Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for October 06, 2019

Lupin covering his eyes with horror mouth — Hahahahahahaha!

The original ELF on a SHELF? That’s two strikes right there! At least it’s not as creepy as the doll in “Sally Forth” lately.

If that’s a “Punch and Judy” Mr. Punch, then yes, get out now. If there’s a creepier, weirder puppet show than “Punch and Judy”, I don’t want to know about it. What’s with that play?

Being a lover of supernatural things, I have to say, there’s dolls out there that are a lot scarier than that one.

Cursed artifacts and a haunted house…great combo!

WHAT is the Man cradling in his arm???

Did Lupin make the chart?

“ Pull them little strings and I’ll sing you a song, I’m your puppet

Make me do right or make me do wrong, I’m your puppet”

Wow! Elvis got up on a shelf where Puck, the climbing champ, feared to go. So brave, Elvis!

I hear you, Man! If I saw that doll in my house, I’d probably run out screaming!

“Cursed artifacts” – News crew, don’t forget the strange barometer with the scary bubbles!

This past Thursday, I put Reapy (my name for him) in my trailer window that faces the street, I put his battery in so his head and especially eyes glow red. He’s there to welcome anyone who walks by during October.

Neighborhood kids love him.

Honest.

Okay, send the man over to the Forths for the rest of the month.

Get rid of that creepy doll immediately, Woman!

Miss Woman, I think you’re out-voted.

And now Lupin knows that the automaton bird in the clock is real. Unlike the mailman.

Yes, Elvis, it is a puppet. But not just a puppet. And in the middle of the night, when you are all asleep, it will come to life. And then …

JOKE TIME!!!

Elvis the Brave!

Firmly with the Man on this one. Unless the People want a house full of terrified children and screaming cats, that thing needs to go.

Does that thing have a cousin named “Chuckie?”

Wise Puck. Stay far away from it. Far, far away.

I’m starting to wonder about the Woman’s family.

Love the way Lupin is talking out of the side of his mouth in panel one.

That doll needs to be burnt. Immediately.

No, no, no, no, NO. Tuck Punch away, say you’d thrown it away, then bring Punch out again when the kids are in their teens.

Love a crying Lupin in The Man’s arms. The puppet used to belong to The Woman’s grandfather, so it’s obviuosly staying. Not sure it should be in sight, though.

Pretty brilliant strip today, Georgia!

I don’t like that Punch. Don’t like him at all. Woman, please put him back in his box and tape it tightly shut and put it in a deep, dark, closet somewhere. That thing is beyond spooky.

Paul was able to eat a whole bowl of my home made vegetable soup that I had pureed. I’m going to run it through the blender and add some more broth to make it even thinner so he can get more down.

Are we sure its the woman moving it’s arms?

The eyes are moving.

I’ve been in numerous internet discussions about creepy dolls and it seems many people are unnerved by dolls and puppets.

I think it’s because it’s the only toy that has a human face, but that face is frozen into just one expression or a completely blank expression. The only humans whose faces would be like that are corpses.

Come on, Woman. It’s obviously acting all innocent and sucking up to you. Oh poor little Punch, he wouldn’t do anything. Yeah right. That doll is evil. EVIL I tell you.

Just look at what it’s doing to poor Lupin. If it reduces the Cat of Adventure to hysterics, it has got to go.

Bravo to Elvis for having the courage to confront Punch.

This story is completely true:

My family and I go to dinner once in a while on a Saturday evening. As we are driving to the restaurant, several times on several different Saturdays we have seen an older man, not dressed well and with disheveled hair, walking up the road carrying a Dummy on his arm. It is a real creepy Dummy in a little suit, with a smile that would bring nightmares to children.

To say it is unsettling is an understatement.

Then for the next hour while we sit around the table at the restaurant, make up stories about the man, his Dummy and where the bodies are buried.

Lupin: “Meow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Make it go away.”

And there’s the creepy doll

That always follows you

It’s got a ruined eye

That’s always open…

And there’s a creepy doll

That always follows you

It’s got a pretty mouth

To swallow you whole…

Love Lupin in the final panel, and I’m with the Man. Out, out creepy doll!

This is where the People show how loving and mature they are by making a mutual accommodation. For instance, if I were the Man I would suggest the Woman burn the doll to ashes and never speak of it again. Hey, you need to have a position to start negotiating from.

ah… yes… my parents had an even creepier fault: they named my brother and me… Punch and Judy. god’s truth. :(

ROFL… my ‘man’ would NOT let me put that out.. no way.. no how.. He puts up with alot.. but creepy dolls. NOPE. My cats however are less skittish ;-)

It’s hard to imagine the “Punch and Judy” culture where spousal abuse is the primary source of humor. You’ve got to think of it like the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote or Tom and Jerry (which I stopped liking when I realized it was really just “Tom Injury”.)

Both the Road Runner and Jerry are “little guys” who manage to defeat big bad bullies. I think that’s where the humor is supposed to lie for children. They see Jerry destroying Tom as themselves in the schoolyard destroying the much bigger enemies. Okay, I’m overthinking this.

I am always puzzled with peoples reactions to such things, they dont bother me at all

Well, I guess I’m the weirdo that likes dolls and puppets and clowns. I had a multitude of baby dolls when I was little and one of my biggest night terrors was the doll thief that would come to take them away from me so I had to sleep with all 14 every night. When I was in my teens I worked as a puppeteer and after I was married I worked as a delivery clown and performed at kids parties. I brought balloon bouquets and the cake and sang and did magic tricks. It was great fun and I am saddened that people now think that these things are creepy.

And maybe the Woman is descended from the Swan Eaters.

Nope, nope, nope.

I cannot think of Punch and Judy without thinking of a book by Russell Hoban. Yes, the Russell Hoban who wrote such gentle and sweet children’s books as “Bread and Jam for Frances” also produced a story set after the collapse of human civilization. And doesn’t that sound like a suitable arena for the violent tale of Punch and Judy and The Devil? The Devil who in this future world is called “Mr. Clevver.”

The novel “Riddley Walker” tells a tale of a world nearly destroyed by nuclear holocaust. One of the few surviving cultural artifacts of the pre-apocalypse world is (can you believe it?) the Punch and Judy show. The show has assumed a central role in the human remnant’s attempt to understand the lost world, and Riddley travels from settlement to settlement performing the show and trying to convey its meaning to his audiences.

But he’s never seen an original Punch, not even a picture, until one day he finds, half buried in mud…

“It wer a show figger like the 1s in the Eusa show, but this here figger tho it wernt like no other figger I ever seen…the head wernt like no other head I ever seen in a show nyther. The face had a big nose what hookit down and a big chin what hookit up and a smyling mouf.”

This is an amazing tale of a human attempt to find meaning in a destroyed world that has mixed and confused Punch and Judy with Anglican ritual with atomic war with nuclear physics with stories from the Bible.

It’s a great book. The real challenge is getting past the strange language of the ruined world, the quote from Riddley above being an example. The entire book is written in this language.

But it packs a Punch. Yes, I said it.

The scarecrow was not creepy, it was nice and cute. As proved by the fact that it did not scare the boys (look at poor Pucky’s trembling lower fang in the second panel, Lupin’s worried look in the first panel, Lupin and the Man’s terrified looks in the last panel, and Lupin’s angry look in the fifth panel as he describes cursed objects), but this truely creepy doll does. And it is a creepy doll, it’s eyes in the first panel look like their spinning in opposite directions. In the third panel it looks like it’s pondering how to torment poor Pucky. In the sixth panel it’s clearly planning to murder Elvis so there is no one to protect the baby. And in the last panel the way it’s looking at the Woman is too stalker love. It’s truely evil.

Also, is a Punch doll on the shelf supposed to be a suppose of the evil Elf on the Shelf that comes out at Christmas? That thing doesn’t remind me of images of Punch I’ve seen, but it does remind me of Elf on the Shelf.

Full disclosure: the hub has a clown doll (“Mr. Clowny”) that freaks me out a little.

Remember, Georgia isn’t all “sweetness and light,” as evidenced by the Swan Eaters. Her eyes, ears, and mind are open to the world. A good person is not one who cannot see the dark side, but one who sees it clearly.

When I was in elementary school, during an assembly in the auditorium the students were all treated to a performance of Punch and Judy.

I don’t recall anyone expressing fear, dismay, or upset of any kind. [Of course I don’t know whether the other kids had nightmares later on… or developed a fear of puppets.]

What I remember is everyone laughing uproariously.

I think it was the implausibility, the impossibility that real people would be that violent. No one would really beat on someone else like that. It was funny precisely because it was extreme, the behavior was utterly unexpected, and because it seemed as unreal as the cartoons we saw on TV and at the movies. I still recall the strange accented voices the puppeteer gave to the figures. Punch, for example, pronounced “baby” as “babby.”

At least, all that is how I experienced as a child who knew nothing but the peace in my own family. And in TV family comedies of the era.

But I imagine that some of the kids at the puppet show saw the violence as plausible, or even familiar. Decades later, that makes me sad. And I guess it’s a step in the right direction that we no longer present the show to small kids, no matter what useful function it once served.

Love the panel showing Puck clinking mugs with the cuckoo clock bird.

Who remembers Kukla, Fran, and Ollie ? Or how many have seen the original puppet show of Beany and Cecil ( aka Time for Beany )?

Punch and Judy is horrible enactment of bullying! Get that horrible thing out of the house!!!

I remember Beany and Cecil. It was kind of a fun cartoon, when I was much younger. Somehow I don’t think it would mean too much to me now.

What could be creepier? I accept the challenge. https://www.gocomics.com/in-security/2018/02/14The other characters are terrified of it.

I don’t remember when it was but Georgia tweeted about her real Punch doll (and it is a family heirloom) and it is very, very creepy looking. The pictures should be on her Instagram somewhere

I’m sorry, but if that puppet was my grandfather’s, it would be buried in a box someplace in the attic or basement. Or cremated and its ashes put on my grandfather’s grave. Maybe. Poor Lupin and Puck.

Could it be that Punch was an inspiration for Batman’s The Joker??!!

Nobody has asked the obvious question yet: Where’s Judy?

Bloody Gocomics HTML!!! I can reply to myself. I can reply to almost any poster. However, it won’t let me reply to Georgia, dammitall. Georgia, I’d love to see the actual doll—but I will not join FB ever again.

I just saw a video with Georgia on facebook with the Punch doll and Elvis. Check it out she has captured the doll to a tee in the comic. The boys are spooked in the strip….wonder how they will be at halloween

“I mentioned in today’s live video that the Girl actually loves the Punch doll.” Georgia on Facebook

Reminds me of the ‘Bruce Dickinson – Accident of Birth’ album cover….