Simon’s Cat vs. the World

Simon’s white cat steps into a Technicolor world in this collection of all-new cat cartoons based on the popular (360 million views on YouTube) cartoon and book series. The bendy-as-rubber, demanding-as-a-debutante feline faces off against his own environment—the beanbag chair, lawn gnomes, neighborhood dogs, and Simon’s model ship—in full-page, full-color illustrations. Tofield’s cartooning is wonderfully fluid: the cat is beautifully rendered in simple lines, and is as flexible and highly expressive as the real thing. His indoor and outdoor misadventures are filled with details that increase the laughs with every viewing. Each page is wordless except for a simple one- or two-word caption each, and sight gags range from the outrageous—most cats can’t throw snowballs or use a crowbar to break through another home’s cat flap for purloining food—to the familiar (pawing frantically at a nature documentary about birds on the television, flopping belly-first on the middle of a Scrabble board). Cat lovers will adore this and will nod in recognition of real-life cat behavior; cartoon fans will delight in Tofield’s graceful skill in capturing the slinkiness, stealth, and self-absorption of our feline masters. Extras include an eight-page section on how to draw the characters and a sheet of Simon’s Cat color stickers. (Oct.)