Post-Thanksgiving Post

Dear Friends,

I hope you are lolling around in a post-gluttonous state of bliss today, or watching football, or going hiking, or doing anything aside from being productive. I myself barely got around to sending this missive. I thought maybe I could get away with sending a text-only letter, and no comic, but I didn’t love doing that. I dug around in my files and came up with this draft of a comic I tried pitching to the New York Times Book Review. They passed, which wasn’t a complete surprise to me–it’s not fully resolved.

I think I should explain “Cat Person.” Cat Person made their first appearance in the “Bad Art Friends” comic that the New York Times Book Review did publish. If you aren’t familiar with the phrase “Cat Person,” well, I suggest googling it to learn more.

A few months after that comic ran I got a strange DM on Instagram from a person with the handle “FartzLol” or something to that effect. They asked, very politely, about Cat Person. Who is Cat Person?, they asked. And: Will Cat Person come back?

I thought this was an intriguing question but it didn’t make sense—Cat Person couldn’t really be, well, my foil. For one thing, it was always supposed to be a one-and-done kind of deal. Then there’s the issue of the character. A cat with an attitude who stands on its hind legs whose thoughts I can read and with whom I can speak? Hadn’t someone else already done that?

Nevertheless, the question lodged in my brain as a kind of challenge I couldn’t quite shake. I started developing the character in relation to this one Annie Dillard quote that I also have never quite understood and has always bugged me a little. Things got weirder from there. I promise to share other “Cat Person” comics, none of which were ever shared publicly or even fully finished, for that matter. But the one I share with you today is the original.

And I hope the message resonates.

Love,

Claire