Last time on: The Great Housepets! Re-Read: Various housepets (who mostly walk on two legs and have thumbs) are introduced and hijinx ensue. Some ferrets inherit a bunch of money.
Disclaimer: This is not meant as a comprehensive recap of Housepets! as a whole. This is more for light entertainment purposes as I re-read the comic and point out who I think is cute. 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: #25 The Visitor
Quick Recap: Wolves move into the neighborhood with the help of Keene as a sponsor. The wolves throw a BBQ for their human neighbors, with advice from Peanut.
Brief Thoughts: This is the first we see Keene split off from the general business of ferrets and his inner-struggles to honor his dad’s legacy are revealed. Keene’s ambitions bring the wolves into the fold and fuels a variety of arcs in the future.
Also, Miles is extra handsome.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel (wait do these count as out of context when I give you some context above?):
Story Arc Title: #26 Oops I Arced
Quick Recap: Zack goes on an adventure into the wild and becomes a god. Everyone else goes searching for a lost bunny. Pete is unleashed.
Brief Thoughts: Why stop now in stating how I think certain characters are cute? Zack is adorable. Also, for some reason I’ve always seen Zack’s fur color as pink, even though his fur is gray. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Do I need to visit an eye doctor?
Anyway, this is where some of the major plots kick into gear.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #27 It’s a Wonderful Dog’s Life
Quick Recap: Pete the Griffin turns Joel the Human into King the (Corgi) Dog. King becomes friends with Fox and learns a life lesson just in time for Christmas.
Brief Thoughts: Woo! Start of one of my favorite character arcs in the series. What? What was that? “Geo? Don’t you have a bias for stories about humans turning into dogs to learn life lessons?” Shoo! How dare you ask such obvious questions that may or may not be relevant at this time! All that being said, this is a neat introduction arc for King. Also a hell of an effective ending.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #28 Ocean’s Two
Quick Recap: Thomas and Celia scheme to still a treasure map from the Milton ferrets. Oddly, Thomas succeeds.
Brief Thoughts: More orphans jokes! And I will always be a sucker for jokes involving ferrets and pneumatic tubes.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #29 Imaginate, Too!
Quick Recap: Peanut, Grape, Max(ie), and Tarot have adventures in IMAGINATION~! Have a real adventure to the Pridelands and have a crossover episode with Spot the Superdog. Then things get too real. Grape reveals she knows Peanut has been crushing on her.
Brief Thoughts: For being an Imaginate arc there’s a lot of heavy stuff here. The mental projection is a neat concept. But honestly, the best thing to come out of this arc is Grape agreeing that Peanut and her can be mushy on occasion. ❤
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #30 The Present
Quick Recap: Bino forgets to get Sasha a Valentine’s Day gift. He attempts rampant re-gifting.
Brief Thoughts: Sasha may play hapless, but she’s not dumb. Sasha. Honey. Please kick Bino to the curb.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #31 Spot McCloud Presents: Comics
Quick Recap: Spot McCloud Presents: Comics
Brief Thoughts:
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #32 Dog Days of Summer
Quick Recap: King goes to a party and gets drunk and flirty. Then wanders into the Overarching Plot (AKA a COSMIC GAME OF D&D). Dragon and Kitsune are officially introduced and there’s some tabletop rule discussion…which leads to Pete leaving the neighborhood and King moving in with the wolves.
Brief Thoughts: I remain curious how orange soda gets pets drunk in this universe. But I also love that, so I don’t need an explanation. I assume it’s something similar to how Snoopy gets drunk on root beer (a joke I also love). But, what starts as an amusing King-gets-drunk-and-flirty plot takes a left turn into COSMIC BEING HIJINX which pretty much lays the foundation for one of the biggest overarching plots of the comic.
Kitsune is very handsome trickster demigod.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel(s):
Story Arc Title: #33 Theme Park World
Quick Recap: All the neighborhood pets go to Theme Park World.
Brief Thoughts: Essentially this is just a series of one-shots with Theme Park World as the setting, which is a heck of a lot of fun.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #34 The Adventures of Stripe
Quick Recap: In the Spot (Superdog) Universe, Stripe has some adventures.
Brief Thoughts: That (not) nefarious villain is cute.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #35 Movie Night
Quick Recap: Joey and Lester go to a movie.
Brief Thoughts: I mean, I was gonna say Lester is insufferable, but then I remember how much I’ve went on about the interpretations of Rocket Raccoon in various medias so…I guess I’ll give him a pass.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #36 Scaredy Cats
Quick Recap: Max and Marvin get into a classic haunted house scare-off. (Is that a thing?)
Brief Thoughts: That House Of A Thousand Nightmares strip is a TRIP. Poor Max.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #37 Noob Tube
Quick Recap: Rock Milton makes a dog food commercial staring Sasha.
Brief Thoughts: Wonder if I could write fan mail to the nameless Actor Dog.
Favorite(?) Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #38 Hope of the Pridelands
Quick Recap: Grape meets the author of the Pridelands series, Miss Auburn Res.
Brief Thoughts: Grape mentions a wolf actor in the 30s having to cut off their tail to play a werewolf and I feel I need to mention that because that is dark detail to throw in. Holy heck.
That out of the way, this is an emotional little arc which makes me adore Grape all the more. Also, Res needs a hug.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #39 We’re Snowed In!
Quick Recap: Everyone is snowed in! Peanut also officially meets Spirit Dragon. Dragon defeats…*squints at character tags*…Aurgelmir. The wake up joke attacks again.
Brief Thoughts: Heeeeey. This is one of those arc that starts as a series of one-shots around an event then transitions into world-building/over-arching-plot stuff! Sneaky!
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #40 The Preeminent Adventures of Spot
Quick Recap: Spot has preeminent adventures. (He also threatens to punch orphans if they don’t eat healthier.)
Brief Thoughts: Orphan jokes have returned!!!
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #41 The Arc Specifically About Being Naked
Quick Recap: The arc specifically about (mostly Bino) being naked. (But more specifically, this is about Bino attempting to re-enact a Housepets! story arc that wasn’t drawn because of computer issues…I think.)
Brief Thoughts: This is meta, even for Housepets! But I love seeing Bino in emotional turmoil.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #42 Not All Dogs
Quick Recap: Pete attempts to steal King’s fate from Heaven. While catching up with his old girlfriend Cerb, Pete loses the fate and [the fate] drops to Earth as a watch. Inevitably King’s fate/watch ends up in Bino’s paws and King has to get it back.
Brief Thoughts: The cosmic LARP game keeps making King’s life complicated. Is King the only one who uses un-PG language? This is like the third time its happened. Do no other pets know swears?
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #43 The Great Water Balloon War
Quick Recap: Zach works on his novel. Just kidding! Zach gets pulled into a great water balloon war and tries to figure what the heck is going on.
Brief Thoughts: What could be behind this madcap water war conspiracy?! *dook*
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #44 Let’s Imaginate MacBeth!
Quick Recap: The pets imaginate MacBeth
Brief Thoughts: A retelling of Shakespeare through the Housepets! Imaginate lens is amusing. And a fun explanation why we never saw Tarot’s mental projection stuff again (with Grape blushing included).
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel(s):
Story Arc Title: #45 The Interview
Quick Recap: Earl Sandwich receives an unusual excessively adorable job candidate: Itsuki the tanuki / raccoon dog.
Brief Thoughts: OH GOSH I WANNA HUG ITSUKI SO BAD LOOK AT HIS FAAAAAAACE
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #46 The Case of the Aztec Gold
Quick Recap: The K-9 unit searches for missing Aztec artifacts and encounters an Aztec jaguar ghost.
Brief Thoughts: I was sorta joking about me pointing out good-looking characters along the way, but the Aztec jaguar ghost…
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #47 A Respite In The Country
Quick Recap: King and Fox go to the country for Thanksgiving. They meet Fox’s cousin, Bailey, and King immediately falls for her. King’s long simmering existential crisis suddenly boils over. This eventually leads to snuggles.
Brief Thoughts: As previously mentioned (did I previously mention it? Eh.) I love seeing King’s journey post-corg’d and this arc in particular REALLY digs into the sheer absurdity of it all. Like, how would you react if you were turned into a dog (begrudgingly) and then fell in love with a dog? You know, assuming that dog was sentient and…uh…this hypothetical got out of paw. All that being said: emotionally-vulnerable!King is an adorable mode of King.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel (I think this is one of my favorite panels in general):
Story Arc Title: #48 Spots and Stripes
Quick Recap: Origins of Spot (Superdog) and Stripe’s kinda relationshop.
Brief Thoughts: This made me giggle a bunch.
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel:
Story Arc Title: #49 A Holiday at the Zoo
Quick Recap: The wolves visit the zoo. Goes about as well as you’d expect. Keene gets left at the zoo in the black-footed ferret’s exhibit.
Brief Thoughts: The alt text taught me about the tamaskan dog breed. Oh gosh, they are so cute. The wolves’ representative lawyer is Mr. London Esq and that’s HILARIOUS to me and it should be hilarious to you. LAUGH, darn you!
Favorite Out-of-Context Panel (Another of my favorite panels. I always kinda wanted Keene to go native and end up love playing cornball with the black-footed ferrets. Really should write that fanfic at some point.):
Side Note: Did anyone spot the unintentional Dean Koontz reference above?
Out-of-Context One-Shot Panel Intermission
Something Red, Something Blue, Something Fuzzy, Something New 