Jetcat & Friends (2021) by Jay Stephens
Nice endpapers.
When I read a contents page like this, my heart sinks a bit — “so this is just gonna be a random collection of random stuff!?!?”
But nothing could be further from the truth. This book is a masterclass in smart sequencing — while many of the pieces weren’t originally meant to be part of the same “thing”, they fit together so well here.
It’s mostly shorter pieces, but there’s a couple longer things, and the above is the centrepiece: It’s a substantial story about how Jetcat (and friend) gets stuck in an alternate dimension. It gives the whole book a sort of narrative arc, even if many of the shorter pieces are really pretty random.
I have just one gripe about the book: It’s how tight the spine is. I’m sitting here fighting the book all the time to be able to read the bits in the centre.
It’s gags gags gags all the time, and they’re good gags. And because the book is sequenced so well, you get that cumulative effect where things just get funnier and funnier the more you read.
But there’s also variety, like this longer Tutenstein story reprinted from the original Land of Nod series.
But it’s mostly just one gloriously stupid gag (with on point cartooning) after another. It’s wonderful.
So: It’s a collection of very funny strips that also feels extremely satisfying as a book. It’s a marvel.
Draw! #16, page #35:
What percentage of your income were you making
from, let’s say, cartooning, from comic books? You’re doing a
comic strip, and you’re still doing stuff for Nick Magazine?
JS 100% of my income has been cartooning for years, whether I
was making ends meet or not. I haven’t had a day job since art
school. Thc last real job I had was, like, greasy spoon manager. I
had zero qualifications to do anything else! And I had to scram-
ble. Also, during all this time—most starving cartoonists will
identify—I’m doing people’s business cards, and business
brochures, and medical illustrations for your local doctor’s office.
J was doing anything to make ends meet,
so I was working constantly. But that
strip, Oddville!, had a character called
Jetcat in it, and Fred Schaefer saw that
after he’d optioned Tulenstein, and
optioned Jetcat, too. So I started to see,
“Hint, hint. These characters that you’re
creating that people in comics don’t
appreciate, they have legs elsewhere.”
It’s funny, though, because
Jetcat was actually on TV before
Tutenstein.
JS: Yup, it went further, faster. We got
Jefcat picked up as shorts on
Nickelodeon really quickly, and then
Tutenstein took a lot longer. I mean,
from the time he optioned it to the time
it aired, it was seven years.
DRAWI: Wow. So they had to keep
renewing the option, I take it?
JS Yeah, which is great. [laughs] But
we developed the hell out of that show,
too. Because the original concept was so
basic, you could really push that charac-
ter and that setup in so many different
ways, so we really worked hard on get-
ting it right for Discovery Kids, who was
the eventual client. And it turned out
very differently than I conceived it.
The print edition seems to be sold out, but you can buy the ebook version here.
I’m unable to find any reviews, which is odd.
This blog post is part of the Total Black Eye series.