CSotD: The Simple Joys of Puppyhood
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Faithful readers (mine or his) know that "Pooch Cafe" has been in flashback mode on weekdays since June, as Paul Gilligan depicts Poncho's birth and puppyhood. It's been an interesting experiment in freshening some of the plot points and characteristics which were assumed in the first place — now we're seeing where they came from and I'm sure that the process of adding these details is helping Gilligan focus his work, sort of like that part of rehearsing a play where the actors sit around and discuss their characters, adding their interpretations of who each was up to the point where the script begins so they can fill in the motivations and nuances.
This being a comic strip, some of the motivations and nuances are pretty obvious, and, in this week's arc, young Poncho is learning the sheer, brainless joy of chasing birds.
With all the dog strips out there, what attracts me to Pooch Cafe is, first, that Gilligan retains the dogginess of his characters. They may talk, they occasionally make philosophical observations, they often behave in human ways, but they remain dogs throughout. Their universe is still a dog's world and they continue to judge and evaluate everything through a canine filter.
Second, that filter is not simply a list of cartoon dog attributes. Yes, they dislike cats. Yes, they look at the postman as a potential threat. And fire plugs have a special place in their lives. Some things are universal, and whether they rise above cliche depends on how heavily they are leaned upon, and how they are used when they do appear. There is an expression in Russian literary criticism, "making it new," which means to describe something very familiar in a way that is not familiar and that, by doing so, gives it life beyond its mundane normalcy.
In the case of Pooch Cafe, Gilligan is constantly making it new, bringing forth real dog attributes to freshen his characters and keep them from becoming just another set of familiar cartoon dogs.
Example: Every cartoonist is hip to the idea that most dogs hate vacuum cleaners. It's not a bad thing to use that from time to time. But four years ago, Paul Gilligan came up with this Halloween strip that would have been amusing with vacuum cleaners. By choosing something else, something perfectly legitimate and quite simple but not in the accepted canon of cartoon dog gags, he brought in the element of surprise and created a strip that had dog owners everywhere falling out of their chairs.
In a world with way too many talking animal strips, Pooch Cafe continues to stand out.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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