Matt and the Cat: Difference between revisions

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Matt and the Cat''}}
<noinclude>{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Matt and the Cat''}}
<noinclude>'''Space-age problems for a kid and his feline friend!'''
'''Space-age problems for a kid and his feline friend!'''


==History==
==History==

Revision as of 21:43, 15 October 2023

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.

This was not the end for breakout character Humph, and he would appear in his own 23-page sequel story online in 2010.[4] In 2011, Kazybrid would post a four page prequel to that story that directly referenced Humph's Transformers cliffhanger and set him up in the city of Shefferham, home to another Kazybrid creation, Do-Do Man.[5] By 2015, the sequel story was removed from Kazybrid's blog[6] (save previews of pages 5 and 6[7]) to instead be published in colour in volumes 17 and 18 of Aces Weekly, a digital comics anthology series established by David Lloyd to which Kazybrid frequently contributes.

Matt and the Cat strips in TFUK

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. ↑ Humph the Cat Blogspot (archived, 2013)
  5. ↑ "Humph the Cat in Shefferham" introduction, page 1, page 2, page 3, and page 4 on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  6. ↑ Humph the Cat Blogspot (archived, 2015)
  7. ↑ Page 5 and page 6 on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
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