Review by Frank Plowright

As social media has proved, there’s an almost insatiable desire for pictures of cats and anecdotes of their activities. Makoto Kobayashi figured that out in the pre-internet era, creating short stories of bulky cat Michael and his big face, yet such is the surreal humour and artistic skill that Kobayashi’s audience surely extends beyond just cat lovers.

Whether planned from the beginning, or something that developed, Kobayashi ensures this isn’t a strip about the cosy domesticity of a cat with a single owner. No, Michael is a transient cat, seen in the company of multiple owners at different stages of his life. For the more logical-minded reader these differences can initially be a puzzling manifestation. How is it that Michael’s first seen in the company of a young man with prominent eyebrows, but then with a young couple? Among others later introduced are a Yakuza gangster afraid his colleagues will discover his passion for cats (and his subsequently seen counterpart with a fear of cats).

By the point Kobayashi’s featured the changing owners, he’s also introduced another recurring series attribute, which is cats in human situations. The opening variation is a police interrogation about missing sardines, and establishes the repeated punchline of cats dressing and acting as humans, but eventually their feline instincts take over. Godzilla also forms the basis of a recurring joke, first as an owner wearing a rubber Godzilla mask, but later as the overweight monster cat who under different names is Michael’s mortal enemy.

Kobayashi straddles a fine line. The earliest strips feature more examples of cats at play and frustrating their owner, the behaviour cat lovers benignly indulge while everyone else wonders why they’d put up with it. However he can produce that material to higher standard than most, even discounting the superior art, an example being a strip late in the collection showing Michael’s interaction with wrapping ribbon. The cartooning first brilliantly displays his efforts to disentangle himself, followed by a performance with the ribbon as a virtuoso.

Any cat lover is going to be instantly captivated, and the imagination, movement and sheer character of the art is going to attract a whole lot more folk. The Fatcat Collection gathers the content of Michael’s Album, Living Together, Off the Deep End, Michael’s Mambo, Michael’s Favorite Spot and A Hard Day’s Life. Follow the links for more specific information about individual volumes, but recurring owners and situations populate most. Kobyashi was prolific enough to issue a further five slimmer volumes, and these are collected in the second Fatcat Collection.