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. What we do know is that, on 20th April 2000, Kazybrid attended the UK Transformers convention Transforce; his contributions to the con's exclusive magazine included "a brand new Humph the cat story" and a "Matt and the Cat/Megatron pin up".[4] In August that year, 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."[5] A con report after Transforce 2001 disclosed that a Matt and the Cat strip appeared in that year's magazine, Alignment  Book 1.[6]

Exactly what was published by Transforce is currently unknown. In late 2000, the revamped main page of the Transforce website advertised the "official" Humph the Cat site using a panel[7] from "Humph the Cat in Shefferham", a strip printed in the fourth issue of Do-Do Man, another Kazybrid creation.[8] The Do-Do Man series had began in January 1997,[9] and apparently usually featured short back-up strips starring characters other than the eponymous superhero.[9][10][11] "Humph the Cat in Shefferham" directly references Humph's Transformers cliffhanger and sets him up in the city of Shefferham with plans to pursue Do-Do Man's cat, Amy. In 2011, Kazybrid made the strip available to read on his Blogspot.[12]

Archives of Transforce's Humph the Cat website have not been able to retain the images. The accompanying text makes it unclear whether the comic it featured was "Humph the Cat in Shefferham", as the link from the homepage suggests, or (at least some of) Do-Do Man #5,[13] an issue that does not appear to have actually been published.[14] In 2010, Kazybrid would post a 23-page solo adventure for Humph to his Blogspot.[15] Freely available pages show it to be an adventure strip in which Humph returns to Darkon (or did he ever leave...?), suggesting it to be something other than the unreleased Do-Do Man crossover;[16] in fact the reappearances by the Slave-Master and Olia-cym imply this story has more in common with whatever was on Transforce's Matt and the Cat website, given Cannon's reference to "familiar faces [cropping up] from past Transformers comics".[5] By 2015, the story was removed from Kazybrid's blog[17] 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

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. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "(UK COMIC) Humph the Cat, a new strip" on alt.toys.transformers
  6. ↑ (Convention) Transforce 2001 Report already! - possible spoilers for the magazine on alt.toys.transformers
  7. ↑ Transforce: The home of UK Transformers and Beast Wars (archived, 2000)
  8. ↑ "Humph the Cat in Shefferham" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Sidney in Reservoir Sidney." on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  10. ↑ "Blind Date Sidney" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  11. ↑ "Missing Links" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  12. ↑ "Humph the Cat in Shefferham" page 1, page 2, page 3, and page 4 on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  13. ↑ Transforce's Humph the Cat website (archived)
  14. ↑ "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".
  15. ↑ Humph the Cat Blogspot (archived, 2013)
  16. ↑ Page 5 and page 6 on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
  17. ↑ Humph the Cat Blogspot (archived, 2015)
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