Thursday, 25 September 2008

Cat Fight

Bizarro is brought to you today by Feline Awareness Week.

One morning while digging through my feeble brain for cartoon ideas I was idly watching two of my cats do that play-fighting thing they do. I've always loved the way cats fight: the fluid dive from a seemingly relaxed standing position, the choice to lie on its back and wait for the other to dive, the frantic tumbling/biting/pawing/punching followed by taking a few steps away and feigning utter disinterest, then diving back in. I thought how fun it would be to see a couple of tough guys in a bar fighting this way and tried to draw it.

I have no idea how successful this cartoon is or whether most people understood it on the level it was meant. I'd be interested in hearing your comments about how you perceived it.

Most cartoons are pretty straight forward and I can make a fairly accurate prediction about how many readers will get it. But sometimes ideas like this pop up that I can only guess about. Lots of my ideas don't get drawn at all because I know they are too opaque. But I think it is important to push the envelope every now and then and take a chance on an odd one. This is just another of the many reasons I'm not rich. My cartoon appeals more to people who like to think, and as we can see from recent political trends in this once great nation of ours, that portion of the country shrinks daily.

Since I haven't posted a cartoon in a couple of days, here's another one, which is much more straight forward. It is word play, maybe even "punnery," but I like that it makes you think before you can get it. I'm guessing that a lot of readers missed this one entirely. But that's what Garfield is for.