Something a little different for Cats In Comics this time around in the form of an art piece, a cat and mouse collage by Tim Danko from his published collection Wall Paper: Scraped through darkness 1986-1998, Dead Xerox Press, p.9. Danko plays in the postmodern domain of popular visual culture, appropriating existing images and cartoon characters, repositioning them in new contexts, creating new associations and having them speak with different voices. The resulting rearrangement of these elements of visual culture produces a critique of that culture and encourages the possibilities of alternative interpretations.
In this strip the rodents in panels 1 and 2 face the felines in panels 3 and 4 with cats by Herriman, Crumb and Hanna-Barbera caged together in panel 3. Lines from Lyotard and Barthes are used as foreground decoration, superimposed over the assembled collage of characters and employed as visual elements of the panels as much as text. Cut from their original pages these cats have been pasted or “rewritten” by Danko into a new scene whilst looks of uncertainty and wonderment abound. The characters seem displaced and reflective, lost in this new space that represents a shift from their role as entertainment figures.
Other cats in this Cats In Comics series: Doraemon, Krazy Kat and The Rabbi’s Cat.
