News post – Catch-23 No. 976 Talk to me

It was tempting to make a frivolous comic strip this week, but my instinct said that the difficult thing to do is probably the right thing.

Last week, our dog Rory was very unwell. She couldn’t keep anything down, she stopped eating and drinking and seemed to be in a great deal of pain and discomfort. We couldn’t tell if it was stomach-related, muscle-related or something else entirely. She spent fours days being cared for by the amazing team at Dandenong Veterinary Hospital – she had lots of IV fluids, her blood work done, an x-ray and an ultrasound.

We still don’t know what caused the illness, and the treatment of the symptoms helped her get through and heal up.

She is almost better now, but she had us quite worried.

Not being able to ask her about her illness, or tell her why she was being left in the care of the vets, compounded an already difficult ordeal.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 975 Zero Calories

I took a couple of weeks off from making comic strips to visit with family.

Happy Easter and April Fools! This comic strip was inspired by the Cadbury Salted Caramel mini eggs – delicious but impossible to get into in a hurry.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 974 Big believer

I don’t remember who said it, I think it was on some reality tv show or other, but the phrase ‘I’m a big believer in…’ stuck in my head and I just had to put it in a comic strip.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 973 Stereotypes

I took a couple of comic strips off, we had a weekend away and some family visiting.

I’ll acknowledge this comic is less about cats in general and more about Jaffa being a jerk. That said, if my cats could walk into a cafe and order a latte, they would invariably do something that would ensure they would not be allowed back.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 972 Starman

Elon Musk, wildman that he is, shot his car into space on the SpaceX Heavy Falcon launch this week. I liked the angle that maybe he wasn’t in on the idea, got pranked by his team then had to go along with it in front of the media.

Mat

 

News post – Catch-23 No. 971 Coloured pens

What else are you supposed to do with a bullet journal? Bullet journals and mindfulness journals are so hot write now. It’s funny to me that ‘writing stuff down on paper’ has become so retro. Don’t worry if your no good at writing stuff down, there’s an app for that as well.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 970 You’re not fired

This comic strip has three different Trump stories on the go. First it was revealed that Trump tried to fire Bob Mueller last year, but his Senior White House Counsel threatened to quit rather than carry out that order. Trump had to back down, and so the White House have been trying to play nice with Mueller’s investigation in the hopes it will just blow over. Now Trump’s saying he’s ‘looking forward‘ to testifying under oath at the hearing. Trump couldn’t say something truthful if his life, career and freedom depended on it, so I’m not sure what putting him under oath would actually do.

Finally, Eric Trump is now bleating about there being a conspiracy against Team Trump called ‘Deep State‘ because Twitter suggested he should follow Hillary, Obama and Ellen. I know how he feels. When I followed Hillary, it suggested I should follow Donald Trump. It’s probably a conspiracy. I would call it ‘Denial State’.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 969 Meaning of words

Trump and Nixon, Nixon and Trump. Putting the two of them together makes me happy, plus a reference to The Princess Bride is always called for. Check out Cary Elwes’ autobiography As You Wish for some great stories about the making of one of the best movies of all time.

Back to Trump. He says so many racist things, that to turn around and claim he’s NOT racist seems to me that he just doesn’t know what certain words mean. Words like ‘not’, for example.

Eric Trump went on TV to say that Trump isn’t racist because he ‘only sees green‘. I think he was talking about money, but it could have been envy as well I guess.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 968 Super black

A paper was published this week detailing how the black feathers on a Bird of Paradise absorb almost all light to create the deepest black found in nature. This is only surpassed by Vantablack, a man-made coating that absorbs 99.965% of all light. If I’ve done my job, you can hear Will Arnett’s voice in that last panel.

Mat

 

News post – Catch-23 No. 967 Cross and hot

Having hot cross buns available to buy as early as Boxing Day seems to be a thing now.

I get wanting something special to be available all year round, but part of what makes things special is that they are only available for a limited time. When the trappings of Easter, Halloween, Christmas and New Year’s Eve are available every day, what will make those times of year unique?

Mat