Cosmic Jokes

Cartoon animals live forever. Real ones are finite.

I’ve been lax in updating this page due to a series of unfortunate events, all of which occurred at the same time. I am not sure why that happens. Maybe it is a sort of cosmic joke.

Michael Maltese, the great Warner Brothers writer, told the Cal Arts character animation students years ago that an animation writer had to go out and be funny no matter what was happening in their personal life. I did not understand what he meant when I was a young woman, but I understand him now.

My dear feline friend Louie Bear fell seriously ill in Mid June and the unfortunate events started piling on from there. They need not be discussed here. I kept drawing the cartoons because of Maltese’s Rule.

Louie Bear tried to cheer ME up. He was a wonderful, sweet natured cat. I realize now that putting his paws on my arm frequently and affectionately cuddling me was his way of saying thank you for adopting him when he was 4 months old and doing what I could for him during frequent illnesses. Louie was very sick when I adopted him and he beat several conditions that normally kill young and not so young cats. He was doing better this year, until suddenly he wasn’t.

I draw a comic strip about a girl who can converse with animals but was unable to understand Louie Bear’s own language.

This might be another cosmic joke.

Louie Bear’s body language became unmistakable and he begged me to let him go on July 15. He left me and his brother-by-another-set-of parents Sam-E that day, aged 11 years, 2 months.

Sam-E (top) and Louie Bear, 2022.

A friend who knows these things said that big cats are like big dogs: the larger cats do not live as long.

Louie Bear’s nickname, The Big Floof, was the inspiration for Floof the Kitten’s name. He and his brother Sam-E’s amusing play fights sometimes inspire Sirius and Floof’s antics.

Louie’s big cartoon moments were during the pandemic, especially from 2021 on when my two year long lockdown diary started ‘opening up’. The cartoon cats cheered up many people and they took over the lockdown cartoons entirely. Here is one example of Louie Bear’s love of Boxes. He was a big cat who weighed 20 pounds at his heaviest, 18 at his lightest. The bigger the cat, the smaller the box they want to sit in. Louie tended to explode them.

Louie Bear in January, 2024. He was healthy then.

Louie Bear had the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen on a cat. There was a pretty green ring around his iris and his pupils were a lighter shade of green. He really made the sad faces in this illustration although I caricatured them a bit.

Excerpt from How I Finally Got To Live A Cat’s Life, 2022

Louie Bear cheered me up when I had covid 19 in 2022. He caught it too, but made these funny poses so that I would cheer up some more. I drew these when I was lying in bed, looking up at him in the cat tree.

The inspiration. July, 2022.

I’ll post an update about the strip next week, since it is about to get very surreal. The ‘pickleball game’ strips were drawn just as Louie Bear fell ill. Some very surreal developments begin on August 5. These were drawn as Louie declined, and I drew one of the craziest Sundays on the day he died.

You have to go out and be funny.