Matt and the Cat
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 strip left off with something of an abrupt cliffhanger.
This was not the end for breakout character Humph, and he would appear in his own 23-page sequel story online in 2010[4] (though it was removed by 2015,[5] with only pages 5 and 6 accessible[6]). In 2011, Kazybrid would post a four page prequel to that story that directly referenced the Transformers cliffhanger and set Humph up in the city of Shefferham, home to another Kazybrid creation, Do-Do Man.[7] 2015 would see Humph return in a two-part story told 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
- issue 10
- issue 11
- issue 12
- issue 13
- issue 14
- issue 15
- issue 16
- issue 17
- issue 18
- issue 19
- issue 20
- issue 21
- issue 22
- issue 23
- issue 24
- issue 25
- issue 26
- issue 27
- issue 28
- issue 29
- issue 31
- issue 32
- issue 33
- issue 34
- issue 35
- issue 36
- issue 37
- issue 38
- issue 39
- issue 40
- issue 41
- issue 42
- issue 43
- issue 44
- issue 45
- issue 46
- issue 47
- issue 48
- issue 49
- issue 50
- issue 51
- issue 52
- issue 53
- issue 54
- issue 55
- issue 56
- issue 57
- issue 58
- issue 59
- issue 61
- issue 64
- issue 65
- issue 66
- issue 67
- issue 68
- issue 69
- issue 70
- issue 71
- issue 72
- issue 73
References
- ↑ "Blast from the Past: Matt cartoon strips 1979/85" on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
- ↑ "The Early Days" on the Humph the Cat Blogspot
- ↑ "It's November 1984..." on the Humph the Cat Blogspot
- ↑ Humph the Cat Blogspot (archived, 2013)
- ↑ Humph the Cat Blogspot (archived, 2015)
- ↑ Page 5 and page 6 on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation
- ↑ "Humph the Cat in Shefferham" introduction, page 1, page 2, page 3, and page 4 on Mychailo Kazybrid's Character Creation