What's Michael?, Vol. 1 by Makoto Kobayashi

And in this volume, the humour is sharper, and there’s more clarity to what Makoto Kobayashi is doing. Well, the first volume was really good, and it sold well for Eclipse, so there’s a second one. It’s the most brilliant insanity ever.Īnd even in the “realistic” bits, the level of kookiness is just off the scale, like this Japanese mafia guy and the way he worries about what would happen if his co-workers (so to speak) should find out that he likes cats.Īnd is that how Japanese people clean the litter boxes? Makoto Kobayashi does this stuff extremely well.Īnd then there’s these… other random skit things with anthropomorphic cats that are just… insane…

So most of these are vignettes about non-anthropomorphic cats, and they’re extremely well-observed, like above where a cat will always pretend that its plan was successful. I assume that each of these reprint about half of one of the original Japanese paperbacks?Įditor cat ⊕ yronwode, after comparing What’s Michael? to Garfield in the in-house Eclipse ads for the book, explains that What’s Michael? is nothing like Garfield, and what’s more Michael isn’t a single cat, but every Japanese orange tabby? Or something? Sounds kinda unlikely.Īaand… yes, that’s nothing like Garfield.

What’s Michael? (1990) #1-2 by Makoto Kobayashi.Įclipse and Studio Proteus try yet another format for their reprints of Japanese comics: Slim (110 page) trade paperbacks.

What's Michael?, Vol. 1 by Makoto Kobayashi