Crankshaft
I don’t get these comics. It seems the whole point is to find a cat and insert it into a comic. Fair enough, but is it funny? I mean it seems to be some sort of a cultural reference to something, though I don’t know what.
Apparently this cat in Rhode Island can detect death approaching (or seems to like some chemical difference in people about to die. I suppose the difference is semantic):
It’s equivalent to putting the grim reaper in. I think the problem is that the Family Circus is so never-ending that I simply don’t believe that any force of death, no matter how strong, will actually end the characters and so the joke falls flat.
Oscar the Death Cat has become something of a recurring reference at various comic-strip snark sites, particularly referring to Funky Winkerbean, the deathiest comic strip ever, apparently (Crankshaft is a FW spinoff). (Note, I’ve never actually read Funky Winkerbean, so that’s based on what is always said when it comes up at those snark sites.)
Oh OK I get it now. I do seem to recall Oscar the “Death Cat” now that you mention it.
Putting the cat into strips makes sense now. It’s kind of like that blog “Garfield Minus Garfield” where the guy removes Garfield from his own strip. And usually it changes nothing, thus proving Garfield isn’t necessary in his own strip.
Actually Crankshaft DID feature a nursing home “Death cat” in the storyline about the death of one of his neighbor’s sister who’d had Alzheimers for some time.