Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for July 01, 2022

This. This is the BEST joke. It’s official. Nice work, Pucky! Must’ve rolled a critical miss on that one.

The magic disembodied voice. Oh no it’s back!

The war of the dust bunnies against our intrepid wanderers! Every panel is a treasure!

This is an arc that really wouldn’t be the same at all with a third-party colorist rather than Georgia’s watercolors. It really was a step beyond when she took that back over.

With cats, they’re cones of protection. With dogs, they’re cones of humiliation…

Lupin obviously not happy about the Crinkle Madness now.

I really love Puck in his prayerful attitude, casting the cone of protection spell….

I want a spell for ice cream cones of protection.

Remember, Lupin, no matter what the rule book says the DM has final say in everything. And if you’ve been RPing long enough, you know better than to second guess the DM like that!

Besides, I’ve created a distraction by Creating Water right above an opponent’s head.

Yeah, Lupin, play by the rules! For now…

And I’m back on the confuzzled couch again:)

I’d enjoy this arc a lot more if I had ever played D&D. I don’t know what’s going on at all. But they’re having lots of fun.

Happy Canada Day to our Orbsters to the north!

They can’t see through those cones. If a vacuum come along now they’ll be doomed!

Well…

I see some of the dust bunnies bouncing off, so I’d say Puck made his roll – but just barely, since now the players can’t see (possibly) out of their cones. Maybe Goldie will have to use Lupin as a guide, since he’s parallell to the ground, and might be able to see out of his cone.

Even the bard gets a ‘protective’ cone!

Natasha seems . . . unfamiliar . . . with the Cone of Protection.

This is great! What a hoot!

(But Panel 3 is giving me trouble. I can’t see what Goldie is doing with Lupin. Is she carrying him? Why is he horizontal and sounding like someone put a paw over his mouth? I’m not parsing that panel’s action, that’s all.)

It’s time to turn the calendar page. And it’s…

LUPIN TOEBEANS!

Woooooo! I am a disembodied voice! Give me cheeeese! Wooooooo!

It seems the cone of shame has another, much better use! Well done, Pucky!

Well, the Three Musketeers plus Bard adventure has turned into the Three Stooges plus Confused Bystander mis-adventure. Stay tuned for the next fascinating episode!

Is it Natasha with the little Cone of Shame on? That’s too darned cute! Cone = !!

I do not like the cone of shame.

I’m enjoying this version of Our IX Lives

Meanwhile, Back on the Nile

Elvis-Anum: Alright. I think we have the Senet rules in place.

Lupinium: The winner gets the first choice of snacks, while the runner-up must roll the dice for their choice. Why is the plural for die dice instead of dies? And since the singular for mice is mouse, shouldn’t the singular for dice be douse?

Elvis: Who cares? If it’s that much of a bother, we can use throwing sticks instead of dice.

Lupinium: And speaking of mice, did you give the Royal Procurers the list of snacks for game night?

Elvis: Thomios is taking care of all that.

Lupinium: One more thing. Senet is a two-player game. Do we have enough boards for everyone who wants to play?

Elvis: I made sure Wally had several boards made up.

Lupinium: Maybe people would like to know about other games our ancestors played. Anyone interested?

I was just reading along, ordinary BCN strip, then I saw the effects of the cones of protection in the last panel. Utterly hilarious!!!

Oh, give them a cone, where the dust bunnies roam

Where cats and mice game at role play

Where Lupin is heard, with disparagin’ words

But the VM stops him (cray cray!)

Oh, Cat, he’s deranged

From the madness of crinkle ball play

Though somewhat absurd, it’s what he preferred

And would do it again all the day

How often at night, when the heavens are bright,

With the lights from the glitterin’ stars,

Have we stood there amazed, and asked as we gazed

Does the Cleric have the right powers?

Oh, give me a paw, figuring out what I saw

Is it fur real or maybe a dream?

Where cats and mice roll the dice as they go

And things are never quite what they seem

But I would not exchange my chance to see strange

When the cats and the mice start to play

- James Barnes / D. Kelly – Home on the Range

Panel three – I’m not sure Natasha even knows what’s going on.

Peter Townshend, performed by The Who, Elton John, and others: Pinball Wizard

Ever since I was a kitten, I played the RPGs

From rogue cat to cleric, I did just as I pleased,

But I never saw anything like it, until the Siamese,

Cast prestifluffitation, and scattered the dust bunnies!

…….

Meanwhile our rogue player is out of commission now,

Because of cursed cat treasures, We’re in trouble, and how!

Our fighter has to carry a rogue around the hall,

Because he had to go and play with that crinkle ball!

…….

Just when it seems we hadn’t got a prayer,

Puck our cleric, called protection on us there!

……..

What are we gonna do now?

I don’t know?

What do the dice have in store?

…….

Our VM keeps us honest

As things go quite insane

But we never lose track that

This is just a game!

Our late at night adventure

We’re giving it our all!

A roll of the dice and

We’re surely having a ball!

Oh, I so want to do a “Violet point-to-the-paw stop.”

Everyone pray for Harly he is our 14 year old husky lab mix. he may or may not have cancer. we are taking him for a checkup today

All good wishes to Harly, that he doesn’t have cancer. (((Hugs to you both))).

I cannot imagine the book saying that a spell “can’t be useful” though I can imagine it saying “can’t cause damage” or similar stuff. But why waste ink and paper on something that “can’t be useful”.

The title of the next book needs to be: Breaking Cat News: The Fellowship Of The Clowder.

You’re new to the underground, aren’t you? 10/10.

I guess I’m too old for this one. I don’t really “get” any of it.

I love that Georgia is a D&D fan as well as a cat lover. I never would have guessed. I’ve been having such fun with this arc, to the point of looking forward to getting up in the morning to see what the BCN cats are up to in their D&D game today. I hate for it to end.

Really enjoying this story line!

OMC… Shield of Protection will NEVER look the same in my head again…

My rule: You don’t get to be a rules lawyer unless you passed the bar.

Happy Canada Day to our neighbors to the North!

You can tell you’re dealing with a exalted alpha cat when its wearing a giant kibble funnel!

For some reason when I first read it I thought Puck meant pine cones and I was wondering how those would help. And then I looked closer at everyone else and figure it out. :)

Do these cats celebrate the 4th of July?

J is the first

This sure brings back memories …

Seems to me they would dispense with all the structure and go straight into cat (mouse) LARPing about the premises!? ;-)

I’ve never heard a cat say “merrrph.” Ours may speak a different dialect.

Slightly off-topic: Cats wearing cones

Kirby had to wear the dreaded cone. He bore it for a week. I was awakened one morning by the sound of him battering the cone off to go through the cat flap. He jumped on the bed. “Ta-dah. I’m healed.” I checked his scar and, sure enough, he was. He had also removed the stitches.

On another occasion, Johnny Depp had to wear the very unfancy ruff of a cone. What of our daily walks in the foothill community of North Morro Bay? I put him on a leash. I had to look hard through my old stuff to find a harness and leash. He wasn’t too happy but he did want to go for a walk.

Everything was OK until the garbage truck came up the block. I crouched down and tried to hold him. He took a flying leap for the bushes, which yanked me off my feet and probably would have dislocated my shoulder but the leash broke, instead. A minute after the garbage truck passed, he came out of the bushes, “C’mon, let’s go.”

We resumed our walk, leashless – he awkwardly banging his cone through our normal course and I marveling at his persistence.

It would appear, Lupin, the rule is that it can’t be useful to the caster and their fellow adventurers. But it is useful to their foes. Thankfully there’s Puck.

I love how all through the arc, Elvis has one ear poking out from his hat.

Maybe he should have cast pawmaturgy instead of prestifluffitation.

I mentioned in another comment that I’ve never played RPG but it’s vaguely familiar. I want to say “Thanks” to all the gamer commenters who have helped the rest of us appreciate this arc. And to Georgia, please don’t feel you’ve left us non-gamers behind. I and others have mentioned how we’ve marveled at the beautiful art work and the clever storytelling. It’s all good!

I’m loving this arc and I’ve never played D&D. I read all of the Fellowship of the Ring so maybe that helps.

Wait! Now none of us can see where this is going. :)

“Merrrrp.”

Are the flying dust bunnies bouncing off the cones of protection?

Daughter 2, daughter 4, son 1, son 2, son 3, and Hubby are all D&D players. They have interpreted BCN for me the past 2 weeks. So Georgia has deepened the friendship within my family.

I just noticed something. The flock of dust bunnies are bouncing off of Puck’s cones of protection. Looks less like a curse and more like their doing exactly what Puck wants.

lately I’ve been getting online ads for some amazing looking dice, and I feel like I might have to find another table-top group to justify buying them

Not sure if this has been posted here yet, but Georgia is doing one of her talks (the library ones) virtually. There are 95 spots. I signed up at 8:30 MST (PDT) July 1st, and there were 47 spots left after I signed up. If you are interested you can sign up here: https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/events/62a7919e0685eb4200c30044

I know it is late and many people may not see this but I will try to get on fairly early tomorrow and repost this. It may be filled by then, but it’s worth a shot if you want go.

This is so brilliant.