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Alias the Cat!
At the center of the novel Kim Deitch deftly places himself and his wife Pam–a passionate collector of Halloween cats from the 1920s and 30s, whose collection is impressive to say the least. But when she buys a mysterious old cat costume, she and Kim find themselves in wholly new territory: the lost world of Alias the Cat who, in 1915, appeared not only in a comic strip and film serial, but in real life as a freedom-fighting superhero.
When Kim begins to research this forgotten figure, he uncovers one almost unbelievable story after another: about the Furries, a tiny subculture of people who dress up as cartoon animals in order to have sex; about Keller and Frankie, two seamen stranded on a Pacific island, forced to make cat toys to appease the natives; about the secret lover of Alias’s alter ego, Malek Janochek; and, of course, about Deitch’s own Waldo the Cat, the common thread weaving the stories together as Kim and Pam move toward a fateful showdown in Midgetville...New Jersey, of course.
Alias the Cat is Kim Deitch at his eye-catching, mind-bending best.
When Kim begins to research this forgotten figure, he uncovers one almost unbelievable story after another: about the Furries, a tiny subculture of people who dress up as cartoon animals in order to have sex; about Keller and Frankie, two seamen stranded on a Pacific island, forced to make cat toys to appease the natives; about the secret lover of Alias’s alter ego, Malek Janochek; and, of course, about Deitch’s own Waldo the Cat, the common thread weaving the stories together as Kim and Pam move toward a fateful showdown in Midgetville...New Jersey, of course.
Alias the Cat is Kim Deitch at his eye-catching, mind-bending best.
136 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
4 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
About the author
Kim Deitch
75 books48 followersKim Deitch has a reserved place at the first table of underground cartoonists. The son of UPA and Terrytoons animator Gene Deitch, Kim was born in 1944 and grew up around the animation business. He began doing comic strips for the East Village Other in 1967, introducing two of his more famous characters, Waldo the Cat and Uncle Ed, the India Rubber Man. In 1969 he succeeded Vaughn Bodé as editor of Gothic Blimp Works, the Other’s underground comics tabloid. During this period he married fellow cartoonist Trina Robbins and had a daughter, Casey. “The Mishkin Saga” was named one of the Top 30 best English-language comics of the 20th Century by The Comics Journal, and the first issue of The Stuff of Dreams received the Eisner Award for Best Single Issue in 2003. Deitch's recent acclaimed graphic novels include The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Shadowland, Alias the Cat and Deitch's Pictorama, done in collaboration with his brothers Simon and Seth. Deitch remains a true cartoonists’ cartoonist, adored by his peers as much as anyone in the history of the medium.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
October 26, 2020
Perilously close to getting the full five stars from moi, this one reads like the Citizen Kane of comics. Story-wise, its a novel of detection. Also, like that film, you just have to watch it. Its kinda mandatory. The themes of war, history, iconography prevail. The pictures are mega-rich, lush, complex & just really really beautiful. Read!
December 20, 2016
Always a huge fan of Kim Deitch stories and artwork but this surpassed my greatest expectations.
Probably my favorite fantasy-mystery tale ever.
Affectionate acknowledgement of old codgers like myself who collect every pre-World War !!! trinket they come across.
Old 78's, old comic books, old pulp magazines, old paperbacks, old movie lobby cards, and assorted other old pop culture detritus precious to no one other than other old pre-World War !!! geezers who still have the financial wherewithal to hoard aforementioned beloved ephemera.
Such a gentle, sweet, kind affinity for those of us crippled from what we just missed by a couple of decades.
One of the best times I have ever spent with a book that wasn't written by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea or performed by The Firesign Theatre.
Highest Possible Recommendation!!
September 18, 2011
Kim Deitch's wife Pam becomes obsessed with collecting old cat toys from years ago and it's this obsession that takes them one night to the flea market where they encounter a stall selling a rare cat toy. They try to buy it and wind up listening to a maniacal story about shipwreck, desert islands, and a demon cat who enslaves a native people. The story continues from there to a cat suit originating from the early 20th century, before WW1, and the story of early film, comics, war profiteering, and a pioneering superhero who dressed in a cat costume and called himself Alias. And from there it gets weirder, taking in a small town of small people (called colloquially "Midgetville") which ties all the storylines together into a terrorism plot.
Deitch is an imaginative writer and his storytelling is excellent throughout, as is his art which has to be seen to be believed. He's one of the most underrated cartoonists from the 60s, and while R. Crumb gets a lot of recognition, I feel Kim Deitch's work is as iconic and original and certainly deserving of a wider audience. Unfortunately "Alias the Cat" being his most printed book in the UK, it isn't his best.
While the story is imaginative and goes off on wild tangents, it's never as interesting - I can't explain it, it just felt like it was bizarre for the sake of being bizarre, not because it served the story. The odd choices which should have added to the book felt a bit forced and not nearly as clever as some of his other books.
The sequence in the 1900s and 1910s just dragged and repeated itself a few times adding to the hard going of the story. Midgetville was ok but was mostly exposition from Deitch's most famous creation "Waldo" who appears at the end to explain most of the book's strange meanderings.
I think Deitch is an utterly fantastic comics artist/writer and I felt a bit disappointed that "Alias the Cat" didn't live up to his usual high standard of work, but I urge those interested in finding out more on Kim Deitch to check out the recently republished "The Search for Smilin' Ed" which is much better, and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" if you can find a copy (it's out of print for some reason). He is a brilliant artist but this book doesn't showcase his abilities nearly as well as other books have.
Deitch is an imaginative writer and his storytelling is excellent throughout, as is his art which has to be seen to be believed. He's one of the most underrated cartoonists from the 60s, and while R. Crumb gets a lot of recognition, I feel Kim Deitch's work is as iconic and original and certainly deserving of a wider audience. Unfortunately "Alias the Cat" being his most printed book in the UK, it isn't his best.
While the story is imaginative and goes off on wild tangents, it's never as interesting - I can't explain it, it just felt like it was bizarre for the sake of being bizarre, not because it served the story. The odd choices which should have added to the book felt a bit forced and not nearly as clever as some of his other books.
The sequence in the 1900s and 1910s just dragged and repeated itself a few times adding to the hard going of the story. Midgetville was ok but was mostly exposition from Deitch's most famous creation "Waldo" who appears at the end to explain most of the book's strange meanderings.
I think Deitch is an utterly fantastic comics artist/writer and I felt a bit disappointed that "Alias the Cat" didn't live up to his usual high standard of work, but I urge those interested in finding out more on Kim Deitch to check out the recently republished "The Search for Smilin' Ed" which is much better, and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" if you can find a copy (it's out of print for some reason). He is a brilliant artist but this book doesn't showcase his abilities nearly as well as other books have.
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August 25, 2009OK, so I'm weird. I absolutely LOVED this seriously wacko book. I read it twice in a single evening and kind of swam in the memory of it for the next few days, and I really wish there were more.
The author and his wife, in comic-book style, unravel a fairly complex mystery that took place in real life, movies, and the funny papers nearly a hundred years ago (one periferally involved character does turn up in the present at the age of 104, but she's fairly out of it). I like the book partly because it references a ton of things that I have no real knowledge of but find kinda fascinating: weird collectibles from the 1930s, moviemaking tips from the silents, NJ politics, etc. Even an obscure (for good reason) Frances Hodgson Burnett book called Little Saint Elizabeth which I happen to own (it was a GIFT, honest).
Lest any reader be lured into a false sense of documentary veracity about the Tiny Town Bakers and Midgetville, there is a strong element of the surreal about the main character, a blue semi-human cat named Waldo who transcends time and distance and is only visible to people with pretty far-gone dementia (and the occasional sage).
Compelling, bizarre stuff.
The author and his wife, in comic-book style, unravel a fairly complex mystery that took place in real life, movies, and the funny papers nearly a hundred years ago (one periferally involved character does turn up in the present at the age of 104, but she's fairly out of it). I like the book partly because it references a ton of things that I have no real knowledge of but find kinda fascinating: weird collectibles from the 1930s, moviemaking tips from the silents, NJ politics, etc. Even an obscure (for good reason) Frances Hodgson Burnett book called Little Saint Elizabeth which I happen to own (it was a GIFT, honest).
Lest any reader be lured into a false sense of documentary veracity about the Tiny Town Bakers and Midgetville, there is a strong element of the surreal about the main character, a blue semi-human cat named Waldo who transcends time and distance and is only visible to people with pretty far-gone dementia (and the occasional sage).
Compelling, bizarre stuff.
February 29, 2020
had these Pynchonian world-within-a-world vibes. anything where one talks like a salesman from '20s America I am instantly hooked to (Keller going "this here is an artifact. he costs a thousand American bucks, see!"). I adore how Kim is an absolutely passionate lunatic and Pam is always on the edge of her wits with him. That part where they release an ad and he goeson a long rant but Pam just is like "never mind all that! give us the cat!" encapsulates their relationship so perfectly. A midget anarchist cat that has a relationship with another black midget women told so matter of factly, and this whole crazed hunt for a doll that eventually leads to an anarchist force is the kind of trip I'm here for. There's a part where kim says something like the most surreal, unbelievable, impossible stories of life don't come to a neat and tidy conclusion, which is too bad, but that is the difference between truth and fiction and that for me brought the whole thing together for me, if it has any overarching theme.
March 30, 2010
This was better and much more complicated than I was expecting from just flipping through the pages in the library. I loved how all the different narratives came together, with the sinister cat Waldo lurking in all of them, and the way that Kim Deitch inserted himself into the middle of the story. Also, the Alias the Cat costume is genius, just the right level of insanity. This was the first I'd read by Deitch, but I will definitely be looking for more of his work.
July 13, 2020
This is a weird one. The author is Kim Deitch, the best underground cartoonist you’ve never heard of. He won a ton of awards for Boulevard of Broken Dreams back in 2000-whenever, and now everyone claims they always liked his work, even though two-years before Boulevard came out none of them knew who he was. Still this is his follow up to Boulevard, where the author places himself in the center of the action.
Deitch’s main character for the majority of his stories is Waldo, an anthropomorphic cat with evil intent and a noticeably dangling penis. While Waldo is not the protagonist of this graphic novel, he is the (mostly) unseen antagonist, as the author begins to feel that the character has dipped into his reality and - worst of all- has always been there. This leads to a long, weird rambling tale, mostly set in the first quarter of the 20th Century.
The author digs through his past, comes across a series of images of Waldo (or Felix the cat whom Waldo is the darker image of) and discovers a series of bizarre coincidences regard some ancient film cans, a comic strip from the 1910s, and a bakery run by little people. It sounds insane, but makes sense when laid out in the book. Apart from intriguing me with the semi-wandering narrative, I actually learned a few details on how things were done back in the olden days. Well worth a look for the right price.
Deitch’s main character for the majority of his stories is Waldo, an anthropomorphic cat with evil intent and a noticeably dangling penis. While Waldo is not the protagonist of this graphic novel, he is the (mostly) unseen antagonist, as the author begins to feel that the character has dipped into his reality and - worst of all- has always been there. This leads to a long, weird rambling tale, mostly set in the first quarter of the 20th Century.
The author digs through his past, comes across a series of images of Waldo (or Felix the cat whom Waldo is the darker image of) and discovers a series of bizarre coincidences regard some ancient film cans, a comic strip from the 1910s, and a bakery run by little people. It sounds insane, but makes sense when laid out in the book. Apart from intriguing me with the semi-wandering narrative, I actually learned a few details on how things were done back in the olden days. Well worth a look for the right price.
February 16, 2009
This is a fun little graphic story about a cat and Kim Deitch's (and his wife's) obsessive search for this particular cat toy and it's origins which lead him on a very surreal journey. It entertained me and the art was very cool. I wasn't really looking for much else when I read this. I give it a thumbs up and it was a fast read plus I got it at the library which gives it a double thumbs up.
March 16, 2024
Kim Deitch indulges his wife Pam's fascination for collecting antique cat toys, particularly when the pair come across a rare toy in a flea market. The premise is simple enough, but Deitch layers narrative over narrative here in a most eclectic way, making Alias the Cat a riveting, though somewhat challenging read. The impetus for the bizarre narrative structure here kicks in when Deitch and Pam are trying to purchase the rare toy from the eccentric salesman, who begins to regale them with a completely tangential story about a shipwreck and a demonic cat-entity that enslaves people. The salesman's story crescendos into another narrative, all whilst Deitch questions whether or not the salesman is undergoing a manic episode. The story is as endlessly imaginative as it is hilarious, but it is also pervaded by a sweetness and a tinge of nostalgia.
Alias the Cat is a near perfect blend of weird and charming, and Deitch's rigorous and dense cartooning adds another dimension to the very winding and unorthodox narrative structure. This is easily up there as one of my favorite works from Deitch.
Alias the Cat is a near perfect blend of weird and charming, and Deitch's rigorous and dense cartooning adds another dimension to the very winding and unorthodox narrative structure. This is easily up there as one of my favorite works from Deitch.
March 26, 2018
Deitch is quickly becoming a favorite cartoonist of mine. I've now read two of his books, and both are amazing! This one starts with an autobiographical bent, with Deitch and his wife looking for collectibles at a local flea market, before careening into a lunatic story that spans most of the 20th century, involves old movie serial stars, a town of midgets in New Jersey, a bread factory turning out munitions for the World Wars and a living cat demon who looks suspiciously like Felix the Cat!
Near the end of the book, a character asks Deitch why he doesn't focus on the problems of the world, and Deitch replies that as a cartoonist, he can create worlds as he wishes they were. He's created a world of sideshow freaks, B-movie superstars and magic, and he does a brilliant job unfolding the story for the reader by revealing pieces of the whole picture as he himself searches for the answers, so the reader finds out the answers at the same time as Deitch himself does!
Brilliant, and complete madness. I can't wait to get another of his books.
Near the end of the book, a character asks Deitch why he doesn't focus on the problems of the world, and Deitch replies that as a cartoonist, he can create worlds as he wishes they were. He's created a world of sideshow freaks, B-movie superstars and magic, and he does a brilliant job unfolding the story for the reader by revealing pieces of the whole picture as he himself searches for the answers, so the reader finds out the answers at the same time as Deitch himself does!
Brilliant, and complete madness. I can't wait to get another of his books.
July 14, 2019
One of the reviews excerpted on the back cover of this book asserts that one needs to read it in a single sitting. It was originally serialized, so that shouldn't really be a factor, but perhaps it is. Anyway, for whatever reason, though I did find this interesting, I didn't find it all that engaging. Characteristic Deitch elements are evident--contingent reality (is Waldo real or a delusion?), self-reflexivity, a fascination with old iterations of pop culture (notably film and comic strips--Deitch even addresses why the "Alias the Cat" comic strip putatively published in the teens and reproduced in this book looks like he drew it), embedded narratives, etc.--but, for me, anyway, it didn't seem to add up to much. Folded into the account of a WWI-era movie serial and comic strip version of it is a bizarre tale of munitions, midgets, and mayhem, which has its amusing moments and which includes some incisive satirical touches, but which ultimately is more pretty to look at (love that cover, especially) than it is engaging to read.
January 14, 2025
A meandering yarn from an old hippie. You want to yell "Grandpa! Stop saying Midgetville!" but he can't hear you. He's too busy looking at old photos from silent movies.
Articulates the joy of collecting nicely; the hunt, the rabbit holes, the treasure! Also maybe how those hyperfixations can take us away from reality if we aren't careful.
I’ve been watching Fleisher Studios cartoons lately so a fun parallel there personally
Articulates the joy of collecting nicely; the hunt, the rabbit holes, the treasure! Also maybe how those hyperfixations can take us away from reality if we aren't careful.
I’ve been watching Fleisher Studios cartoons lately so a fun parallel there personally
June 11, 2017
Sick, twisted, amazing. Pure genius.
August 21, 2017
It is weird. Very good weird.
July 21, 2019
I couldn't finish this. Beautiful but too weird for me.
August 11, 2022
Baffling, entertaining, funny and I loved the art
July 24, 2024
Delightfully weird! I mean, it probably isn't for everybody, but I feel like gimme more Deitch.
July 5, 2025
Original, weird and engaging. Great artwork too
August 10, 2013
Alias the Cat does what Kim Deitch does best – wacky metafictional storylines about neurotics, eccentrics, and obsessives and the oddities that lurk behind everyday life.
The story starts out with Kim Deitch’s wife on a search for an addition to her collection of cat knickknacks from the early twentieth century. They meet a man with a peculiar doll that he refuses to sell, and he tells a story involving an island of strange people that worship a mischievous recurring character of Deitch’s, which then leads into a storyline about a cartoon that was also a movie serial which was also staged in real life. The character from this cartoon/movie serial was Alias the Cat, and Kim becomes obsessed with finding out the truth behind his story. He finds several people who tell him different perspectives about what “really” happened, and each tale deepens the storyline’s complexity and oddness.
As always, Deitch’s artwork is superb and creates a world all its own where the ordinary and extraordinary exist without one necessarily knowing about the other. His illustrations set the tone of the story and make the characters real even before they utter a word. His dialogue and narrative pacing are just as good, and together they form the complete package of Deitch’s gift as a storyteller.
If I had any complaint, it would be that a few times the pacing gets bogged down with a lot of wordiness. There were a few sections that were almost completely words with a few small pictures. It wasn’t bad, just that it was retreading the storyline that the reader was already familiar with. This was probably because this was originally released in sections, so he repeated the storyline so people could remember what happened.
Deitch’s work is a special gift to me. Reading his stories take me out of the immediate world and plunge me into the psychedelic world of his creation, and it’s a fun place to be. Know those drug awareness commercials about kids saying how some hobby of theirs is their “anti-drug”? Well, Kim Deitch is one hell of an anti-drug, and the trip you get is way better than what a drug-addled mind could’ve come up with. Deitch continues to be among the small cadre of my favorite comic book writers.
The story starts out with Kim Deitch’s wife on a search for an addition to her collection of cat knickknacks from the early twentieth century. They meet a man with a peculiar doll that he refuses to sell, and he tells a story involving an island of strange people that worship a mischievous recurring character of Deitch’s, which then leads into a storyline about a cartoon that was also a movie serial which was also staged in real life. The character from this cartoon/movie serial was Alias the Cat, and Kim becomes obsessed with finding out the truth behind his story. He finds several people who tell him different perspectives about what “really” happened, and each tale deepens the storyline’s complexity and oddness.
As always, Deitch’s artwork is superb and creates a world all its own where the ordinary and extraordinary exist without one necessarily knowing about the other. His illustrations set the tone of the story and make the characters real even before they utter a word. His dialogue and narrative pacing are just as good, and together they form the complete package of Deitch’s gift as a storyteller.
If I had any complaint, it would be that a few times the pacing gets bogged down with a lot of wordiness. There were a few sections that were almost completely words with a few small pictures. It wasn’t bad, just that it was retreading the storyline that the reader was already familiar with. This was probably because this was originally released in sections, so he repeated the storyline so people could remember what happened.
Deitch’s work is a special gift to me. Reading his stories take me out of the immediate world and plunge me into the psychedelic world of his creation, and it’s a fun place to be. Know those drug awareness commercials about kids saying how some hobby of theirs is their “anti-drug”? Well, Kim Deitch is one hell of an anti-drug, and the trip you get is way better than what a drug-addled mind could’ve come up with. Deitch continues to be among the small cadre of my favorite comic book writers.
June 15, 2007
What a crazy, wonderful mess of a book.
Alias reads like a dream (or a nightmare): what begins as the author and his wife's quaint hobby of searching for vintage cat dolls and costumes at flea markets unspools into a tangled web of narratives, all revolving around this luridly crude cartoon cat named Waldo. I won't even get into the plot; I just want to assure you that you'll find yourself on unsteady footing as you walk the line between purported fact and ostensible fiction.
As for Deitch's form and technique, Alias the Cat is clearly the work of a master: any English major would have a field day with this book and its looping narratives, its moments of metafiction, and its fluid changes in graphic form (from straight-forward comic to newspaper clippings to film stills to comics within comics to graphic depictions of an oral history).
This is my first Kim Deitch comic, so I have no way of comparing it to his earlier works. Regardless, I feel it would be safe to claim that Alias the Cat ranks among his best.
Alias reads like a dream (or a nightmare): what begins as the author and his wife's quaint hobby of searching for vintage cat dolls and costumes at flea markets unspools into a tangled web of narratives, all revolving around this luridly crude cartoon cat named Waldo. I won't even get into the plot; I just want to assure you that you'll find yourself on unsteady footing as you walk the line between purported fact and ostensible fiction.
As for Deitch's form and technique, Alias the Cat is clearly the work of a master: any English major would have a field day with this book and its looping narratives, its moments of metafiction, and its fluid changes in graphic form (from straight-forward comic to newspaper clippings to film stills to comics within comics to graphic depictions of an oral history).
This is my first Kim Deitch comic, so I have no way of comparing it to his earlier works. Regardless, I feel it would be safe to claim that Alias the Cat ranks among his best.
March 1, 2011
I usually like off-the-wall stories, but this one was just too weird for me. The comics, based on the author’s imaginings of the stories behind his wife’s antique toy cat collection, pass through bizarre and eventually get to boring.
Or, occasionally, stupid, as when our narrator, Kim, and his wife, Pam, visit Ron, a lonely, joint-puffing toy collector. As they sit down at the dinner table, Ron announces:
“I hope fish stew is okay. I guess I should have mentioned that I’m a vegetarian.”
Pam replies:
“No problem. So am I!”
In the immortal words of Sparky the parrot , “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Dude, seriously. When you start mixing up the animal and plant kingdoms, you need to lay off the wacky weed. Fish aren’t vegetables.
Or, occasionally, stupid, as when our narrator, Kim, and his wife, Pam, visit Ron, a lonely, joint-puffing toy collector. As they sit down at the dinner table, Ron announces:
“I hope fish stew is okay. I guess I should have mentioned that I’m a vegetarian.”
Pam replies:
“No problem. So am I!”
In the immortal words of Sparky the parrot , “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Dude, seriously. When you start mixing up the animal and plant kingdoms, you need to lay off the wacky weed. Fish aren’t vegetables.
July 11, 2007
To be honest, Kim Deitch always drives me a little crazy. He's one of those comic artists whose style is almost too elaborate, with each of his books creating a dizzying, perverse world heavily influenced by the dark side of the Fleischer Brothers. Sometimes I think his plots are intricate to the point of being exhausting/boring. Alias the Cat certainly verges on that, but he also mixes in enough autobiography, folk lore, and urban myth to make the book rather fascinating. There are few books, let alone comic books, that draw the reader down the rabbit hole so skillfully to the point where you are doubting what is truth and what is fantasy by the end. For this reason, Alias the Cat gets 4 stars and a recommendation (at least for those who aren't creeped out by cartoon cats with very detailed genitalia).
May 21, 2015
What the hell was that??
I recently started exploring the "Best American Comics" series, starting with the 2006 edition. I hadn't picked up the series before because I knew it valued Comix over Comics, if you know what I mean, and that is a genre that I think got lost up its own ass about forty years ago. Of course, I admit every genre has its own tropes and cliches, but for the most part underground comics just don't interest me. (Unless you count the Bros Henandez and/or Lynda Barry, but I digress...)
Anyway, I liked Deitch's piece in that volume enough to follow up and check out his latest collection.
It blew me away.
Okay, it goes off the rails at the very end, but this is an absolutely fantastic graphic novel. Familiar enough to be comforting, but inventive enough to seem completely fresh and unique.
Ten stars.
I recently started exploring the "Best American Comics" series, starting with the 2006 edition. I hadn't picked up the series before because I knew it valued Comix over Comics, if you know what I mean, and that is a genre that I think got lost up its own ass about forty years ago. Of course, I admit every genre has its own tropes and cliches, but for the most part underground comics just don't interest me. (Unless you count the Bros Henandez and/or Lynda Barry, but I digress...)
Anyway, I liked Deitch's piece in that volume enough to follow up and check out his latest collection.
It blew me away.
Okay, it goes off the rails at the very end, but this is an absolutely fantastic graphic novel. Familiar enough to be comforting, but inventive enough to seem completely fresh and unique.
Ten stars.
November 18, 2013
For me, this was not nearly as iconic or as hypnotizing as Boulevard of Broken Dreams, but that's not to say that it wasn't good. The more I learn about the true secretive, dark, and desperate lives of early Hollywood/comic creators, the more I come to the conclusion that they were all nutty, drunk, sex freaks.
BoBD was powerful, and this, in comparison feels rushed in every way. The art is filled with more solid blacks rather than lines the artist agonized over. The story is similar, dealing with 'lost' characters and their wacky origins, so you get the feeling that someone at the publisher told him to make another BoBD...and hurry up about it.
So I end this review not necessarily slamming this book, but rather I would prefer to wholeheartedly refer uninitiated readers to check out his Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
BoBD was powerful, and this, in comparison feels rushed in every way. The art is filled with more solid blacks rather than lines the artist agonized over. The story is similar, dealing with 'lost' characters and their wacky origins, so you get the feeling that someone at the publisher told him to make another BoBD...and hurry up about it.
So I end this review not necessarily slamming this book, but rather I would prefer to wholeheartedly refer uninitiated readers to check out his Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
October 16, 2013
I am, admittedly, very eccentric in my reading choices. I'm a big fan of comic books, mystery novels, fantasy lit, horror, thrillers, rock and roll biographies, film studies, contemporary theater, and the list goes on. Armed with this knowledge, it's remarkable just how many of my tastes this book appealed to.
ALIAS THE CAT, written and beautifully drawn by Kim Deitch, is a genre-bending journey that covers, among other things, comic strips, serials, terrorism, dolls, midgets, insanity, demons, and the wonders of ebay. Needless to say, it's difficult to pigeon-hole. In fact, I'm not even going to try. If this sounds even REMOTELY like something you'd enjoy, you need to pick it up.
I absolutely loved it.
ALIAS THE CAT, written and beautifully drawn by Kim Deitch, is a genre-bending journey that covers, among other things, comic strips, serials, terrorism, dolls, midgets, insanity, demons, and the wonders of ebay. Needless to say, it's difficult to pigeon-hole. In fact, I'm not even going to try. If this sounds even REMOTELY like something you'd enjoy, you need to pick it up.
I absolutely loved it.
December 27, 2019
I really love everything Deitch puts out. If I could criticize this story in any way it would be that he folds so many narratives on top of themselves that is sometimes hard to remember where the story began. The author includes himself as a character yet again. And on one occasion he is recollecting listening to anecdotes by another character who is recalling a story that another person told her 50 years prior. It's pretty brilliant because Deitch seems like the ultimate in unself-conscious storytelling. What I'm trying to say, and poorly, is that he just tells this crazy story, regardless of how ridiculous it is and occasionally his art is not perfect. But he doesn't seem to care. He just lays it all out and it's so weird it's brilliant.
April 10, 2008
This one of those books that starts out pretty good, gets a lot better, but then totally craps out by the end. Stop reading 2/3 of the way through just read the rest in your imagination maybe.
It's a lot of fun, and full of the gimmicks I love: stories-within-stories, meta-narratives, unreliable narrators, blurring of fact and fiction, and all kinds of good stuff on that front.
I can't imagine what it's like to read if you're not already familiar with Deitch's work, but I don't think you need to be. But if you don't like other stuff he's done you probably needn't bother with this.
It's a lot of fun, and full of the gimmicks I love: stories-within-stories, meta-narratives, unreliable narrators, blurring of fact and fiction, and all kinds of good stuff on that front.
I can't imagine what it's like to read if you're not already familiar with Deitch's work, but I don't think you need to be. But if you don't like other stuff he's done you probably needn't bother with this.
June 18, 2007
OK, The NYT was wrong, or the reviewer was raised only on comic books, of which this is a grand example. Three previously published single comics are combined into one volume that creates more of a real story line. The story is clever, the drawing more so, but at the end it can't be more than the sum of its limited parts. My second really short read in a row. Now off to something with some substance.
October 17, 2008
Another graphic novel. I like that it features New Jersey, and that it is written like a true story, so I can imagine that this weird cat was really involved in all this stuff from taking over a Polynesian island to blowing up an arms manufacturing plant to being involved in the famous midgetville.
January 21, 2010
Very very odd. There's the long crazy plot about art (early serial films) imitating life (drama between the director and the city establishment). It involves a cat costume, explosives, and a town of baking little people. I appreciated how the plot oozed so so gradually into fantasy. And I found this the most accessible (and least wacky) book by Deitch I've read lately.
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