Fat Freddy's Cat
Encyclopedia
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
nominally belonging to Fat Freddy Freekowtski, one of the Freak Brothers
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are a trio of underground comic strip characters created by the U.S. artist Gilbert Shelton. The Freak Brothers first appeared in The Rag, an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas, beginning in May 1968; and were regularly reprinted in underground papers...
, a trio of hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s who are featured in Gilbert Shelton
Gilbert Shelton
Gilbert Shelton is an American cartoonist and underground comix artist. He is the creator of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, Wonder Wart-Hog, Philbert Desanex, Not Quite Dead, and the cover art to The Grateful Dead's 1978 album Shakedown Street.He graduated from Lamar High...
's underground comix
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
.
History
Fat Freddy's Cat first appeared in 1969 in underground newspapers as a character in The Fabulous Furry Freak BrothersFabulous Furry Freak Brothers
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are a trio of underground comic strip characters created by the U.S. artist Gilbert Shelton. The Freak Brothers first appeared in The Rag, an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas, beginning in May 1968; and were regularly reprinted in underground papers...
strip, and later had his own small topper
Topper (comic strip)
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.Toppers usually were drawn...
strip, in imitation of the early Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
strips below The Family Upstairs by George Herriman
George Herriman
George Joseph Herriman was an American cartoonist, best known for his classic comic strip Krazy Kat.-Early life:...
. Many of these strips have been collected in comic book form, in Rip Off Comix, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Comics and Stories (one shot, 1983), and The Adventures of Fat Freddy's Cat, which ran for four small size issues in the 1970s which were reprinted and expanded (starting over from #1) in six comic book size issues in the 1980s. This title included new longer stories about the Cat. A seventh edition was released (in the US only) in 1993. After the demise of the underground newspaper, the Cat continued to appear in various comic books. His last appearance to date was in a 1990 strip reprinted in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers #12.
The Cat is much smarter than Freddy, and is a sort of hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
Garfield
Garfield
Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since June 19, 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield ; his owner, Jon Arbuckle; and Arbuckle's dog, Odie...
(whom he predates). He tends to regard the Freak Brothers with amused contempt, frequently expressed by defecating in inappropriate and inconvenient places, such as stereo headphones.
While the Cat is usually featured in a small strip below a Freak Brothers strip, he has had independent appearances and storylines of his own. Like Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip that was written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his...
, he has a fertile imagination, and one of his storylines featured him playing the role of "F. Frederick Skitty", an undercover agent sworn to stop the distribution of "Tee Hee Hee", a drug that turned people into homosexuals. In another story, one of Fat Freddy's schemes involved trying to replicate Dick Whittington's success by selling the Cat to the (fictional) small, oil-rich nation of Pootweet to deal with mice.
Cat stories longer than one page
There have been more than a hundred small comic strips about the Cat, most of which have been reprinted, many more than once and in various formats. But there have only been seven stories longer than one page.- I Led Nine Lives! (5 pages) (Adventures of ... #1)
- Untitled (2 pages) (Adventures of ... #1)
- Chariot of the Globs (6 pages) (Adventures of ... #2)
- Animal Camp (13 pages) (Adventures of ... #3)
- The Burning of Hollywood (6 pages) (Adventures of ... #4, in color in Thoroughly Ripped)
- The Sacred Sands of Pootweet (9 pages) (Adventures of ... #5)
- The War of the Cockroaches (27 pages) (Adventures of ... #6)
- Paradise (7 pages)
The Cat also appears in
- Frederick the Duck (3 pages) (Fat Freddy's Comics & Stories #1
Books
- The Adventures of Fat Freddy's Cat (1977) ISBN 082960054X (reprints the four small Adventures of ... " comix except for 4 strips from #2 and 1 strip from #3.)
- More Adventures of Fat Freddy's Cat (1981) ISBN 0896200574 (reprints 91 one page strips.)
Popular culture
The New Zealand band Fat Freddy's DropFat Freddy's Drop
Fat Freddy’s Drop is a seven-piece band from Wellington, New Zealand, whose musical style has been characterised as any combination of dub, reggae, soul, jazz, rhythm and blues, and techno. Originally a jam band formed in the late 1990s by musicians from other bands in Wellington, Fat Freddy’s Drop...
, whose debut album won the 2005 Gilles Peterson
Gilles Peterson
Gilles Peterson , is a DJ, record collector and record label owner from London, UK. Through his labels Acid Jazz, Talkin' Loud, and latterly Brownswood Recordings, he has been associated with the careers of well-known artists of the 1990s such as Erykah Badu, Roni Size and Jamiroquai...
Worldwide Winners Award
Worldwide Winners
Radio and club DJ Gilles Peterson every three months or so does an All Winners Special in which he replays the previous few months' best new tracks --both singles/individual album tracks as well as whole albums—he has either played out when DJing or played on his BBC Radio 1 show Worldwide...
, were named after the comic. The band's debut single had been recorded under the influence of LSD blotters that had been printed with images of Fat Freddy's Cat on them, and the band liked the name.