Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Fat Freddy's Cat -- Gilbert Shelton

     Underground comics, in my opinion, was definitely one of the more underrated golden eras. It's refreshing to see artists who have created a comic based on an idea they've had, whether it's offensive, serious, silly or some combination of the three. Nowadays, many things are censored because they "trigger" people and releasing content as such will result in a large backlash from some incredibly sore consumers, ultimately silencing many ideas that might of otherwise been great or, at least, funny.
     Luckily, Fat Freddy's Cat is a comic that was produced in an era where it wouldn't have been silenced by mass media consumers -- it had a chance to reach its own audience without being put down.
     From the beginning of Part 1, I was already enjoying the comic. Starting off any comic with some bars by a talking cat that makes you want to say "Ooh, damn" is simply incredibly entertaining to me. That first segment said so much about the character of the cat and how frivolous the comic I was getting into would be. The first story, about the "Hee hee hee" drug, is a great example -- we, as an audience, aren't even entirely sure of the severity of this drug. All we get is that it turns people queer. From there, he goes on this mission to find the factory that's producing it and lands on the wrong planet, kills everyone there, realizes he landed on the wrong planet and simply says "Whoops, lol, sorry" and leaves. It's incredibly basic, which I think is a grounds to give everyone a good laugh because it isn't hard at all to understand -- yet not so ridiculous as to cause an upset because it's about a detective cat. 
     I appreciated how free this comic felt -- the lack of restriction is something that I wish could see a bit more today.

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