The two latest issues of John Porcellino’s King-Cat Comics just fluttered into the Utne office, and I kidnapped them before anyone else noticed. If you haven’t encountered him already, Porcellino–whom I interviewed for Utne.com back in October–writes lovely little stories whose plots focus on everyday incidents like two squirrels facing off on a power line. King-Cat touches you more than the small scope of its stories would suggest. The comic manages this, I think, by preserving small moments of personal beauty, like a strip from the latest issue (#68) which shows nothing more than the author and his cat lying on a couch together, listening to the birds chirping outside.
Don’t think that King-Cat is all flowers and kitties, though. While the comic revels in the beauty of the everyday, it can’t shake off the feeling that those redemptive moments are escapes from an otherwise crazy world. “I’m convinced,” Porcellino writes, “that there’s a way to live in this world–this insane world–in a sane way, with one’s integrity and naturally given good sense intact.” The newest issue also has a series of comics on the Greek cynic Diogenes, and even here Porcellino manages the impossible: He makes the crusty Greek philosopher seem cute!
