Space Pussycat

written by: Erica Heflin
art by: Sean Hill
colors: Omi Remalante, Jr.
letters and design by: Matt Krotzer

published by Inverse Press
buy it HERE.

"I want tuna, I want liver..."

'rena, Pussy, and Squidge pilot a space ship cruiser that raids other ships for cargo. They are in the midst of their piratic adventures when they meet resistance from the 'blobby people'. Squidge, the giant octopus looking thing is in charge of fixing their ball-shaped vessel with his big tentacles and his 'ink glue.' 'rena is the second in command of the space-ball ship, teamed up with an orange cat simply called 'Pussy.'

To me, cats are self-sufficient, stand-offish animals who tolerate a person's existence -and the existence of other cats. A cat wouldn't be my starting point for a story that wasn't based on an actual cat, and even then I would be stumped on possible scenarios. Cats are just too sedentary, they prefer to stay quiet and hide. Dogs, on the other hand...

So it's with some curiosity I approach Erica's concept here -borrowing heavily on Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy- of an authoritative Captain of a pirate spaceship in the shape of a cat. In reality he's got a small person's physiognomy with a cat head. In their quest to obtain the stolen goods they stumble across a strange thing found in the stuff bound for the Alien King's feast: a human baby.

Baseball... spaceship?

The start of this book was very shaky. It suffered from the ships, characters, and their roles made very vague, left unexplained. It wasn't until I re-read the first few pages that I started to understand who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. There's a muddled, hard to understand exchange with a blobby person in the cargo hold involving opening the door. I feel I shouldn't be dwelling on details like this but it's really the biggest problem I have with this whole comic: clarity. Once the story gets under way it's not hard to follow, and there are some good sections of dialogue that are entertaining to read.

Over all, I think this could have been re-tooled a bit more before becoming a comic book. Their spaceship doesn't look like a spaceship. A cat's a poor choice for anamorphic representation. There's way too much casual, scratchy half realized rendering, an almost total absence of slickness, and slickness is what all science fiction stories sorely need!

Next Tuesday:

Frank Martin, the most prolific writer on Kickstarter that I back regularly, is back at it again with

The Polar Paradox: Equator's End!

This time the explorer crew travel to the equator! How paradoxical is that?