I like cats.
This statement will mean different things to different people. Some people will assume that this makes me a 'cat person', which comes with its own stereotypes and images of 30+ cats (and at least as many throw pillows) scattered about a house with decorative plates on the walls. Others will assume that I don't like dogs, which couldn't be further from the truth. I tend to accept dogs as dogs on a case by case basis, and even when I don't find a dog favorable in terms of personality and training, I blame the owner.
No, when I say I like cats, I mean that I've been friends with some of the most interesting felines to walk, stalk and nap the Earth. Some of them were friendly. Some of them were what the people of the 14th century believed them to be….spawn of the Devil.
Cats are an enigma wrapped in a down comforter. Cats are tripping minions. Cats are laser pointer bug hunters. Cats are the no apologies necessary companions to millions of no apology human beings the world over. Cats are cool.
That said, I sat down a few years back and tried to find my feelings for cats in a few rough sketches. Yes, I said 'a few years back'. I don't know why it took so long.
Anyway, I found myself doodling a lot of garbage at first when I found my outlet, not in a cat, but in a pet owner. I penned in a couple of empty doll eyes, some Raggedy-Andy hair and a shirt and Scoot was born. Of course his name at birth was actually Mathew with one 'T', but before the day was even half over I had changed it to Merrill. Neither of these fit him of course, but I was going for a pairing with the characters' names, and I had already named the set of ears and eyes Meep.
Once I had 'Merrill & Meep' properly named I began fleshing out the characters. I was going for a comic strip style that was as minimalistic as possible, so the very first thing to go was Merrill's 'I just took off my hat' hair. Besides, bald is beautiful. Bald is also the antithesis of your average cat (but for one very obvious breed).
Next, I needed to find the face of Meep, and even more so, his innocent, naive defiance of all things not him. This was the first sketch in which I discovered the cat's 'soul'. Cuz, man, if you own a cat you know they got soul. You don't get that, you don't got nuthin'.
And speaking of soul, it's important to note that there's something in a name. Names are so inherent to individuals that even my own son went unnamed for days after he was born, because nothing quite seemed to fit. A name has a weight and soul all its own, so when my wife took one look at the cat and said, "You should call him Scat", I laughed so hard that the name stuck. Besides, Scat means so many things that are inherently perfect for a cat.
Thus, the lovable and incorrigible Scat was truly born, and along with him, Scoot.
I can't tell you just how easy it was to draw this first set of panels. The first strip practically drew itself. There's zen in simplicity and a few lines against a stark background can speak volumes. I'm not always a 'less is more' kind of artist (see CRAZY ATTENTION TO DETAIL), but Scoot & Scat came out just the way I had hoped they would.
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