I think my brain just broke.

This comic has ONE weakness:



Flamingos.

The laws of space and time have ceased to matter, transporting Heathcliff and Owner-Man to a far-flung, tiny island where a glass bottle just so happened to be. I don't know how the pizza order thing is a joke - if it makes it, they'll know you're on an island, and you'll be saved.

Hopefully a shark or a whale or something eats the fucking thing.

Heathcliff attempts to go out on the campaign trail, but a chestburster puts a damper on things. World domination will have to wait.

This is all kinds of bullshit. Heathcliff gives his friends a door for their home. He then floats away, a side-effect, perhaps, of some young chap somewhere in the world using the Konami code. Then, boom, the door magically transforms into a video game (off panel), Owner-Man is pissed, Batman and Robin have a fight with the Joker, Heathcliff breaks the cardinal rule of being a cat in a comic strip (he actually hurts a mouse), and then there's a pun involving a pro-golfer. I'm lost. So, so lost. If I owned a river, I'd drown myself.

Heathcliff is sending children hopscotching towards Sodom...first this, then jump rope, an early 4 square addiction, then teen pregnancy, abortion, and shame. That is...if the girls don't die after snorting the hopscotch board.

Heathcliff's Owner-Man, jealous of his new neighbor's aptitude with dogs, decides to brainwash Heathcliff into thinking that he, too, is Man's Best Friend. This bends the laws of space, time, and sanity: Heathcliff becomes a hat, Owner-Man has an arm growing from his throat, and his throat-arm hasn't snapped from Heathcliff's weight.

Seriously...that cat is massive.

Heathcliff and Owner Boy venture to Fine Wines in the hopes that educational discounts apply on alcohol. The proprietor of the joint does give our hero a taste of something, but the delicate caramel with a hint of tobacco didn't exactly go well with math. Heathcliff rates it a fail. Armless Wine Merchant doesn't know what to think.

Heathcliff and Owner-Man venture to a pet store, where Owner-Man buys mouse litter. Realizing the shame inherent in doing this, he forces Heathcliff to carry it, then belittles him. Heathcliff, if he could speak, would point out how he's a cat and thusly doesn't know what shame is, and then would also likely explain that he wasn't the one who bought the shit, being as he can't apply for a bank account/wouldn't know what money was, either.

Heathcliff dumps Gatorade on Andy Capp and is likely to never be inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame, if not for gambling, but for lack of imagination with costuming.

I think Gallagher turned on the TV for the first time ever and realized that sports exist, which explains his recent fascination with them.

Owner-Boy stands trial for blowing up Heathcliff's head with a gas station air hose. His defense? "He said he wanted to be Mandark for Halloween!"

Heathcliff plays God in an attempt to create a scent that will attract the dudes.

He fails.

Respectfully submitted for your perusal: a Heathcliff comic strip. Height: None. You think these are printed? Weight: Heavy, man. Motive: To confound and confuse all who come across it, wherein hangs the tale, for in the panel above, a cat is feeling up a snowman, and two humans are pondering the fate of a sculpture garden outside of a building that says "Art Gallery" on the marquee, even though it isn't big enough to house humans, let alone sculptures. Confused? Confounded? Scared? You should be. You should be. This...is the Scary Door.

An android who is primarily programmed to lift weights and look blank has fallen asleep in Owner-Man's living room. The strip finally answers the question "when androids sleep, do they dream of electric sheep?" with a resounding "NO." They dream of Heathcliff...asleep on their foreheads. This is why their programing goes wrong. This is why they kill humans. This is why there is a judgment day.

Heathcliff and I share something in common: the only thing we can accomplish in basketball is fouling out. I'm guessing that the coach is teaching him the free throw in an effort to get him to quit the game, but then again, he's also under the impression that flagrant fouls were meant to be part of the game. If they were, they wouldn't be fouls.

I'm guessing that Gallagher surpassed his action quota for the week with the brilliant hockey strip, because I have no idea why the coach would be lecturing him before a free throw on something he wasn't responsible for.

And now...Full Metal Heathcliff.

Heathcliff is probably about to die. Not only is this apparently an acceptable fate for Owner-Boy's least retarded companion (according to Owner-Boy's lack of action), but it's a momentous occasion to quip, noting that Heathcliff's breath is probably enough to knock his attackers out.

*ahem*



Edit - But not quite as wrong as the assertion that dogs growl Lucky Charms.

Yet another penalty box poem, only Heathcliff appears to have done something so foul as to warrant a three minute penalty (?) and Knicks tickets (!). A bad strip salvaged by a somewhat funny joke? Why not...I'm feeling generous.

Honestly, Pete? I've got books to read and stories to write, man. Stop wasting my time. You know what I want. You have until Sunday to please me, or I'll threaten to come through on all the other threats I've made on your life thus far.

Another repeat strip. I forgave yesterday, because it was an expansion of the Wheaties box joke, but this is fucking sad. Peter, if you're reading this, we're like a team: you do something hilariously bad, I rip it. If you do something that's just unreadable, I can't come up with anything.

Oh...and we're in Golden Globes season, though that may have been a "very clever" observation that Golden Globes mean nothing unless you're nominated for those and not the Oscar.

It's a gorgeous winter day, which is cause for Heathcliff to give the world his best Canadian grin. Why is he so happy? Because gorgeous winter days call for elbowing the fuck out of family members. What's this? Tripped up by a convict cousin? And he gets a fucking dragon punch from a dude in an eye patch? THEN THEY FUCKING DANCE?!? AND GET PENALIZED FOR IT?!? A PROPELLER CAP?!?

This is the greatest fucking comic strip ever. I wish my family had traditions like beating the fuck out of one another for a five minute major. If only.

Today's Heathcliff guest stars Wilford Brimley in a strip clearly designed to pander to the elderly folks among us who remember Willie Mays. Those that do will also remember that Willie Mays made spectacular plays in centerfield and will likely compare that to Heathcliff's spectacular move, which was likely just climbing up onto the couch and laying down. Thus, Heathcliff does not equal Willie Mays, and the intellegence of our nation's elderly has been insulted.

This is a meta comic, where the artist comments on how terrible the strip is. One of the fish is trying to commit suicide, Heathcliff is trying to eat him, and they both will fail. It is, in fact, not a nice change in the dull routine, because three seconds from now, both fish will forget about it, and life will be back to normal. Heathcliff looks like a cannonball with a tail, as filmed by the Brothers Wachowski.

Jughead is trying to write a book about meditation called Zen and the Art of Trash Collecting and sees Heathcliff as a sort of spiritual guide. When he goes home and sees Archie getting it on with Betty and/or Veronica while he gets nothing, he sees a bottle of Jack Daniels, and the book continues to be unwritten.

Heathcliff is on cat steroids, but it doesn't matter, because a guy like my size would be able to lay down and cover the field sideline to sideline. The referee's legs have been replaced with metal poles that have been cemented to the ground, otherwise I imagine he could cover the field in as little as three strides to administer the test himself.

Uhh...cats can't talk, and Heathcliff has shown no super-feline ability to do so...ever. So, unless French Maid Owner-Lady is some kind of cat whisper and can interpret "meow," methinks that putting a bar of soap (which is probably like poison to cats) is a bit of an overreaction to the foul language at the golf course. Besides, if it's Owner-Man's fault, why isn't she trying to force the bar of soap past his formidable broom-stache?

...and I swear Heathcliff was making a snowman the other day. Golf? In January? Must resist urge to kill...

I'd apologize for not posting much lately, but I've been dealing with strips like this: shit so abysmally unfunny that I can't make light of them. Really. There was a strip where Heathcliff took a Snowman to the cosmetic surgeon after buying a single baby carrot. A SINGLE BABY CARROT. You'd have to be a fucking moron to not see the joke.

I honestly don't even think this one needs explanation. Heathcliff is fat. The doctor is running out of euphemisms!

beefy, big, blimp, brawny, broad, bulging, bulky, bull, burly, butterball, chunky, corpulent, cow, distended, dumpy, elephantine, fleshy, gargantuan, gross, heavy, heavyset, hefty, husky, inflated, jelly-belly, lard, large, meaty, obese, oversize, paunchy, plump, plumpish, ponderous, porcine, portly, potbellied, pudgy, roly-poly, rotund, solid, stout, stubby, swollen, thickset, tubby, weighty, whale

So fuck you and your laziness, Gallagher. One Google search. I would pay to see butterball, corpulent, distended, elephantine, paunchy, roly-poly, or rotund in a fucking comic strip, and they're all right up your alley, in that you don't even have to strain your fucking brain to come up with any of them. "Well fuck, Heathcliff, I left my whale scale at my marine veterinarian office!" Boom. Strip over, success = very yes.

Keep your baby carrots away from me. Do something I can make fun of. Stop being mediocre!

Heathcliff is about to take a shit, but he changes his mind and builds a snowman instead. Not satisfied with his long nose, Heathcliff replaces it with a baby carrot, which is a "nice touch" because the Nutmegs are anti-Semites. For some weird reason, the produce stand morphs into a cosmetic surgeon's office, and red circles morph into a man's head and a stray line.

Two old men have nothing better to do than sit at a park bench and watch a bunch of prepubesant boys play football in the snow. I don't want to say anything about their lifestyle choices or anything...but that's fucking creepy. I imagine Aqualung and his buddy will be lurking for awhile, because it'll take awhile for that Snowman to determine if Heathcliff crossed the plane with the ball: the TV appears to be the Penalty Box, only flipped over on its side. Oh...and the referee is a fucking snowman.

Heathcliff, the President of the United States of America, takes a series of small catnaps during the day so that he's awake and aware for the rest of the day's important decisions. He's also dedicated to doing tons of blow, drinking, and moonlighting in pornography, which explains why he's so damn bushed all the time.

I'm not quite sure where to place this. On one hand, the Hockey Hall of Fame seems to have moved from it's current location in a Toronto mall to the White House. On the other, the term "goon" hasn't been in use since 1994. It doesn't matter though, because a tabby cat weeps for the forlorn days when a man would get cheered for fucking up motherfuckers on the ice. Probert, Domi, the guys who didn't have names, Heathcliff would pour one out for you, if only he had a fake I.D. saying that he was a human.

Hockey Rox.

Heathcliff's New Year's Resolution: To get down with the female personal trainer at the desk.

Why It Failed: The male personal trainer "flamed out" on him.

Result: Heathcliff, now liberated from the shackles that he'd worn in the form of his ugly-as-fuck girlfriend, resolves to wear nothing at all (...nothing at all...nothing at all...) except for a sweat band. Look out, Mid City...Heathcliff is dressing like Lincoln and starting nuclear wars...at the gay bar.

That or he's taking up juggling.

Threat of the Day: Sodomy? It's legal here.

Heathcliff, on one of his many adventures through the local mall, noticed that the calendar store was having a 75% off sale, because calendars are useless as fuck and make for good gifts to people that you hate. Being as Heathcliff is a cat, he hates mice, and thusly bought one for the mice living in the GIANT fucking hole in the wall. Needless to say, if your mouse hole is big enough to fit a cat through, the mice should be gone. But Heathcliff is content to threaten his eventual victims...slowly torturing them until they're prime for the pouncing.

Threat of the Day: This calendar is heavy enough to crush you. Happy New Year's.