It’s time for another deep critical dive into everything wrong with the latest issue of King Cat, as per usual. Ha, tricked any new readers! I rarely if ever have anything bad to say about King Cat, so if you’re looking for a pensive, thorough, unbiased review, take it elsewhere. I mostly still write these reviews so that they appear on my website as a kind of beacon, even for people who scroll through the main page, that a new issue is out. Still, I will happily talk about what’s in here, because it prolongs the King Cat-ness of my day by at least a little bit. What’s John up to these days? Things start off with a grim comic detailing his empty apartment after his second divorce and the loss of his cat, followed by a comic about his incredibly leaky apartment. Next we see him waking up after falling asleep with a pen in this hand, writing a eulogy for his beloved nine year old Shar Pei dog, and taking his terminally ill mother around town to visit spots that she’s always enjoyed, which naturally leads to John taking his own trip down memory lane. Am I giving that story short shrift, seeing as how it’s probably the longest one in the book? Yep, and that’s so you can read it for yourself as unspoiled as possible, because there are plenty of lovely bits to it and I don’t want to yap about them here. There are a few pages of letters (I know letters pages are rare in any comic, but his are the only ones where I never skip a single one of them), a few more pages of dreams (several of which would ideally be transformed into comics if I had a pile of money that I could give to John so he could just make comics forever), and then his top 40 list, which made my idly wonder if there was ever exactly 40 items on one of his lists. That’s a lot of comic, are there more stories in here? You’d better believe it, this is a hefty issue. Just hints from now on though, so you’ll see an owl, a dead mouse, dogs, a tire shop, items spotted on a walk, a memory of plastic bag lined boots on a childhood walk to school, and a demolition derby. Another great issue of King Cat, and once again I have no idea where I’d recommend a new reader hop on this train (maybe Hospital Suite or one of his other collections if you can afford it), but the beauty of his stuff is that any issue is a good place to start. $7
