Housepets! (http://www.housepetscomic.com/) by Rick Griffin has been the one webcomic that I’ve managed to stick with after all the other webcomics have been forgotten in a dusty corner of my bookmarks folder, never to be seen again. Housepets! keeps pulling me back in with its giant cast of animal characters and plots that range from slice-of-life one-shots to arcs that end up [redacted] a [redacted] to [redacted].
It’s also been a looooong time since I’ve gave the comic a proper re-read. Which is why I’m starting this: The Great Housepets! Re-Read Caper. Gonna go through the webcomic, arc by arc, give a quick recap and some brief thoughts on each.
This is not intended to be a comprehensive recap to the Housepets! webcomic and won’t usually include one-shot strips. This is more a personal journey back through the comic and is by no means meant as anything official/serious/accredited. For further context, I’d recommend going over to read Housepets! (http://www.housepetscomic.com/) or perhaps the Housepets! Wiki (https://housepetscomic.fandom.com/wiki/Housepets!_Wiki)
Story Arc Title: #1 Imaginate
Quick Recap: Grape and Peanut have an adventure with IMAGINATION!
Quick Thoughts: Imaginating is a re-occurring plot device throughout the run of Housepets! There’s some nice goofy chaos in these strips, that characterize Peanut and Grape’s chemistry off the bat.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #2 The Game
Quick Recap: Bino is a jerk. Peanut is tricked into the playing The Game. A chainsaw is involved.
Quick Thoughts: Rick’s love of gaming mechanics attacks very early.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #3 Cat Tale
Quick Recap: Peanut is labeled a Cat Lover and kicked out of the Good Ol’ Dogs’ Club, finds out Grape is a girl.
Quick Thoughts: Peanut never puts that Cat Lover nonsense behind him. And so set sail the Peanut-Grape ship.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #4 The Raccoons
Quick Recap: Grape defeats raccoons raiding the kitchen.
Quick Thoughts: Includes solid joke about the pets in this universe having thumbs. Which leads to many many more questions about this universe.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #5 The Adventures of Spot
Quick Recap: Peanut’s first Spot (Superdog) strips.
Quick Thoughts: You’re adorable, Peanut.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #6 Fido’s Return
Quick Recap: Fido returns! Bino (Fido’s brother) is jealous! Grape hits Bino with a frying pan! Bino is having an affair with Sabrina (a cat!)!
Quick Thoughts: It amuses me that All Dogs Go to Heaven exists in this universe. Also amuses me at how quick this strip has moved into dog/cat relations.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #7 Mouse Mouse Revolution
Quick Recap: Communist mouse uprising. Grape eats their leader.
Quick Thoughts: Seriously, Grape stomps on the lead mouse and eats him.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #8 Thematic Arc of Questionable Quality
Quick Recap: Trio of strips of Peanut being silly.
Quick Thoughts: Zonk!
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #9 The Zoo
Quick Recap: Peanut and Grape visit the zoo.
Quick Thoughts: Various fun vignettes about the zoo creatures. I especially love the kangaroos.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #10 The Grove
Quick Recap: Peanut and Grape visit a grove and meet Pete.
Quick Thoughts: Peanut knows Akkadian? More importantly, Pete the griffin is introduced. He becomes very important later on in HP, but unclear from these strips whether that was the plan from the beginning or not, since he’s much less, for lack of a better word, jerky. Bunches of details from this arc come into play much later. Including the running “Or was it?” joke.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #11 Housepets Christmas
Quick Recap: Secret Santa Hijinx. Max finds out Grape is a girl.
Quick Thoughts: Bino sat on that exploding catnip gift idea for a long while before it came back. And SURPRISE! Housepets! is now in COLOR (for the last strip of this arc forward)!
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #12 The Yarn Ball
Quick Recap: Grape goes to a cat party and gets high on the ‘nip.
Quick Thoughts: Suddenly cats! (Most of whom you’ll only see in brief cameo appearances in the future.)
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #13 The Further Adventures of Spot
Quick Recap: Spot has further adventures.
Quick Thoughts: Can’t go wrong with orphan jokes.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #14 The Vet
Quick Recap: Peanut and Grape go to the vet.
Quick Thoughts: There’s a bunch of good bits here on sentient pets going to the vet.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #15 A Mouse Named Spo
Quick Recap: Fido adopts the mouse Spo. We find out Bill has a manly chin.
Quick Thoughts: This arc is where the alt-text jokes begin. I love the alt-text jokes. I also love Fido and Spo’s dynamic.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #16 Zap!
Quick Recap: Peanut and Grape zap the heck out of Bino with his shock collar.
Quick Thoughts: Bino in pain is neat.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #17 Fall of the Pridelands
Quick Recap: Grape drags Peanut along to the midnight release of the newest Pridelands book. Peanut, predictably, becomes obsessed.
Quick Thoughts: I forgot that the cats characters had cat eye slits for a while.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #18 The Continuing Adventures of Spot
Quick Recap: Spot has continuing adventurers.
Quick Thoughts: I’m still a sucker for orphan jokes.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #19 A Sinister Shadow
Quick Recap: Fox is kidnapped and we find out that PETA sucks in the HP universe too. We also meet Joel and hear his (frankly tragic) backstory.
Quick Thoughts: This is the point where Housepets! starts to get much more interesting (and surprisingly dark). And maybe the first “without the collar they’re naked joke”.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #20 Roadtrip Woo
Quick Recap: The Sandwich family goes on a road trip. Grape is writing Pridelands fanfiction.
Quick Thoughts: Grape has some deep-seated abandonment issues.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #21 Down at the Farm
Quick Recap: Peanut and Grape are sent up to visit a farm upstate. Some barn cats have a slow motion pillow fight which breaks Peanut. Peanut attempts to profess he likes Grape, just as Grape commits to dating Max.
Quick Thoughts: Rufus is extra handsome. Peanut is extra cute when having an existential crisis, though feel bad for him when his heart is broken when trying to share his true feelings with Grape. And I’m still not sure whether cows are conscious/sentient or not (though I still hope not).
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #22 Money Sharks
Quick Recap: The Milton Ferrets inherit an ungodly amount of money and open the mansion for a tour only open to pets. There’s also a contest with nebulous rules and prize which (literally) breaks Bino.
Quick Thoughts: Ferrets being given an ungodly amount of money leads to about as eccentric chaos as you would expect. In fact, there’s at least a dozen future plot arcs that are fueled by that eccentric chaos. I love how ferrety the ferrets are when they’re first introduced. That ferretness gets more tempered with some of them as time goes on.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #23 n-ple Date
Quick Recap: Grape and Max go on a date. Peanut has a date(?) with Tarot, a dog with some weird powers.
Quick Thoughts: Nooooo! My Peanut/Grape ship is sinking!
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel(s):
Story Arc Title: #24 The Uncanny Adventures of Spot
Quick Recap: Spot has uncanny adventures.
Quick Thoughts: Not enough orphan jokes. :<
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
That it for this time, folks. That means it’s time for…
Out-of-Context One-Shot Panel Intermission
Something Red, Something Blue, Something Fuzzy, Something New 