Thursday, October 16, 2014

Lost Cat notes

I re-read Lost Cat, and I'm pretty happy with the drawings and the way the story is told. I find it harder to judge if the story itself worked or not. If I were to do the book all over again, I think I rather would have printed it in black and white and gotten a clear line, rather than the full colour printing it is now that makes the line slightly fuzzy. Oh, well... I've decided to answer a few questions that I've never been asked. If you'd rather not know, stop reading.
 
1. Is Charlotte an alien?
-Yes.
 
2. Is Kitty an alien or a real cat?
-I suppose she's an alien too. At the end, 50 years into the future, she's still alive, so it can't be a cat.
 
3. What was the thing with the fake Kitty in the bookshop about?
-Uhm, don't know. It just seemed like a good mystery, that someones tries to make things look normal by bringing in a cat double, but they screw up by getting the colour of its tail wrong.
 
4. That ending - were you high or what?
-Not at all. I've read that some people didn't like it. To me, Dan Delon and Pierre Pascal sharing a smoke is the ending and the rest is the epilogue. I like the mix of the everyday and the absurd. Two people meet, they have a connection, she disappears. 50 years later they meet again, just for her to say goodbye. It should be heartbreaking. But at the same time she's wearing a costume from some old science fiction film and there's an alien invasion going on outside the window. That's good comics! I don't see how I could have removed that scene. I feel that's the only logical ending to the story.

6 comments:

  1. Just so you know: I for one LOVE the ending! Actually that specific ending makes Lost Cat probably my favorite of all your stories, and so among my personal top five of all time best comics. I love exactly how it almost makes me cry, but halts the tears just barely with its comical absurdity. This creates a tension that makes it, just like you say, good comics!

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  2. I absolutely loved Lost Cat. It was a beautiful love story that, as you said, blends realism and the absurd perfectly. I've told everyone I've met for years that you're not just the best graphic novelist out there, but probably the best short story writer working PERIOD. Your minimalist approach will lose readers who would like things spelled out or tied up quite nicely. But I'll take an emotional and slightly open ending every time. At the end of A Farewell to Arms, we don't get a neat resolution. We just get that gut punch and the walk away.

    Here, you have the two lovers reunited in this bittersweet, heartbreaking moment. And the sharing of the cigarette...spot on. What's left to be said? It's ineffable. And so we have that beautiful moment.

    Up there with my personal favorite--Hey, Wait...

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  3. A masterpiece! It was a great emotion to read Lost Cat. After I read it for the first time, I immediately began to read it again.

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