By Dustin Cabeal

I wasn’t expecting a lot from “Cat Fight” when I started reading it. Based on the silly name, the extremely busy cover and the sheer number of actual cats illustrated, I began by lowering my expectations. Which was probably the right move considering it ended up impressing me in the end. I will say that the cat gimmick is heavy handed so if you can’t stomach what’s on the cover, then you will not make it through this first issue.

The story follows a thief as he’s lifting a very expensive ruby and being chased by some Italian police. He is in Venice after all. He then jets straight over to a fancy dinner party to hand off the jewel. We’re given the information that the fencer is his ex-girlfriend, the cops chasing him were not actually Italian or cops and that he comes from a rich family that’s he’s been kicked out of. It’s a lot of exposition and there was very little reason to inform the audience of the fake Italian cops. It seems likely that they’ll return to the story in some capacity or another, but otherwise it was just there to show that our main criminal character is smart. Not getting caught at all also shows us that they’re smart. A slew of cat themed thieves from DC and Marvel how shown us that much.

After the handoff, ugh, I’m going to have to find this guy’s name hold on…

Okay, after the handoff, Felix “Master Thief” starts receiving a lot of phone calls. From his grandma, from some guy trying to hire him to go after his grandma and an IT call from India saying that he owes money to the IRS and needs to buy some gift cards. He spots a guy that works for his dear old grandma and he tasers him and makes the comment of, “you should have answered the phone.” An overused line last spoken by anyone knocks out someone that needed to be retrieved if they didn’t answer the phone.

Felix the not so master thief wakes up at his grandma’s house, Grandma Kitty’s house that is. She reveals to him that she too is a master thief. This really pisses Felix off, and I have to say I agree with him 100%. You see he was kicked out of grandma kitty’s cat house for stealing. Her logic was because he was caught by her, he should be kicked out. By the way his family is dead, it’s one of the many details found in the exposition dumps. Either way, he’s pissed. Grandma Kitty figured he’d eventually come back on his own after being told not to come back and thus tried to reach out and get him to come home. Gee, I wonder why he didn’t do that grandma you backwards logic ass person.

Grandma reveals that someone is after her, someone from her past that she probably stole from. Don’t worry though, she has a code and make a criminal family that loves her… all while ignoring her grandchild that was hurting from the loss of his parents and grandfather. Felix gets another phone call from the IT people, no sorry, from the guy trying to hire him and he lets him know that he doesn’t have to work with him anymore because he’s just going to pin her murder on him and blows up the building and text messages her criminal family the information of her death at the hands of Felix. I’m sure none of them will find it suspicious and will take the time to sit down and talk to him.

The art wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. I didn’t particularly like the character designs and all the pages are too busy. I hate empty backgrounds as much as the next reader, but the importance of the panel is lost when the panel is too busy, or everything comes across as the most important thing. Layouts and layers are important, but here everything is stacked on top of each other. Foregrounds and backgrounds end up being one in the same. The action has no room to present itself so it’s just a lot of posed finishes rather than fluid movements. There are also a lot of cats. We get it, cat burglars, but even Catwoman is like, “I haven’t seen this many cats since Sharon Stone was licked all over in Batman Returns.” I don’t know if there’s a single page without some kind of cat or cat iconography on it. The coloring is good, but in a way adds to the business of the page. It’s very vibrant and sharp, making everything look good. I loved the purples and greens in particular as they seemed out of place and yet wonderful. The shades picked strike the right frequency with your eyes drawing you into the page. Unlike the cats.

This first issue has left me feeling extremely mid. On one hand I want to see this John Wick style “get him” story about a thief, but on the other hand the cat stuff was laid on so thick that it became nauseating by the end. Even still reading a second issue isn’t out of the question. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected due to the world that it managed to create. It could do with less info dumps and more pages for the art to breathe and tell the story, but it’s not bad by any means. It just has areas for improvement. It’s not the cat’s meow but I can’t lick the series just yet. See, annoying, isn’t it?

Score: 3/5

Cat Fight #1
Written by Andrew Wheeler
Art by Ilias Kyriazis
Inks by Auguste
Colors by Dennis Yatras
Letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
IDW Original