The power of cuteness Emoticons, pastel shades, avocados
Ana Penyas 'Everything Under the Sun' Award, best comic of the year according to the critics association
Interview Charles Burns: "We live in a horrible time, I have a lot of nightmares"
In 2012, an Arizona couple adopts a kitten.
A short time later, they start posting photos of their frowning feline on the internet.
It is not that she was angry,
Tardar Sauce
-that is how she was baptized- had been born with a syndrome that gave her
that countenance between rage, cynicism, disappointment and boredom, the perfect face for the 21st century
.
Today, the owners of it are billionaires.
Ten years later, the profiles of Tardar,
Grumpy Cat
on the network, add up to millions of followers.
The angry animal became one of the biggest celebrities of the digital age.
But theirs is a shared podium.
Unbeatable accumulators of
likes
,
cats are the kings of contemplative internet entertainment
.
Videos of cats in human attitudes, disguised, tenderly curled up... are the object of investigations around what has been called
cat content
.
He remembers it in his house, where he lives with another human, two kittens and a dog, Laura Agustí, author of
Historia de un gato
(Lumen, 2022), a
precious story
, between the autobiography, the explorer's notebook and the graphic essay, in which these creatures are the ball of yarn on which the story unravels.
“Since when do I draw them?
Since ever".
Illustrations of 'Story of a cat' (Lumen).
Raised in a town in Bajo Aragón where
time "was different"
, Laura enjoyed as a child something that is scarce now: boredom, the space for observation.
From her days in that little piece of Spain, part of her love for these animals and her representation.
Especially for one, Hey, to whom this book consecrates, which became a therapy with which to overcome the loss of the most beloved of her pets.
«The emptiness was installed in my life and occupied the place that had been Oye.
I got lost looking at his things and his favorite corners, and
my mind wandered, blank, as if I couldn't finish believing that Hey had left me
», reads its pages.
In this conversation, she adds: “I don't know what my life will be like in the future.
I am not a mother nor will I be, but I know there will be cats in it.
From the comic strips of Herriman and his Krazy Kat, to the spirited Felix Cat of silent movies,
Robert Crumb 's corrosive,
underground Fritz, and
the well-fed, sarcastic Garfield
, among many others, cats have lived a love relationship with pop culture and comics.
“Don't ask me why, but if I post a photo of my cats I have much more success than one of my dog or anything else.
We have been admiring them since Ancient Egypt
and, except for the time of the witches, where bad luck spread, they have always accompanied us.
I place the secret of her success in her domestic character, her personality and her beauty».
And we add: in a world in which we are increasingly alone and
screened
, a cat fit wonderfully.
Illustrations of 'Story of a cat' (Lumen).
The author was clear that, in addition to narrating her life and, especially, the years of living with Oye, from whom she learned so much, she wanted her work to accumulate interesting information for other staunch cats, especially for those who are overcoming the loss of one .
For this reason, in its pages, mourning is mixed with felines by El Greco, Picasso and Louis William Wain
, the painter of cats, their meows from different cultures, as well as drawings of the meaning of the facial expressions of these beings, advice about their care, dissertations about cat therapy or the recent reform of the Civil Code in which they are recognized as living beings endowed with sensitivity, instead of things.
In each passage, the author displays a virtuosity in ink that she already displayed in her previous book,
Cats in the Head
, in which she exposed her concerns and desires in the form of
illustrated aphorisms
.
Drawings that refer to artists such as Gustave Doré and JJ, Grandville, key in the formation of her gaze.
«I replaced ink with rotring and then with the iPad... but this technique has always dazzled me as a means of expression, just as tattoos fascinate me».
Historia de un gato
is paired with titles by other current cartoonists such as Ilu Ros and Ana Penyas in their effort to
trace the current world through their own biography
and, in this case, through a life of scratched armchairs and hair on clothes.
«Writing from experience is the most honest.
And in mine cats have been capital.
My wish is that other lovers of these animals enjoy the book and, especially, those who lost one.
Having a pet is agreeing with the idea that one day it will go away... It's hard, but I would go through the same thing again.
Every day with him was a gift.
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