Cat Cartoonists on #NationalCartoonistsDay

 

The fifth of May marks a great many things. It is the birthday of Karl Marx – indeed, today marks his bicentennial! It is also a day when many Americans inexplicably get drunk and culturally insensitive in celebration of the Mexican defeat of the French Empire in the town of Puebla. And finally, it is National Cartoonists Day.  And in honor of this occasion, we celebrate many noted cat cartoonists.

We begin with B Kilban.  An artist originally from Connecticut, he got his start as a cartoonist here in San Francisco, drawing for Playboy.  It was at Playboy where his distinctive cat cartoons were discovered by editor Michelle Urry.  This led to his most well-known book, Cat.  You have probably seen his cats both in formal cartoons and adorning many products.  Kilban passed away in 1990, but his legacy lives on through his books and syndication of his images.  You can find out more at his official website www.eatmousies.com.

 

 

Of course, an article on cat cartoonists must include Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield.  Davis grew up on a farm in Indiana with his parents, brother, and 25 cats.  While the main human character in Davis’ cartoons, Jon Arbuckle is also a cartoonist who grew up on a farm, the spoiled and overweight Garfield seems nothing like a farm cat.  Indeed, his disdain for the concept of catching mice is a frequent topic of the strips.  Many an orange male cat has been named “Garfield” in the character’s honor.

 

 

One of the best-known works of Japanese manga artist Makoto Kobayashi also features an orange cat. What’s Michael? chronicles the adventures of a shorthair tabby named Michael and his many feline friends.  It was originally released in serial form in Japan’s Weekly Morning manga magazine, but it now available in the U.S. as well via Dark Horse Comics.  The stories are a mix of the mundane and surreal, with Michael sometimes appearing differently than the orange shorthair title cat, and sometimes even dying in certain episodes.

 

New Yorker cartoonist George Booth is best known his complex doodle-like cartoons featuring befuddled humans and their pets.  They are a mainstay of the magazine and synonymous with the “New Yorker style” of cartooning.  While the animal most frequently featured in his work is a fat dog with big ears, there are often cats as well.

 

 

And then there is Fritz the Cat, created by the legendary R. Crumb.  Fritz originally appeared in Crumb’s homemade comic book “Cat Life”.  Originally based on the family cat, Fritz became anthropomorphic in later iterations, evolving into the hedonistic con-artist character that was a mainstay of underground comix in the 1960s.  Fritz’s adventures in a New York-like mega-city populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals often devolved into chaos with unusual sexual escapades.   In the 1970s, Fritz the Cat was made into an animated feature film by Ralph Bakshi.

 

 

 

 

Fat Freddy's CatAnother underground comix artist Gilbert Shelton created a well-known feline character.  Known simply as “Fat Freddy’s Cat”, he initially appeared in Shelton’s Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers strip about a trio of stoner characters in the 1960s before getting his own strip.  A standalone series, The Adventures of Fat Freddy’s Cat was published in the 1970s and expanded in a 1980s release.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joann Sfar is a French comics artist.  Influenced by the European comics artists of the 20th century including the great Moebius (Jean Giraud), he has a distinctive style that is at once more realistic and fanciful.  One of his most well-known series is The Rabbi’s Cat, first released as a comic book in 2005 and later adapted into a film in 2011, which he directed.  The main feline character is a cat who has the ability to speak and lives with a rabbi and his daughter in the Jewish community of 1920s Algeria.  Sfar’s Jewish heritage runs through many of his works, but no more directly than in The Rabbi’s Cat.  In addition to the books, we at CatSynth recommend seeing the film (which is gorgeous) in the original French.

 

 

 

 

Another classic of feline cartoons is Krazy Kat, by George Herriman.  It had a long run as a comic strip in American newspapers from 1913 to 1944 when Herriman died.  The strip was based around the ostensibly simple cat-and-mouse trip, with the cat named Krazy being taunted and tormented by a mouse Ignatz who is often shown throwing bricks at Krazy’s head.  Krazy speaks in a very stylized mixture of English and other languages and is of indeterminate gender – though inexplicably smitten with Ignatz.

And finally, we would be remiss if we did not include our very own J.B., author the Mensa Cats series that appears right here on CatSynth.

You can see many more episodes of the Mensa Cats on these pages via this link.  We also encourage interested reads to find out more about all the artists discussed in this article and to read their comics.

Mensa Cat Monday: Zeno’s Paradoxes

Mensa Cats: Zeno's Paradoxes

We bring you a brand new Mensa Cats cartoon by J.B. (that’s Jason Berry of Vacuum Tree Head).  This one expresses not one but two of Zeno’s famous paradoxes in a single frame.

The first is the better-known Dichotomy Paradox, from which the punchline derives.  In order to walk into the bar, Zeno (or any of the other patrons) must first walk halfway; and to travel from the halfway point, he must travel half of that distance, and then half of that distance, and so on.  It seems that this process of walking halfway would continue forever and one would not arrive and one’s destination, yet we know in reality that we do.

The second paradox is the Arrow Paradox.  Consider the frame frozen in time, as indicated by the liquid in mid spill behind the young lady cat, or the multiple instances of Zeno along his path.  At any given moment, there is no motion. Zeno’s position does change between moment, but there is an infinite number of other frames, each with a fixed position.  As copies/frames of Zeno get closer and closer together, the change in time between them gets infinitesimally small.  Yet the process 0f adding up these infinite frames with zero motion in each results in Zeno walking halfway into the bar.

The two paradoxes (and the third, commonly referred to as “Achilles and the tortoise”) are closely related.  The first deals with infinitesimal subdivisions of space, while the second deals with infinitesimal subdivisions of time.  The key is that while any infinitesimal quantity is smaller than any quantity we can express, it is always still greater than zero.  And adding up an infinite number of infinitesimal quantities can sometimes yield a finite number.

Take the halving process in the Dichotomy paradox.  Zeno moves half this distance, then half of that, and so on.  This can be expressed as an infinite sum.

As one gets closer to infinity, the sum gets closer and closer to one.  More formally, we can say that as we approach infinity, the sum goes to 1.  So an infinite number of subdivisions still reaches our goal of the full distance.

This process of applying operations to an infinite number of infinitesimal subdivisions is the principal behind calculus, and a marvelous thing to behold once one gets used to it.  The mathematics does not necessarily answer the metaphysical questions raised by these ancient paradoxes, but it is what most interests us at CatSynth.  It’s been a while since we last shared the joy and beauty of mathematics on these pages, but it is high time we resume the practice.

 

Ides of March (or March of Ives)

For the Ides of March, we present this take from the Mensa Cats.

March of Ives

This cartoon was created by J.B. (Jason Berry) of Vacuum Tree Head, who also shares Ides of March by John Cale and Terry Riley, from the album Church of Anthrax (1971).

And finally, we share this classic from the band Ides of March.

For a special treat, we recommend playing both tracks at the same time. 😺 🎶

NextNow Presents All Tomorrows’ After Parties 2016 (with Vacuum Tree Head and CDP Trio)



[Artwork by J.B.]

Well, it’s finally here, the big show at Berkeley Arts, Next Now Presents All Tomorrows’ After Parties. I will be performing tonight with Vacuum Tree Head at 9:30PM, and tomorrow with my new CDP Trio at 7:00, preceded by the Lingua Incognita Session at 5PM. If you are in the Bay Area, please join us either or both nights for this great event. Details are below.


NextNow’s All Tomorrows’ After-Parties 2016

June 3rd-4th-5th 2016 Berkeley Ca

PURPOSE
A spring celebration of the creative music community in the Bay Area and beyond. Coming together
to support worthy grass roots non-profit organizations, this Spring our proceeds will benefit the
Homeless Action Center http://homelessactioncenter.org
SF Coalition On Homelessness http://www.cohsf.org

DATES
JUNE 3,4,5 (Friday Evening, All-day Saturday and Sunday)

LOCATION
Berkeley Arts Festival Space, 2133 University Ave, Berkeley CA

ADMISSION
$12 for one day, $20 for all three days.

ARTISTS

Friday June 3rd
07:00 PM Pompelly/Allen Duo
08:00 PM Cartoon Justice w/Authors Meg Pontecorvo&David Gill
08:30 PM Poetics of Narrative
09:00 PM Oa
09:30 PM Vacuum Tree Head

Saturday June 4th
02:00 PM SHIVA X
02:30 PM Trois Chapeaux w/Jorge Bachmann
03:00 PM Jack Hertz
03:30 PM T.D. Skatchit
04:00 PM Reconnaissance Fly
05:00 PM Lingua Incognita Session
06:00 PM Matti Bye Ensemble (Sweden)
06:30 PM Jeffrey Alexander Trio
07:00 PM CDP
07:30 PM Lau Nau (Finland)
08:00 PM v’Maa w/kinetic video sculpture
08:30 PM Bill Wolter Project
09:00 PM Ear Spray
09:30 PM Tri-Cornered Tent Show

Sunday June 5th
02:00 PM Alphastare
02:30 PM Denny Joints
03:00 PM zBug
03:30 PM Will Alexander
04:00 PM United Separatists
05:00 PM Colin Dyer
05:30 PM Mark Clifford Project
06:00 PM John Shiurba/Philip Greenlief Duo
06:30 PM Cosmists
07:00 PM Jordan Glenn
07:30 PM R Duck, Wayne Jackson, Doug Lynner
08:00 PM Amy Reed
09:00 PM Ebolabuddha