What's Michael?: Fatcat Collection Volume 1 by Makoto KobayashiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
What's Michael? Fatcat Collection Volume 1 collects stories from Michael's Album, Living Together, Off the Deep End, Michael's Mambo, Michael's Favorite Spot, and A Hard Day's Life.
While I mostly read American comics, I dip my toe into the manga pool once in a while. I was vaguely aware of What's Michael? was from when Eclipse licensed the property back in the day. When I saw Dark Horse was putting out this big honkin' omnibus, I decided to take the plunge.
I'm happy to say this slice of life manga was a delight. I'm officially a dog guy but we have two cats so the situations in What's Michael? were all too familiar. Like Michael's humans, I too have been trod upon in the middle of the night, harassed for food, and cleaned up the full spectrum of cat excretions.
The art is cute without being overly so, particularly Michael and the other felines. Michael acts like a normal cat, unlike certain other ginger toms whose named ends in -Arfield. The stories will be familiar to any cat owner.
The stories aren't exactly linked beyond featuring Michael, though there are recurring features in some. They seem to take place in various points in his life with different owners and such. In some, Michael has a made and kittens. In others, he's the sole cat. In still others, he shares his humans with Catzilla, fattest cat of them all! The stories were amusing but I never once rolled on the floor an nearly lost an ass.
What's Michael? Fatcat Collection Volume 1 is one of those comics that I like quite a bit without knowing exactly why. Four out of five dead cicadas.
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