Pets Trending into Comic Publishing

It’s official, pets with big heads, eyes, small bodies or physical disabilities get all the attention. Personally I’m a dog person; and I don’t see what’s so cute about a cat who has two deformities like the late Tardar Sauce. But at least her owner loves her all the same.

But the famous pets like Boo and Grumpy Cat grew so much after a few appearances on social media; they appear in several different media. Since this is about comics, let’s get into the details. Dynamite features comics about both of these little sensations.

For the “world’s cutest dog” it’s a heartwarming, hilarious, characterized, and adorable look on the Pomeranian’s life. While adding parody and how much Boo means to his owner (fictional and real-time). Not to mention his usual co-stars, the late yet loyal Buddy and the lovable goofball Blueberry Pie.

Grumpy Cat meanwhile shares the spotlight with her brother Pokey. The comics present him as a much more energetic visual foil to his real life “less grumpy” image. When it comes to comedy, especially the kind involving the hijinks that get pets so much attention; it’s always best to have complements. For Tardar Sauce, this means exaggerating Pokey to be her funny man while the adorable sourpuss is the straight cat.

Things worked out so well in sales that Grumpy Cat crosses over with the most famous cat in comics, Garfield. It even shows for a few panels how between the two of them; Grumpy Cat shows some real depth thanks to Garfield being the unintentional funny man. Grumpy Cat unlike the lasagna guzzler still has needs and desires of her own besides the simple freeloading lifestyle. Garfield meanwhile has been stuck doing the same routine for over 30 years. At this point he’s just advertisement to sell merchandise. Grumpy Cat’s fame may end at some point; but at least she can get out of the game while the going’s good.

While going through these comics, I came across a couple other series on Comixology and Tapas. They each focus on a certain breed of dogs even more than the average house cat, Pembroke Welsh Corgis. When these little cattle dogs are the pets of the queen of England and an anime motley space crew; you can expect someone to capitalize on their cuteness. Usually it’s a bunch of misadventures that can be summed up as, cute corgis doing cute things. But if I’m honest, I’d like to see more Cardigan Corgis; the ones who have more noticeable tails compared to their Pembroke cousins.

As I stated before while corgis take up a significantly higher percentage of comics, there are still more cats. Series like Saphie: The One-Eyed Cat, get so much attention it helped set off more cat related comics on its platform of Webtoons like Domesicats and Overwatch Slice-of-Life parody comic Genji Cat.

All things considered, these series are fun but most of these are just capitalizing on celebrity status. The Dynamite comics look like they’re only aimed at kids, compared to the short comics online. In fact those physical comics try to pack in every little story in a very tight package. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a good laugh, but I guess it’s different when everything is smooshed together. After all of that, it’s as though everyone had their fill of the character; and just burnt out all of their interest. I guess when you do things that everyone does; you just lose what makes those series fun in the first place.

Makes me wonder why some of these comics don’t go the way of some pet owner comics I’ve seen like Extreme Dog Owner, or A Budgie’s Life. This allows more down to Earth approaches to pets and the lives they share with their owners. I wonder if I could interview my parents on how they raised a boxer-pitbull and a lab mix and make a comic out of that.

But the ink’s not dry yet; thanks for coming and as always remember to look between the panels.