Madame Cat


By Nancy Peña, translated by Mark Bence (Life Drawn/Humanoids)
ISBN: 978-1-59465- 813-6 (PB Album)

Churlish men have joked about women with cats for eternity. Here’s a superbly irrepressible cartoon collection BY a woman about her own cat. It’s hilarious, extremely addictive and among the top five strips about feline companions ever. Laugh that off, guys…

Toulouse-born Nancy Peña probably caught the comics bug off her father: a dedicated comics collector. She studied Applied Arts and became a teacher while carving out a sideline as a prolific creator of magazine strips and graphic novels such as her Medea series, Le Cabinet Chinois, Mamohtobo and many more.

Hectic as all that sounds, she still found time to invite a companion animal to share her life…

Madame is a cute little kitty who shares her house and converses with her. The bewhiskered treasure (Madame, right) has a vivid interior life – probably swiped from a number of deranged mad scientists and would-be world conquerors – and is the mischievous stuff of nightmares all those legally responsible for a pet know and dread. There is nothing the tiny tyke won’t attempt, from drinking artists ink to exorcising the artist’s long-suffering and utterly unwelcome boyfriend.

Madame knows what she is and what she wants and will baulk at nothing – not even the laws of physics – to achieve her aims…

The engaging bombshell bursts of manic mirth are rendered in engaging duotone (black and blue, but I’m sure that’s not symbolic of anything) with titles such as ‘Madame flirts’, ‘Madame suggests’, ‘Madame insists’, and ‘Madame smells’ as the wee beast moves in, makes allies of the other felines in the area and promptly takes charge: wrecking the life and house of her carer and only giving in return permission to be adored. Every cat person alive will identify with that…

Available in paperback and digital editions, Madame Cat is a sparking example of domestic comedy. Mixing recognisably real events with potent imagination and debilitating whimsy, Peña has introduced a classic cartoon character who is charming, appalling and laugh-out-loud funny. If you’ve been thinking of getting a cat, along with all the medical and pet-care books, get this too. You won’t be sorry. Well, not with the book, at least…
“Madame” © 2015-2016 La Boîte à Bulles & Nancy Peña. All rights reserved.