Comic Cats #6: Daytripcat

Ahhhhh, Daytripper, I never get tired of you. This is, hands down, my favorite comic. It is, however, next to impossible to explain properly. The book follows one main character, and in each issue/chapter he dies at a different point in his life. This makes it sound horribly depressing, but Daytripper is the most uplifting and life-affirming book I've ever read. By looking at life through its possible endings, it manages to explore the meanings of love, life, and what a full life looks like, no matter how long you happen to get. Did I mention that it's also gorgeous? It's put out by Vertigo, you can read more about it here.

Comic Cats #5: Ironcat

A parody of Iron Man as a cat. I'm fond of the Iron Man character mainly because his was the first superhero movie that I got into. (More movie info here, if you're curious.) For those that don't know, Marvel has been making origin story movies about their characters that both stand on their own but are set in the same world and interconnect with each other. They're all leading up to The Avengers, where the main hero of each movie (Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Thor) plus a few others who haven't had their own movies (yet?) will team up. This is the first time in movie history that a comic-book-like continuity has been implemented, to my knowledge, and I am excited to see how it all pans out.

#15 Pippin & Princess Intro

Meet Pippin and Princess, my cats. They'll be the stars of this comic for the next few weeks.

Comic Cats #4 Batcat

Another classic DC character. Although Batman is the most iconic, my favorite Bat-family character is Kate Kane as Batwoman, hands down, all thanks to J.H. Williams III's writing and art. She's smart, well-written, fully realized, and I could lose hours staring at each page. If anyone still thinks that superhero comics can't be art, they need to pick this up. There's a review of issue #0 here, if you want to gawk at the cover and get a sense of what it's all about.

Comic Cats #3: Atomicat

Atomic Robo is an astounding comic created by Brian Clevinger and Scot Wegener, and is one of the few comics that I can NOT wait to be collected into trade paperbacks to read. Robo runs Tesladyne Industries, a corporation of Action Scientists for hire that deal with both normal and extra-normal phenomenon by the liberal application of SCIENCE (and fists). It's fun, it's all-ages, and you can pick it up and start reading at ANY issue. That last fact blows my mind when I think about it; each comic contributes to a world history with Robo in it and an overarching story, but you can jump into at any point, negating the need to look up 40 years of continuity and back-story like you would if you were to read pretty much any other comic on the shelves today. (New 52, I'm looking at you. I know DC rebooted, but I STILL need to look up old continuity details, especially if I'm going to get the most out of the new stories. Kudos for taking a huge leap forward, though.) The Free Comic Book Day stories are up online, including my favorite, Why Atomic Robo Hates Dr. Dinosaur. It's quick, it's hilarious, you should check it out.

Comic Cats #2: Wolvercat

Daily cat comic #2! I figured Wolverine's costume makes him look fairly catlike anyways (especially the claws), so why not just go all the way? I got some new Copics for Christmas, and I finally got to try them out on the background of this comic. Yay three shades of purple!

Comic Cats #1: Supercat

First daily update! Of course, I had to start with a parody of/tribute to Superman, since American superhero comics started here.

#14 Comikitty Cover

Pippin and Princess make their internet debut. Comikitty is going to be all about cats- mine, others', real and imagined. This is what happens when you let a crazy cat lady near comics; hopefully you all enjoy the consequences.

To celebrate working on a new comic series, I decided to kick it into overdrive. Every day Monday through Thursday I will post one panel depicting a comic book character as a cat while Comikitty updates on Fridays. This means that for the next few months, there will be new Life Imitates Comics content every weekday. Enjoy!

#13 Gills 2

Yup, this conversation actually happened; I can't make up stuff better than this. Next week I'll start a series about cats!

#12 Gills 1

Page one of two. WHATEVER COULD HAPPEN NEXT?!?

January's donation picture is already up, huzzah! It's a snowme; if you donate $1 or more and would like a snowyou instead then let me know and I'll make it and send it to you this month.

#11 Fireworks

Happy New Year! Hopefully you had a great 2011 and 2012 will be even better, unless the world ends, I supose. That would probably ruin everyone's plans. I spent my New Year's Eve in a food coma drawing fireworks, and decided to post them for y'all.