Alias the Cat

At the center of the novel Kim Deitch deftly places himself and his wife Pam–a passionate collector of Halloween cats from the 1920s and 30s, whose collection is impressive to say the least. But when she buys a mysterious old cat costume, she and Kim find themselves in wholly new territory: the lost world of Alias the Cat who, in 1915, appeared not only in a comic strip and film serial, but in real life as a freedom-fighting superhero.

When Kim begins to research this forgotten figure, he uncovers one almost unbelievable story after another: about the Furries, a tiny subculture of people who dress up as cartoon animals in order to have sex; about Keller and Frankie, two seamen stranded on a Pacific island, forced to make cat toys to appease the natives; about the secret lover of Alias’s alter ego, Malek Janochek; and, of course, about Deitch’s own Waldo the Cat, the common thread weaving the stories together as Kim and Pam move toward a fateful showdown in Midgetville...New Jersey, of course.

Alias the Cat is Kim Deitch at his eye-catching, mind-bending best.

Kim Deitch was a seminal figure in the Underground Comix movement in the 1960s, and over the last 30 years he has worked non-stop, his comix appearing in Raw, LA Weekly, Weirdo, Heavy Metal, and Nickelodeon Magazine among many other publications. He and Pam live in Manhattan, with their two cats (actual, real ones).