Porcellino, John – King Cat #38

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King Cat #38

John Porcellino is the best person currently doing mini comics. As far as I know, he’s the best person who’s ever done mini comics. I could have picked any issue of King Cat to review and it would have been positive. He’s on #57 (as I write this) and has been doing this for something like 15 years. He just recently got a book published by Highwater books which collects #49 and 50 (and a few other things) of his comic and, while I didn’t get the collected version yet, that two issue story remains one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Other people try to capture high school and the moods that you go through during it. Some do a good job, some do a really good job, and I just can’t relate to some of them. John hit just about everything during this two issue story and he deserves a fucking medal for it. In a perfect world, he would be rich and able to do his quietly beautiful comic whenever he wanted. As it is now, he has to maintain a job and is usually only able to get 2 or 3 of these out a year. I picked #38 to review because it is widely seen as the best issue of King Cat and, while I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that (how do you pick the best single issue when so many of them are incredible?), it is at least one of the best.

This remains one of the few issues of any mini comic that can make me cry every time I read it. It’s the story of John’s dog Sam. How he got her, what part she played in his life, how he became distant from her when he went through his high school years and was distant from everybody… but she was always there for him. I went through pretty much the exact same thing with my dog, almost every step of the way. I’m lucky that I read this before my dog died too because I was able to spend more time with and appreciate her. I’ll always be grateful to him for reminding me of what my dog meant to me when I was growing up. Anyway, what I’d recommend is that you give him any money that you have sitting around. Start with the Classix volumes. There are 4 of them with each of them reprinting the best from a ten issue span. #1 has #1-10, #2 has #11-20, etc. If you send $8.50 you can get all of them, but it looks like stock is limited on the #1 so ask him to send you another issue if that isn’t in. I don’t know, #50-57 are all $2 and they’re all good. If you have somehow gotten to this point in your life where you haven’t read him, seriously, at least send him a few dollars. I guarantee that you won’t regret it. Hey, I finally got an e-mail address for the man too.