B. Kliban (1935–1990)

Some of the cartoons were funny and witty, a few you had to think about, some appeared to be just drawn with no particular purpose, these last ones are the reasoning I'm giving the book 4 instead of 5 stars.

This book first came out when I was in high school, and I was smitten. The cats are spot-on perfect!

At that point, the only popular cat cartoon was Garfield, and while that was OK- Kliban brought a whole new level of humor and surreality to the mix. I suspect we can credit him as a remote ancestor of "LOLcats", for instance, as well as many of the other great cat cartoons lurking about the internet.

I am pretty sure, too, that we can credit him with the concept of a "kittyloaf". "Cat: One show more hell of a fine animal, frequently mistaken for a meatloaf" pretty much sums it up.

I mislaid my old, loved copy of this a long time ago, and I am thrilled to be able to replace it. It has not lost anything with age! show less

Sight gags galore. Very inspired. A rock dreaming of having a conquistadore place his foot declaratively on it, a native handing a white big game hunter an egg beater as a giant egg aproaches, a genie that materializes in the form of a tv ad, a man looking at a microscope thru a telescope. Kliban's cup spilleth over. Do his close relations get sick of how funny he is & wish he'd stop showing them his cartoons?

Ok, there's nothing mind-bogglingly brilliant about this stuff, it doesn't shift paradigms, it's pretty mainstream, but Kliban's kindof like a thousand-trick pony (or cat): It's impressive how many variations on a theme he can generate & still get a silent chuckle out of me. It's obssessive.