King Cat #75
I had quite an introduction for this review ready in my head. This comic marks the 25th anniversary of King Cat (I’ve been along for the ride for roughly 20 of those years), and I was planning to talk about his impressive body of work, the influence John has had on independent artists throughout the years, all that stuff. Then I read the comic, and all that flew right out the window. This might well be the best single issue of King Cat that John has done. I’m not going to claim that definitively without going back and reading the previous 74 issues again, but if it’s not the best single issue, it’s in the top 2 or 3. The entirety of this comic is the life story of his former cat, Maisie Kukoc. Maisie is instantly familiar to fans who have read his book for years, and what was also known to me was that Maisie had died a few years back. She popped up in stories from time to time, had several about her specifically, and she was basically just a constant presence throughout the series. And, honestly, I thought I had shed all the tears I was going to shed about the death of this cat that I had never met, but I was very wrong on that. Full disclosure: during busy times at work, I sometimes read a comic during my lunch, then write the review on the same break, putting the whole thing together for the website when I get home. Well, today I had to stop reading this comic three different times to keep myself from bursting into tears (as opposed to some manly dribbling of tears that I was denying), and even then it was all I could do to keep from sobbing by the time I got to the inevitable end. This could have easily been a tale about John’s life throughout those years, and he does provide the relevant context as her story progresses, but this is purely about Maisie and the life they had together. There are too many adorable little touches for me to mention them all, but that panel with Maisie stretching her little arms out towards John when he goes to pick her up from the vet after she suffered an illness just about broke my heart. As did him learning from a girlfriend that Maisie sat by the door five minutes before he came home every day to greet him as he came in. They had a great life together (well, she had a great life and John lived a regular human life, full of ups and downs) and she lived to a ripe old age for a cat, so I know the logical thing is to leave it there. But as Harlan Ellison once said, fuck death. There’s no doubt in my mind that some of these tears came from knowing that my cat is currently the same age as Maisie when she died, and although my cat seems healthy, things can change in a hurry, and I have a lot of trouble picturing a life without her. This comic might just break your heart a little, especially if you have pets, but I still can’t recommend it highly enough. Every pet owner is going to have to deal with this eventually, and seeing all the good times mixed in with the ending at least lessened the blow a bit. He also included a few pages of the games she loved to play at the end to try to lighten the mood a bit, but then there was his message on the back cover about how he still finds her hairs occasionally when opening a book, and it was right back to the waterworks for me. All I know is that my cat is getting some serious attention when I get home today. $5
