kill wild birds!” I think we got it, Jules.

I forget, what is the point of this story, anyway? Is it really just about securing Banjo Cat in order to protect the birds? That seems a rather pedestrian plot, considering several of Cherry’s earlier adventures. But what about Violet’s broken harp? Does she get to do another cameo in the epilog?

Can we at least just move the story along a bit faster?

Yes, so dreadfully sorry. Cherry, who may have the most potential in this weird family, is stuck. In this family! But she isn’t the only thing stuck here. So is time, I think. Why is it, after seeing Doc strike up “My darling Clementine” in panel 2, that the narration box in panel 3 tells us that Doc has been playing several songs, while he is still singing Clementine!? Is he looping back through his song list for a second go-round? Sometimes, time-and-space baffle me.

Say, if you look closely at the musical notes in panels 2 and 3, you’ll see that the connected notes are always on the same “line”, meaning that these songs are all monotone. No wonder Banjo Cat has apparently run away!

Okay, that’s it for today. I can’t call padding the story on Rivera, as this situation is a central plot device. But it has clearly run its course, so I hope we don’t see it on Wednesday. Until then, I’ll be pickin’ and grinnin’!

Art Dept. I have to wonder whether Rivera actually drew this strip or if somebody filled in as an April Fool’s joke. The drawing is hurky-jerky (as it has been), but at the same time, it is different:  more angular and cruder than normal, if that’s possible.

The trees in panel 1, for example, are drawn with all of the subtlety and skill of a person who has never seen trees. One can argue that Rivera’s woods and forests often look flat and simplified, but that has no bearing on what we see here. Go back and see if you can find anything this clumsy and crude.

Banjo Cat also is different:  more angular than normal, with a different style and coloring. Here is one example from February. Sure, there could be a different colorist at work, but I think Rivera would notice that. Compare the two heads.  Notice how much fuller the head and neck are in Rivera’s example from February. Check out the tails and fur. Different.

Then there are the figure drawings. Doc Davis is not only slimmer than normal, he keeps looking different. In panel 2 Doc’s wide-eyed expression looks like something Stephan Pastis might draw if he was poking fun of this strip. And the less said about that banjo in panel 3, the better.

So tell me, am I wrong?

Hoo boy! Is this a printer’s mistake or did Rivera decide to go full-on, old school B&W? If the latter, I don’t think she did herself any favors. The broken harp in panel 1, for example, took time for me (at least) to recognize. I reckon Rivera must not have had a good picture of a harp on hand.

But this is your (or some child’s) opportunity to be Jules Rivera’s colorist for a day! Get out those crayons or water colors, print this strip, and go for it! You could also copy it into a paint program on your PC and do the same thing. That would be closer to what Rivera does, I believe. But why stop there? Print a copy out for every family member and hold your own art show! 

[ADDENDUM] Wow, is this ever a great opportunity to compare formats! Apparently (based only on my surmise), the color overlay was accidentally left off when the daily was first posted on ComicsKingdom. Now they have caught up. What do you think? Although the harp in panel 1 is easier to see, I think some of the coloring was rushed. Note the bird. Its entire head and bill are painted in one color, with an unpainted white highlight. That isn’t right, though I’m not sure what type of bird this is. Well, back to what I wrote earlier…

Anyway, this exciting story seems to be racing towards a climatic ending, with Doc Davis coming up with one sure-fire method for capturing Banjo Cat, thus saving the local avian wildlife of Lost Forest (or what’s left). Too bad it will likely be two weeks before we get back to Cherry’s adventure, since she used up her allotted one week time slot without capturing Banjo Cat.

So as I predicted, this story is more like a PSA pretending to be a story.

If Rivera wants to infuse her strip with more and more puns, she might want to mentor under Stephen Pastis for a few months. He’s been doing it for a lot of years now and has a funny series of song-related puns currently running in Pearls.

Does Doc Davis even live with Mark and Cherry anymore? How is this the first time they are talking about the cat? So now we see that Cherry is playing the “Cat Safety” card with Doc, which is interesting, given that Doc is a veterinarian and should already be aware.

Okay, so I’m thinking that this story is really a PSA for helping keep birds safe by encouraging you to keep your cats safe and inside. Shucks, we can wrap this story up tomorrow by having Doc vow to do better as he walks off with Banjo Cat in his arms as he passes a smiling Violet holding up her ruined harp. Various birds fly and tweet overhead, happy to see the last of Banjo Cat as Cherry tosses off another lame one-liner. Then, back to Mark!

Speaking of cats, today’s daily is largely wasted on a joke hardly worthy of Garfield. We learned yesterday that Banjo Cat is Doc’s adopted friend, whatever that implies. But Cherry’s point is well-taken. Cats do kill more than their share of birds.

Historically speaking, cats were domesticated at least 10,000 years ago, so they’ve had lots of time to sharpen their skills. In fact, recognizing a cat’s instinctive need to hunt, ancient Egyptian nobility brought them along as hunting partners and beaters. Below is a detail from a larger wall fragment that originated from the unlocated tomb of Nebamun, a royal scribe living around 1350 BCE. This fragment was part of many that were literally hacked out of his tomb by a tomb robber in the early 1800s and sold to the British Museum.

Being the long-time vet that he is, you’d think Doc Davis would know enough to keep Banjo inside the cabin if he is going to adopt him as a friend and also accessorize him. Little wonder that Cherry’s once-again repeated visual memory of the harp accident (panel 3) becomes a defining moment of shame as she continues to complain. Man, Cherry is really stuck in the moment.

Anyway, Banjo Cat did not directly knock down Violet’s harp. Poor Cherry is working her way towards a fictionalized version of her and Violet trying to manually move a poorly-mounted harp, but then losing control after getting surprised by Banjo Cat’s actions. Well, proper loading and transporting procedures would clearly have prevented the accident. But then, many adventure stories begin with an act of carelessness, stupidity, or malice.

So, we are getting a bit of Banjo Cat’s backstory, who so far doesn’t seem to have much history.

New friend or not, I’m not sure today’s daily is worth a three-panel layout, given that the format is often used for dramatic action or panoramic displays. Neither is the case today.

Since we just saw Cherry’s memory replay the harp destruction in yesterday’s strip, today’s repeated flashback seems pointless. Yesterday’s flashback makes sense as a catch-up, since Cherry’s story was interrupted to catch up with Mark’s horse adventure.

Anyway, I’d have thought a 4-panel layout would serve better today:  Cherry could voice her reply in panel 3, but without the flashback imagery. Rivera could have used panel 4 to move the story along a bit further. This story does not need any padding.

Did I just write the word “story”? Frankly, I’m not even sure what the story is just yet. Do you know? Is it just about Banjo Cat? Will the story lead to Doc and Violet reconciling over the talent show? Or will it evolve into a reminiscence by Doc Davis about some related event in his own past?

Where is Cherry going to put Banjo Cat if she catches it? Does Doc Davis’ appearance (and his recent on-stage performance) imply that Banjo Cat is a house cat in the Trail compound? I suppose it is possible. Cats are normally solitary and like to hang out in quiet places. Perhaps Banjo Cat and Doc prefer to hang out in Doc’s bedroom, since we rarely see him, as well. Will we get Banjo’s backstory this week?

Art Dept. Speaking of “atmosphere” as I did last week, I really like panel 1. The color and shading impart a real impression of a heavily forested area.

There is a fine old word that goes back to the 1500s:  twaddle. It means “senseless, silly, or trifling talk,” and that pretty much sums up both the dialog and the accompanying illustrations in today’s episode. As a continuation of the bats and music contest story, this chapter seems to be going nowhere. 

The art, itself, has certainly taken a big hit. In panel 1, the “jumping” cat does not look like it is jumping, whereas it has somehow totally upended the harp and its movers! In fact, Cherry and Violet were already in trouble before the cat made its move.  Panel 2 is a complete train wreck of outlandish proportions and awkward drawing. Cherry’s comment in panel 3 seems to contradict her prior positive opinion of Banjo Cat. 

Finally, Rivera’s narration box in panel 3 contradicts or ignores what Cherry just said! Doesn’t Rivera listen to her characters!?

Sometimes it really is difficult to avoid just throwing out some snarky comment and letting it roll, as is. I’m no harp player or aficionado; however, this doesn’t look like your typical full-sized, orchestral pedal harp. Why it is being moved on such a small dolly makes no sense at all, as if the harp’s platform doubles as the dolly. It’s like one of those infomercials where the clueless guy in the kitchen drops his scrambled eggs all over the floor because he didn’t buy the special pocket egg-scrambler that neatly scrambles eggs and drops them on your plate when you open it.

Instead, we have a contrived and unfunny “joke of the day” set of panels taking up valuable comic strip real estate. Perhaps Rivera is auditioning to join the team of Garfield hacks.

For whom is Cherry’s question in panel 2 so awkward? That’s somewhat rhetorical, as it is clear that Cherry exhibits no reluctance or uncertainty. Just the opposite. I have no idea why Cherry is being so “catty” to Violet. And disingenuous, to boot.

As I recall, in the January 20 strip Cherry pretty much shut Violet down in order to bring on her dad and his cat (an animal we have never seen around the cabin or anywhere else, come to think of it).

For the first time, I have some sympathy for Violet.

Art Dept. Every once in a while, Rivera surprises me. Today, it is the drawing of the harp in panel 3. What sticks out is how the strings are defined. Rivera could simply have drawn the usual singular lines, as we also see in the excerpt above. But in today’s strip, the underside of the harp is black. Again, not a big deal; just draw the lines. Instead, Rivera has taken the extra effort to highlight the parts of the strings that would normally be hidden by the dark underside for a cool effect. That’s pretty good attention to detail and design, especially for the small size of a comic strip panel.

Oh yes, the story continues, dear readers. Frankly, I don’t see Cherry doing a lot of struggling. But she is certainly taunting Violet with an undeserved smugness. Oh Cherry, is this a wise thing to do to your employer? Violet is quite mercurial, and as we have seen in the past, is not shy about making her opinions known, verbally and physically. 

(Alert: I had the devil of a time getting this image to post. Now I’m finding that the strips in the prior posts are no longer showing on my computer; just placeholder errors. I think you can all see today’s strip plus any of the prior ones, correct? Leave me a comment if you are having any issues. Not sure what brought this on.)

This is day two of the “Violet rolls her harp” scenario and I’m not sure what the point is. Could be a continuation of the prior adventure as I previously suggested. Otherwise, this seems like meaningless story padding. But that doesn’t jive, since these stories are written and drawn several weeks in advance; so, it isn’t as if Rivera needs to pad the story (though I have said as much in the past).

The short view is that Rivera wasted another day just to make another stupid pun. The longer view is that we could be looking at a subtle plot in progress for Violet to bring humiliation and/or embarrassment to Cherry.

After all, Violet did not really need to lug that heavy harp around by herself when she could have gotten Honest Ernest to do it. Right? She must have deliberately set up this situation to snare Cherry. This reminds me of the old woman in the gingerbread house who lured in Hansel and Gretel. We’ll see how this pans out over the week. I’m hoping for some first-class personal grievance-dialog and an attempt at spiteful vengeance.