Harris Smith recommends Caaats!
Cats are difficult creatures to pin down, both literally (I tried to put a collar on my cat once and wound up with a claw in my throat) and figuratively. They can be incredibly loyal and affectionate one minute, terrifyingly violent or hyperactive the next. Their moods seem to turn on a dime. The same cat can seem both regally majestic and idiotically goofy depending on whether it’s strutting proudly across the room or floundering desperately with its head in a garbage can. As a cat owner, comic book reader and maker, I completely understand why artists have so often turned to cats over the years, from Krazy and Felix to Sylvester to comic cat supreme Heathcliff and Garfield, or used cats symbolically, to signify a character’s intelligence or agility, as in DC Comics' Catwoman and Cat-Man. Cats are fascinating, funny, weird, a little scary, kind of annoying, adorable, comforting, discomforting…like the biblical demon of Gadarenes, cats are Legion, for they are many.
Cartoonist Matt Gross, creator of the comic Caaats!, gets this. He gets cats, or at least gets that you can’t get cats, but that sometimes cats can get you…Olive and Hazel, Gross’ feline protagonists, display to epitome of catitude throughout Caaats!, nine issues of which are currently available through comiXology Submit. Gross mines the attention deficit inherent to the nature of cats for a great deal of absurd humor and peppers the action with assorted pop culture references and subplots, giving the whole comic a frenetic, unpredictable feeling. Indeed, just when you think you have Caaats! pigeonholed, it zigs where you think it’s going to zag, opting for affection over violence, silence instead of chatter, deadpan stoicism over mugging, or vice versa.
To be totally honest, upon first encountering Caaats!, I was less than enthusiastic. I was expecting a cute, obvious comic that recycled the tried old Garfield-isms of cats being lazy and selfish, perhaps mingled with some greeting card-level sentimentality (But they really love us after all!). That’s not Caaats! at all, though. Gross goes for the cute sometimes, but his writing is consistently very funny, perfectly balancing sentiment and absurdity and wry, low-key punchlines with broader physical comedy. Anyone who’s ever owned a cat will find some identification and laughs here, but Caaats! is funny enough to appeal to non-cat people as well. You might even like it if you own a dog.
HARRIS SMITH is a Brooklyn-based comics and media professional. In addition to his role as a Senior Production Coordinator at comiXology, he edits several comics anthologies, including Jeans and Felony Comics, under the banner of Negative Pleasure Publications. He’s also the host of the weekly radio show Negative Pleasure on Newtown Radio.