opinion

A cats cosmogony
by Bill Phillips

I am not sure where I should take you, or if I am the one to be doing this at all. I am quite a bit older than my readers, and my comic heroes at childhood were still spinning out of the ooze of the depression and the Second World War. Back then, it was the practice to take on the personalities and perform the adventures of such figures as, "the Human Torch" or "Captain Marvel." There was no television set in the family household; War news was flung at us on the movie screen with weekend serials of "The Blue Beetle" and "Captain Midnight."

My brother and sister enjoyed extensive free time near the ocean.

We watched the lifeguard and transposed his authority and heroic stance into our comic book vision by drawing him as a cat in a bathing suit. We called him "Blacky," after one of our many cats. We drew him at his perch with a white T-shirt that said "Lifeguard." He had a military buzz cut, like the many soldiers that visited our beach. It was not long before his name was shortened to "Kay" and then stretched back to "Kayloo."

Given, the fact, that our father was fighting the Japanese somewhere in the Pacific, Kaloo the lifeguard protected us at home. He became a symbol of what was good and purposeful: something that we saw as a model of citizenship, like Captain America. A Kayloo was a good person; But always he wore a lifeguard shirt. In later years, we made the political correct addition of the Kayla, and added long hair to the female version.

America's war fortunes were very closely tied to Australia, during these terrible years. General Douglas MacArthur was the designated protector of our fight against Japan, and much of our comprehension of OUR fight had to do with Australia. Like the United States, which numbered 48, at that time, Australia was a plate clean of the Axis presence. Each country presented the picture of a noble race of people who were protecting their borders from the spreading evil in the world. Even Bugs Bunny showed up wearing a uniform.

Anxious to be a part of the worldwide effort, as we experienced it, we created a group of Australian/English army officers that we called "Shredneys." I think that the name grew out of the way that we pictured Australian speech; But we had seen photos of men like the British general, Montgomery, and the famed, Desert Rats. For some reason kids see humor in small mannerisms, and we felt that Australians seemed to draw their mouth up in a way that was funny to us. If you pronounce the word, "shredney," you will twist your mouth. We drew this cat to affect a cocksure, rather superior manner, and we dressed him in a khaki uniform with short sleeves and shorts. Like English officers of the time, he carried a riding curt in his hand, not only for authority but so that he could "thawp" ne'er-do-wells.

We had traveled abroad and throughout the southern United States, and we must have sensed the enormous underplay of class and race discrimination. Looking back, it was easily in common view as a Tarzan movie or by such figures as "Stepin Fetchit." In our innocence, we enriched our constellation of comic heroes by depicting the very air we breathed. We soon had a down trodden cat that we called a "Plaud." This cat wore a hopeless expression, signified by a large tongue that drooped out of his mouth.

The matter came up of how a Plaud could be restored to his former self. We tied the matter to class mistreatment, and not to original sin or human failure. With the keen eye that children have, we observed that people are motivated by encouragement and blunted by verbal and physical threats. Stories of military officers, such as General George Patton, hitting their soldiers were being carried by the press. It did not escape us that the arch villain of the world was a man name "HIT ler." We determined that one becomes a Plaud when a Shredney "thwaps" you with his curt. The matter of permanence came up. We asked such existential questions as, "Is one doomed to remain downtrodden after such a thwap?" Not so, we determined. If thwaped again, a Plaud is reformed as a Shredney. In other words, he becomes an equal of the one who hits him. The danger of the downtrodden taking on the role of the oppressor, was one that we recognized in play but one too subtle for many adults.

As the war took on more positive results for the allied forces, we created a massive wall mural that we titled "the Battle of Plaud Run." The feature mirrored the mixed reality of good and bad. The Shredneys and the Kayloos (the allied forces) had defeated the Plauds and taken no prisoners. It had become a world without an apparent enemy or underclass. We had a song that went with it: "Australia, Australia, the land of the home and the free. Australia, Australia, if it is good enough for you Aussies, it's good enough for me."

I will spare you the rest; But of our cats cosmogony, we added several, that reflected our entrance into a new time: Copter Tom (a teenager with a beanie that had a small propeller. He wore a black leather jacket and rode a motorcycle.) Tomaso Chewyglue (He worked on model airplanes and chewed the dried glue off the tops of the tubes.) But why am I telling you about this? I am an old man now, and this does not resemble your world or your heroes at all.

Author notes

I realize that this will go over the heads of many, but the topic appealed to me because I was a part of a generation (surely the first) to be immersed in the genre of comic heroes and villains. I remember my mother buying the first issue of Action comics (with Superman on the cover.) To walk into any grocery store and see racks of these original comics, just inside the door---Well, it was a realm of being that we could enter and return to. This subject brought back a fascinating memory. I hope that it will interest you.