Bob Foster

Espiègles, impétueux: Dubout’s Impish Cats

redscraper5 Comments

« One cat just leads to another. » [source*]

Kitty butts are the ordre du jour.
Back of Bob Foster’s Myron Moose no. 1 (Myron Moose Comic Book Works, 1971); this art print was also released years later, as can be seen by the date on it.

We are technically a three-cat household — that’s how many cats we had decided we could comfortably handle. For a while we stuck to this number, and when one cat departed, another one would come to take his place. Then number four walked through the door — he was sort of a part-time cat, until he became decidedly one of ours. Well, four isn’t that much more work than three. When number five appeared, bedraggled, underfed and with a perpetually sad expression (‘he had that look you very rarely find — the haunting, hunted kind‘, to quote Tim Rice), we wanted to give him to a rescue society… and of course ended up keeping him.

Albert Dubout (born as lbert Dubout, 1905-1976), was primarily an illustrator of books (notably, his amical collaboration with French writer San-Antonio, many of whose novels proudly bore Dubout’s covers and inside illustrations), and, with equal talent, a cartoonist and poster designer (check out some of his film posters here), not to mention a calligrapher with a number of delightfully mellifluous signatures. His official website can be found here, in case you want to take a peek.

The following excerpts have been scanned from Les chats (Editions Hoebeke, 1999).

Although the topic is obviously inexhaustible, for some more fun cats, visit Off to the Isle of Cats — and Back by Teatime!, Commence by Drawing the Ears: Louis Wain’s Cats, Q: What’s Michael? A: Kobayashi’s Most Special Cat or Steig Swoops In: The ‘Epic in Jazz’ Cat Sextet.

This cover was published posthumously — Edward Gorey submitted it in 1992, but another of his drawings was selected instead. Gorey, who died in 2000, was of course another one of those famous cat persons.

~ ds

*I don’t like Hemingway at all, but I do have a certain grudging respect for a man who kept some 40+ cats. Rhetorical question: are cats living at that high a density within one house really having a good time?