Matt and the Cat

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Matt and the Cat
Format Half-page gag strip
First TFUK appearance Issue 5
Final TFUK appearance Issue 73

Space-age problems for a kid and his feline friend!

History

In March 1979, after several phone calls, cartoonist Mychailo Kazybrid met up with Mike Priestley and John Hewitt of the Bradford Telegraph & Argus to pitch a daily comic strip. Though the pitch was rejected, Hewitt was taken by a drawing in Kazybrid's portfolio of his then-two-year-old son, Matthew. If Kazybrid could adapt the drawing into a daily strip, Hewitt would accept it. Kazybrid did so in short order, and the first strip of this new comic, titled Matt, ran in the newspaper on 18th April, 1979. With the strip centred around the existential ponderings of Matt and his young pals, as well as the bizarre exploits of his quirky bipedal cat, Humph, the influence from Peanuts was obvious – though just as often, strips would instead facilitate plays on words or absurd slapstick. Matt ran in the Telegraph & Argus, and later the Manchester Evening News, until 1985.[1][2]

In 1984, Marvel UK's Sheila Cranna  accepted Kazybrid's humour strip into The Transformers. In concession to the book's theme, Kazybrid's characters went on more space adventures with robots than they would in the newspaper. With Humph stepping into a larger protagonist role, this new incarnation of the comic was named Matt and the Cat.[3] It was first published in issue 5, and ran until issue 73 in 1986, with only a few interruptions – though its last couple of strips provided something of an abrupt resolution, with several story threads left hanging. Robo-Capers shortly took over the half-page gag strip slot.

This was not the end of breakout character Humph, but the exact details of his further adventures are difficult to pin down due to print-only information and dying turn of the millennium websites. One thing we know is that, on 20th April 2000, Kazybrid attended the UK Transformers convention Transforce; his contributions to the con's exclusive magazine included a "Matt and the Cat/Megatron pin up" and what the Transforce website promoted as "a brand new Humph the cat story".[4] The story acknowledged the resolution of Matt and the Cat and set Humph up in the home city of Do-Do Man, another Kazybrid creation. In 2011, Kazybrid made the strip available to read on his Blogspot under the title of "Humph the Cat in Shefferham";[5] in introducing the story, Kazybrid implies it to have been printed in the fourth issue of his Do-Do Man comic series.[6] Do-Do Man began in January 1997,[7] and apparently usually featured short back-up strips starring characters other than the eponymous superhero in a similar format to the aforementioned Humph strip.[7][8][9] At present, neither the contents nor even the publication date of Do-Do Man issue 4 are noted anywhere online.

There's a missing puzzle piece here that we'll shortly get back to. First, we'll look at Kazybrid's second Transforce appearance in 2001. That year's magazine, Alignment  Book 1, included another strip focussed on Humph's adventures.[10] Much more in line with its form of publication, this story featured Humph actually at the Transforce convention – or did it? With Humph revealed to still be in the clutches of the Slave-Master, readers were encouraged to go to the Humph the Cat website to find out more.[11]

Which brings us back to that missing piece. In August 2000, Transforce organiser Paul Cannon took to alt.toys.transformers to advertise his new "official" Humph the Cat website featuring a new story: "This is not the story featured in the Transforce magazine," – i.e., not "Humph the Cat in Shefferham".[12] A panel from the "Shefferham" strip was used to advertise the subsite on the revamped main page of the Transforce website in late 2000.[13] The text on the Humph the Cat website references a four page appearance in Do-Do Man issue 4 before being "pleased to offer just a taste" of the Humph-centric storyline due to appear in Do-Do Man issue 5.[14] Do-Do Man issue 5 does not appear to have actually been published,[15] and archives of the Humph website have not retained any images,[14] so exactly what was published on it is entirely up to speculation.

So here's the speculation: the 2000 Transforce mag included an interview with Kazybrid, conducted by Paul Cannon, in which he revealed that, after two abortive attempts to produce a Matt and the Cat graphic novel, a new story was being put together featuring "old favourites" such as Olia-cym, Digbeth, and the Slave-Master. Cannon's mid-2000 a.t.t. post mentioned that the Humph web comic would feature "familiar faces [cropping up] from past Transformers comics".[12] It seems likely that the Humph the Cat website featured at least some of the 23-page sequel story that Kazybrid would publish on his blog in 2010,[16] which did indeed feature several familiar faces (as seen in these freely available pages[17]) and follow up on the cliffhanger in the 2001 Transforce mag... though this does make the comment about Do-Do man issue 5 crossover to be a bit of an enigma. By 2015, the story was removed from Kazybrid's blog;[18] it saw a more prestigious publication, colourised by Kazybrid's partner Sarah Sier (and chopped into A5 landscape pages), in volumes 17 and 18 of Aces Weekly, a digital comics anthology series established by David Lloyd. Kazybrid frequently contributes other strips to Aces Weekly, so we can once again only speculate if Humph will chaos havoc again on the printed (digital) page...!

Matt and the Cat strips in TFUK

Reception

  • In issue 16's Openers, Jaime Ward of Winchester writes in to ask for more Matt and the Cat. "Great!"
  • Issue 20's Openers includes fan art of Humph by Jamie Woodruff of Pecklington, York, in which the cat is holding up a sign greeting the artist's friend Robert Parsons. The "More Readers' Favourites" section includes Stephen Goldstein of Norwich, Norfolk, naming Humph as the best Fact File (alongside Skywarp ).
  • In issue 21's Openers, Simon Keeling (aged 14) of Littleover, Derby, writes in with a list of bests and worsts: "Worst Things Ever Done in The Transformers: 1. Putting the price up 2. Matt And The Cat 3. The Chromobots 4. Machine Man". He also offers some constructive criticism: "Best Thing That Could Be Done In The Transformers: More of Planet Terry and The Transformers and no Matt And The Cat, Chromobots and Machine Man."
  • In issue 22's debut Soundwaves, Richard Hunt of London NW2 calls Matt and the Cat "hilarious!"
  • In issue 25's Soundwaves, Jason Morris of Virginia, U.S.A. says he's "not too keen on Machine Man, Matt and the Cat, and Chromobots".

References

  1. ↑ "Blast from the Past: Matt cartoon strips 1979/85" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  2. ↑ "The Early Days" on the Humph the Cat Blogspot
  3. ↑ "It's November 1984..." on the Humph the Cat Blogspot
  4. ↑ Transforce 2000: The exclusives of the millennium (archived)
  5. ↑ "Humph the Cat in Shefferham" page 1, page 2, page 3, and page 4 on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  6. ↑ "Humph the Cat in Shefferham" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Sidney in Reservoir Sidney." on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  8. ↑ "Blind Date Sidney" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  9. ↑ "Missing Links" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  10. ↑ (Convention) Transforce 2001 Report already! - possible spoilers for the magazine on alt.toys.transformers
  11. ↑ Humph the Cat's Alignment strip, courtesy of mellowshade on twitter
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "(UK COMIC) Humph the Cat, a new strip" on alt.toys.transformers
  13. ↑ Transforce: The home of UK Transformers and Beast Wars (archived, 2000)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Transforce's Humph the Cat website (archived)
  15. ↑ "Do-Do Man issue 4", "Do-Do Man cover artwork for mobile phone strips", and "Do-Do Man the series #1" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation. Note that the four published issues were preceded by a stand-alone limited edition, explaining references made to "all five published issues".
  16. ↑ Humph the Cat Blogspot (archived, 2013)
  17. ↑ Page 5 and page 6 on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  18. ↑ Humph the Cat Blogspot (archived, 2015)
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