Escape from Failure
  • David Thomsen
    May 12, 2011

    Hard work perished soonest, and pessimism survived the longest? Hmm…

  • Liz
    May 12, 2011

    Looks more like she let go.

  • Clemens
    May 12, 2011

    Definitely no escape from failure. On the other hand, there’s no need to embrace the waves of failure either.

  • Emily Z.
    May 12, 2011

    Welcome to the wonderful world of customer service, Girl. Don’t forget to smile.

  • Gina Kamentsky
    May 12, 2011

    “For a song to be beautiful, the artist must be brave”- Big Dipper

  • MrJM
    May 12, 2011

    Only when success is impossible are we truly free.

    — MrJM

  • SC
    May 12, 2011

    Fail early, fail often!

  • Bella
    May 12, 2011

    DOOM.

  • David Thomsen
    May 13, 2011

    It looks a bit like she let go, but I don’t think the Cat and Girl art style is designed for dynamic action sequences. I’m quite sure she’s supposed to get swept away there.

  • The other Jack
    May 13, 2011

    If at first you don’t succeed you fail.

  • JayJayRose
    May 13, 2011

    Too soon.

  • Erika
    May 13, 2011

    The birds in the last panel look like 2’s. Wonder if that means something. 22? A catch-22?

    The tree seems to suggest that they aren’t at sea, but rather on land after a flood or tsunami. Somehow I’m reminded of Noah’s Ark, and how the dove brought back an olive branch to show Noah that the water had gone down enough to reveal some trees. (Of course, no tree could survive being underwater 40 days, so we can only assume that the olive branch it brought back was dead and waterlogged, and that olives and most other plants are really extinct; we’re just imagining them.)

  • Marv
    May 14, 2011

    Cat’s last line should actually be rendered as “faaaaith” as he fades away into the distance.

  • mjh
    May 14, 2011

    In panel 2 they are running with the wave coming after them, which is strongly suggesting a tsunami hitting the shore. There’s a tree since this was dry land a mere minutes ago.

  • yoyelena
    May 14, 2011

    graduate school

  • John
    May 15, 2011

    I think she let go because she realized she was all alone in the world. Notice how in the eighth panel the water has calmed down and she’s looking around.

  • melly mellz
    May 16, 2011

    Although she let go of the tree in the last frame, she is still reaching up, indicating that she has not lost faith. sometimes the greatest faith requires letting go of what you think will save you, and believe with all your might that God will provide an answer/solution to our woes that we as humans are too blind to see. Maybe those two birds in the background are getting ready to clutch her by that lifted hand, and fly her to safety…

  • Brian
    May 16, 2011

    If I were the sort to believe in the purity of authorial intent, I might have been scared away from it on March 24th by Cat and Girl.

    Thankfully, since I don’t believe in it, I can love the fact that Cat clearly shows “faith” as the last desperate (and fruitless) cry of the doomed, while Girl shows those who have a mindset of the worst-case scenario are most likely to survive. And yet that survival is worthless if you’re left alone in the end.

    She might have been happier with the frenzied search for easy solutions that killed Cat.

  • Brian
    May 16, 2011

    I think it does a disservice to Cat and Girl to imagine they exist in reality. Even when they’re inhabiting fantasy worlds we all know, they’re not in the real fantasy.

  • Jinmen
    May 16, 2011

    Condoning suicide much?

  • Ethan Duffy
    May 17, 2011

    The free market has decided that you weren’t holding on to that branch hard enough.

  • Meaning
    May 20, 2011

    Naw… grabbing onto a branch when all your friends are dissipating? What constitutes failure, kids?

  • Chris
    June 2, 2011

    But what if you are a great success at failing?

  • gareth
    June 6, 2011

    Thats not fair! using Hokusai to represent failure! SHAME!! :)

  • ChrisN
    August 17, 2011

    i think she found some ground to stand on.

    also, the birds look like 2’s.

  • Marianne T.
    August 31, 2011

    Ah, crap.

Add comment