Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair by Lucy Knisley

So I'm not really a "cat person," actually. (More so than a "dog person," I guess, but not much more. Frankly, I'm not even a people person. I guess I'm an "over there by myself" person.) But people who make comics are often cat people, and make comics about their cats, and I like reading comics, so....

Lucy Knisley's career has taken a turn into books for young readers recently - and by "recently" I think I mean the last decade. (A comics career takes a while to turn and move, since projects tend to take a long time - maybe even more so than prose writers.) I think her last book for adults - the last one I read, anyway - was Kid Gloves, a 2019 book I read in 2023. She's had a three-book YA graphic-novel series since then, plus at least a couple of picture books - I used to love picture books when my kids were the right age; I miss being part of that world now - so she's definitely been busy and productive; it's just been in regions I don't get into as often anymore. (And, to connect the dots, Kid Gloves was about her pregnancy and the birth of her son in 2016, which explains quite a lot of the kid-focus since then: memoir cartoonists tell stories about the things close to them.)

Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair was published last year, by the kids' arm of Random House, but it's the kind of small-format humorous book about cats - in this case, one particular cat, which is a common variation - that has been a staple of the checkout counter in bookstores for at least fifty years, and I'd guess closer to a hundred. I suspect the fact that it's from RHCB is more to do with the fact that Knisley's current editor works there than that this book is particularly kid-focused.

This is the story of Linney, who was Knisley's cat. I think some parts of it originally appeared on Knisley's Patreon - it seems to be partially collecting existing comics and partly a loose project she started when she realized how old Linney was and that old cats don't last forever - and it doesn't necessarily follow in strictly linear time. Well, the end is the end, and you can guess what that end is. But, before that, it's mostly riffs and moment in the life of this loud, demanding, selfish furball who was deeply loved by Knisley and the rest of her family (husband, young son).

Knisley draws Linney as a chubby, semi-shapeless mass, with a big floofy tail and giant green staring eyes - and, most importantly, that strident, demanding voice, which Knisley puts into human words most of the time for maximum amusement. The point of view is often at Linney's level, to better put this cat in the center of the action - as she, of course, insists and demands she should be.

Knisley uses borderless panels, often with a blob of background color to define and separate them, usually just two or three to a page, keeping the activity moving and the moments running into each other, like any other life.

Woe is fun and amusing and touching, even for someone like me who could easily do without a cat entirely. (I have, for the past year or so, though that time will soon be drawing to a close.) People who actually like cats will probably enjoy this book even more.