#very encouraging for when I eventually start making more longform comics!

[the-illustrative-interloper]

Jonathan Harker’s Journal - May 28th

[popculturebuffet]

Breaking Cat News Retrospective: Year One: On The Air! (Comissioned by Emma Fici)

In Loving Memory of Stewie Magilcutty Mattingly 2006-2023 "A Legend that Will Live Forever"

So a few months ago I had some great fortune: I was getting back into comic strips, one of the great loves of my life and one I haven't indulged in on this blog nearly as much as I should. I never stopped reading them all together mind you, but I wasn't reading them daily and now I have it's through enjoyment. I found newer strips to adore like the nostalgic best friendship of crabgrass, the sibling chaos of Rosebuds and the charming reboot of heart of the city, found long running strips i'm now a huge fan of like Safe Havens, ON the FastTrack, and Kevin and Kell, all by one Bill Holbrook as well as Jumpstart which isn't but is fun, and reconnected with strips I hadn't really read daily like wallace the brave and phoebe and her unicorn. But while all of these are great and many will be talked about on here at some point (I'm saving K and K for 2021) out of all of them it was the one of the last ones I binged.. that ended up being my clear favorite and despite it only having been a few months, has worked it's way into being one of my favorite comic strips of all time.

Now i'd been planning to start covering it next year for it's 10 year anniversary.. but then something terrible happened last sunday that sped up plans: My cat Stewie, with me 17 years, had passed away. See reading the strip i'd related a lot of the antics to stewie, especially since my faviorite of the cast happened to also be an honry 17 year old cat. So I felt one of the best ways to honor my fur buddy.. would be to move this up and thankfully my friend Emma, who i'd gotten into the strip agreed to sponsor it. So with the time finally here those few of you who are either loyal readers of mine or just found this might need an intro

Breaking Cat News is a comic strip by Georgia Dunn, and this all started one day nearly 9 years ago when her cat Lupin knocked over a lamp and broke it. Her other two cats, Elvis, the older cat I mentioned and Puck, the gentler middle child, came to investigate and soon Georgia was improvising reporter voices for them… and it made her and her husband Ryan laugh so much she quickly made it into this comic.

She did what most would do and shared it with friends and what not and it spread around so much she decided to make some more… and they proved so popular she made a website, and the rest was history. THe strip was intially a self published webcomic, done in long form sunday like strips, before being picked up by Andrews McMeel aka Uversal Uclick, one of the two major comics syndicates who replayed the strip on their website , and it got popular to the point they published a collection, published more and eventually picked the strip up for dalies.

The strip has not only been a highlight of my day.. but something I love for it's wonderful fan community, who not only flooded my mentions with their condolences over my death, but have been one of the nicest comments sections iv'e found, as my talking on and on about these characters is not only apricated but encouraged and Georgia herself is a throughly kind person who not only comments occasionally but genuinely engages with and apricates her fans. So as such i've been chomping at the bit to do this longform and i'm happy to finally do so. So join me under the cut for a look at BCN's first year on the air as you meet Lupin, Elvis and gentle Puck as they hit the air.

BCN has a very simple, yet brilliant setup the above strip nicely highlights: three cats living in a big pink house report on the various goings on in said house as professional news reporters.. while still, having the logic and actions of a cat. For instance the endless struggle of a cat getting on the counter, table or what have you and having to scoop them off becomes our heroes trying to figure out why the humans guard the counter so jealously.. and also leads to one of my faviorite lines in the entire strip

Some day I will be able to use that panel, as i've used many of this strips for reaction images. Another reason why I wanted to do this really, to show where those panels are from and hopefully get more eyes on the strip.

Anyways like most comic strips the first yearcan feel a tad off in hindsight. Bloom County lacked focus and took a while to assemble it's early cast, with Opus finally bringing it all together. Snoopy was a very regular dog for several years who just happened to like eating candy instead of the imaginative weirdo we all know. Calvin caught Hobbes in a tiger trap, something never brought up again, as was his time in scouts. For Better Or Worse was more a bunch of domestic punchilnes instead of the generational family dramedy it became and all the better for. Every strip, and most works in general, take a bit to become their best self.

For BCN it's the fact the characters start out far less defined. Over time the cats would gain really fleshed out, dynamic, utterly wonderful personalities but for the first few months, their basically all the same person with their quirks only really hinted at. Again this is fair: Georgia was just playing off the very concept at first and likely didn't have much of an idea at first where to go with this beyond the cats just playing off The Woman and The Man (her and ryan's avatars). IT's not bad at all, but it feels weird to go back to after getting so used to what the strip becomes; a multilayered world with it's own history seperate from it's real world inspirations, a colorful and expansive side cast, and each of our main cat cast and our two human adults feel like well thought out fully formed characters. At this point it's just three interchangable cats, a fourth outside we'll get to, and two humans. It's not bad, but it is worth noting just how weird it feels while also reading the daily strip, which still has plenty of reality based antics but also has as much chaarcter humor as it does cat humor.

As Year One goes on though the cats slowly came into focus. So let's meet them shall we?

First up we have our man on the desk, 50's style reporter Lupin. Lupin was in real life adopted last out of the original trio as a kitten having been found with his various brothers and sisters in an abandoned apartment, carelessly abndoned. Lupin contracted a fever which as his intial fosters found, left him deaf, though nicely his disablity is just a part of him and only comes up once or twice in storyline, while still being compesnated for and given resonable acomindation when needed, as he relies on the teleprompter as seen in one strip where he dosen't realize a cricket's chirping is harming his friends ears for obvious reasons. He's a curious troublemaker, with a love of knocking thigns over, exploration, and teasing eldest cat Elvis

Next up is Puck, a black kitty with only three paws. In real life, puck was rescued from a concerned neighbor who noticed he had an infection and whose owners didn't care if he lived or died. He lost a limb, but eventually gained a forever home with the Dunns. Puck is gentle, sometimes shy, but always kind and upfront.

Elvis is a cranky siamise and older burnt out hardhitting journalist. He is the oldest of the cats and the only one in real life (it's unknown if this carries to the strip) who wasn't a shelter baby, with Georgia instaead adopting him from a farm while she was still single. Elvis is quick to anger, distrustful as heck to strangers, and clingy as heck to the woman. There's a good cat underneath it, and he loves his brothers and mom dearly.

IF your wondering who that strange cat in the rad hawiaan shirt is , we'll get to him later.

Story wise in contrast to the later years having frequent arcs mixed with one offs or one weeks dealing with various cat issues, the first year of strips is mostly just varoius shenanigans though a few running gags are set up that run into present day. Besides Elvis' on and off rivalry with the man and the leaves we have The bi monthly 2am running of the cats…

Our boys love of bacon

Their off hours wrestling league BCW, B C DUB, B C DUB!

Georgia is a wrestling fan herself, and it shows as most of the bcw gimmicks are in some way based on actual wrestlers, with Elvis wearing a singlet similar to Jerry the King Lawler, and Puck wearing an outfit similar to jesse ventura with the cadance of the macho man randy savage.

Story wise there's only three major beats and all are fairly loose, with the final one being the centerpiece of a story arc more like the ones we get later: a full on story followed to the end either over a few months or over about a month. The first is Georgia recapping her own real life pregnancy and eventual birth of her son, known her as the baby, the toddler and later the boy. The cats do their best ot help even fi they dont' quite understand

The actual arival slightly baffles Lupin and Puck but they come to accept their new roomate. Elvis… is a bit of a harder sell

It takes a while but eventually he softens on the boy too… if through shared trauma

It's fairly loose in contract to how later arcs go, but it makes sense as this was closer to the real life events presumibly, versus say the adoption of later cats, which has more of an arc to it.

The second dosen't payoff till the next year when they meet, but we do get the introductions of Sir Figaro Newton (Fig for short) and Tabitha, the cats living above our heroes (In real life it was reversed. )

They have their own running of the cats but we'll get to meet them in full next time.

For now though there's just one major arc and it start with a simple running gag. We're now circling back to that outdoor cat, as you simply must meet Thomas, Thomas, aka Admiral Thomas Whistchester, better known as Tommy! Tommy is based on a friends cat who had his own facebook, shared with his roomate sophie (who we'll also meet next time) before his sad passing, though you can still find it today to see plenty of the delicate artiste herself. He's a fluffy boy who just wants to be friends with our cats who all regard him with suspcion but Elvis in paticuarlly gets extra puffy and extra paranoid about their new pal

I also like his fun hawiaan shirt, which fits his party animal lifestyle well. I love the costuming for the cats, with each's outfit perfectly fitting their personality: Lupin has a full suit jacket which both nicely contrasts his chaotic nature as the strip goes and fits his usual roll as desk anchor, Puck has a simple but stylish white dress shirt and tie and Elvis has a more 70's suspenders and dress shirt combo. It's simple stuff but it shows off who they are and it's a key part of any comic strip, especially, even with the strip having alternate outfits for sleep and such, when they'll likely wear said outfit for the whole run of the strip. He's a nice kind guy. He even has a friend in louie, a skunk who sprays lupin who we've only seen all of twice in two decades despite being the coolest dude on the planet.

This also shows Lupin slowly growing closer to Tommy, a friendship that will presist throughout the strip. For his brothers though, it'd take quite the ordeal.. which starts as many tales do.. with Elvis's overestimation of what he can handle getting out of hand

Three hours later snows coming down, the rest of our heroes are panicked and Elvis himself is lost, cold and hungry.. when he runs into our boy Tommy… at first he's as receptive to his help as someone of his station and dignity would be..

To me this is where the strip grows the beard: in just three strips we've gone from the usual shenanigans.. to Elvis fighting to surivive. Not that the stakes are always high nor do they need to be: the slice of life feel of the strip is one of it's draws. But by raising them realisticly just a touch it forces Elvis to let his guard down and shows tommy as more than just comic relief, but a cat whose lost.. and willing to help others not loose what he had simply because he's that kind. It's the kind of depth that carries comedically and dramatically for the rest of the strip that up to this point had only barely been touched. This is where they cease being maybe one trait that's ignored if needed and ebcome the fully fleshe dout fur babies I know and love.

We then get the full story of how Tommy ended up like this, with Lupin finally truly warming up to him, realizing he's not so diffrent.. and fully being touched by Tommy offering up his bed.. while badly missing his family

The next morning tommy gets our hero home, greatful and with a new friend

But… Elvis realizes he can't leave things and having seen the sign we saw earlier takes a giant risk

The people recognize tommy, and call his woman, who will be both one of The Woman's closest friends and easily the biggest recurring human character outside the big pink house going forward. We get the tearful reunion you'd expect and badly hoped for

Turns out he was only a few blocks away, which is also nice setup as it means he can visit again after this. But for now he gets properly aquanited with our cast

And leaves to go to his happy home.. but with a reminder that wherever he goes.. he's one of them. A great way to end a great arc.

This christmas arc is one of my favorites of the series even now: Emotional, touching and perfectly in line with the season and it nicely sets the tone for everything to come. While things won't be this harrowing, our cats world is about to grow exponentially from here on out. So join me in march as the world gets wider, our heroes make some new friends, deal with some new babies, and things only get better from here. Thanks for reading.