News post – Catch-23 No. 941 Duck Pond

This strip was inspired by seeing a whole piece of white bread floating in a duck pond near our house. There are signs asking you not to feed the ducks, and there is the no shortage of info on the internet telling you that bread, especially modern highly-processed white bread, is just not good for Daisy and Donald, but the urge to feed bread to ducks is obviously strong on the genetic level for some.

That thing about birds and rice, though, not true. Birds like uncooked rice and it doesn’t make them sick or explode. Hashtag birdfacts

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 940 Not so fast, Beagle Boy

If women-only screenings of Magic Mike XXL were announced, no eyebrows would be raised. But do so for Wonder Woman – which is a traditionally male-dominated super hero genre movie – and the entitled man-babies come out of the woodwork.

Fellas, it’s hard to see from the inside of all this male privilege, so let me help: basically the entire world is a men-only screening. This tipping of the scale is trying to right so much imbalance.

Mat

 

News post – Catch-23 No. 939 Mystery box

I always end up watching a bit of MasterChef each season, even though my own cooking skills are not exactly noteworthy.

Danielle suggested that if people were on the cooking show menu, the current MasterChef catch-phrase ‘this is me on a plate’ should get a look in, but I couldn’t make it work with the planned set-up.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 938 Decluttered

No news story took my fancy this week so I wanted to do something simple, and breaking the 4th wall which I haven’t done in a while.

The decluttering gag was originally going to include the ‘bringing you joy’ line – Bagel says to Jaffa ‘You don’t bring me joy’ and then Jaffa is out of the footpath for hard waste collection. I felt, though, that the Gilmore Girls Netflix show did this already, so blending in some Harry Potter felt more correct. Bagel has shown us his wand skills previously.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 937 Sausages

Rescue groups need money. Bunnings sausage sizzles are a great way to raise money. An animal rescue group raising money by selling meat sausages didn’t sit well, and vegan sausages were sold instead. Then Australia lost it’s mind. Why? It’s hard to say. It’s as if this one day of fundraising at one Bunnings store in one suburb in one city challenged the entire country’s ideals and culture. People were free to ignore the vegan sausages, or go somewhere else for lunch or (gasp) try a non-meat alternative for once. Maybe you’d like it. What then? Maybe you’d have to admit that you could live without animal products for one meal.

If you liked that vegan sausage, that also means that you must become a Green’s voter, hug trees and cancel your subscription to the Herald-Sun. Just kidding, no-one subscribes to newspapers any more.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 936 Red is the New Black

Anne of Green Gables is hot property again. Netflix has made a new ‘grim and gritty’ version of Anne that focuses more on her sad situation prior to her adoption. I’m not certain the story needs more of a dark focus – the original story didn’t have much of a dark side – but the reviews are generally positive so I guess I’ll have to watch it for myself. The original Canadian series will remain the true Anne of Green Gables in my heart.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 935 The “Great” Outdoors

As a pale-skinned human, any more than 10 minutes in direct sunlight and I’ll burn (15 minutes for in-direct sunlight). I’ve made my peace with this, I have my SPF 40+ but being outside on purpose is not at the top of my to-do list.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 934 Child lock

This comic strip is very much based on a true story. Our dog Rory has a habit of sleeping on the remotes – she’ll seek them out, so the only conclusion I can make is that they are in fact comfortable to sleep on. Lo and behold, the set-top box ends up child locked and I had to take to google to find out how to unlock it (there’s no child lock button, if you’re curious).

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 933 The Gland Game

This one started as a strip about dog washing, with Bagel asking Alex if his hairdresser empties his anal glands.

We have been asked by our vet if we want to learn to empty our dog’s glands but I’m happy to leave that particular job to the professionals.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 932 Political observation

It was tempting to focus just on Spicer’s holocaust denial or Hanson’s ill-informed Easter egg rants (this linked article is satire), but I went with them as a whole instead.

The original punchline was Jaffa just saying “I say people in politics should stop talking.” which served several purposes – it continued the ‘says’ rhythm, it suggested that politics would be improved with less talk and more action, and it also mixed in a little drop of disillusionment which is no talking at all might be preferable to the current state of politics where everyone gets to be heard, no matter how extreme or ignorant of facts and logic.

Mat