Book Review: Simon’s Cat: In His Very Own Book & Simon’s Cat: Beyond The Fence by Simon Tofield

Nine times out of ten when somebody starts to recount some memorable thing a pet has done, most will smile politely and nod. Like doting grandparents who can’t understand not everybody is interested in every last move their little dears make, pet owners will regale the world with pictures and stories of their furred darlings without cease. What most people with pets fail to understand is that, unlike what my cats get up to, there is nothing remotely interesting about their animals’ behaviour. Being incredibly special, super-intelligent and extraordinarily cute, my cats are of course the exception to that rule, and everybody will want to hear everything about them; from where they spew hair balls to how loud they can meow.

In fact pet owners are so renowned for this when I first started writing on the Internet the term “cat blog” was used derisively to refer to any blog that was no more than a personal diary. The attitude I expressed above is common to most of us who dote upon four-legged critters, but really who is going to want to hear endless recounts of their doings? Let’s be real, nobody is going to find stories about other people’s pets funny enough to search them out on the Internet and read them, right? Well, try telling that to Simon Tofield, creator of Simon’s Cat.

Tofield is a British animator and illustrator who has taken idle sketches of his cats and turned them into incredibly popular short animated cartoons on YouTube. With over 50 million fans watching his videos, he must be doing something right, and if you check out the film’s page on his web site you’ll see just what that is. A combination of simply rendered line drawings, cat sounds and over the top cat behaviour make them some of the most hilarious cartoons I’ve seen in ages. Ranging in length from around 30 seconds to a few minutes, they take such identifiable cat behaviours as playing with an empty box, stopping at nothing in the hunting of an insect and asking to be let inside and turn them into moments of hysteria. Tofield’s humour resides in his ability to exaggerate normal behaviour to the point where it’s ridiculous but still believable.

Well now the star of Internet video is available in book form; Simon’s Cat: In His Very Own Book and Simon’s Cat: Beyond The Fence are both available through Penguin Canada, and he is every bit as funny on the page as he is in your browser window (Beyond The Fence is only currently available in the US as an eBook and won’t be released in hard copy until June 2011). Tofield’s ability to communicate a lot with little translates onto the page wonderfully, making both these collections as much, if not more, fun than the videos. For the static frame has allowed him to add detail to his images not seen in his animations that, especially in Beyond The Fence, make them more complete.

In His Very Own Book, first published a year ago and now re-printed as a softcover, introduced us to life around the house with Simon and his cat. Anybody who has ever shared space with a cat will be able to quickly identify with all of the scenarios depicted. Sure there are some instances when our cat friend’s behaviour crosses out of the realm of realistic into fantasy. However, you have the feeling, if it were possible for a cat to do things like attempt to open a can of food on its own, it would do so in the manner Tofield depicts. If the little buggers can break into cupboards it’s not much of a stretch to imagine them utilizing blunt instruments to try and smash cans open. Lacking opposable thumbs can openers are out of the question so it becomes necessary to find an alternative means of gaining access to a can’s contents.

Beyond The Fence sees Cat carrying out every young child’s threat of running away from home. After being forced to face the indignity of being bathed, hysterically depicted in a series of large panels – anybody who has ever tried to give a cat a bath will wince in sympathy as memories of being soaked and bleeding from numerous cuts surface – Cat stalks out of his “cat-flap”. One can almost hear him yelling back over his shoulder that he’s running away from home and won’t you regret treating me like this now! For the rest of the book we follow Cat through a series of adventures out in the wilds. Who’d have thought that birds, mice and rabbits could be so cruel. The indignities he suffers at their paws and wings; although there is the mitigating factor that he is attempting to hunt them that speaks in their defence. Still, these are humbling experiences for our erstwhile hero in his quest for freedom and independence.

While Tofield continues to employ only black and white, in this book he has taken more time with backgrounds and filling in Cat’s surroundings. Yet, he does not ignore the details that have been the key to the cartoon’s success, specifically, his amazing ability to bring expressions alive on his character’s faces with only a few simple lines.

Giving animals human facial expressions is a tricky business as it can often end up being insufferably cute. Tofield somehow manages not to fall into that trap by avoiding making them overtly human. No matter if it’s a haughty blue heron, a friendly otter, a snarky mouse or our long suffering Cat, each critter retains their animal identity while making no secret of their feelings.

Usually only fellow cat owners would be at all interested in stories regarding the antics of our four-footed companions. With his wonderful sense of the absurd and deceptively simple drawing style, Simon Tofield has managed to break down that barrier and find a way to make cat stories universally appealing. While cat lovers will be identify with the cartoons on a personal level, having experienced something similar to what’s being depicted at one time or another, the humour is such it will be next to impossible for anybody to resist the charm of these two books.