Simon’s Cat: Off to the Vet . . . and Other Cat-astrophes – great fun

Being a fan of Simon Tofield’s animations on YouTube, I did wonder how they would transfer to the printed page. The simple answer – fantastically. Far more than the eponymous Simon and his cat feature in this collection – there’s plenty of birds, hedgehogs, frogs, the kitten and more, most of who end up smarter than the cat who is, of course, still smarter than Simon (and the next-door neighbour).

Each set of jokes stand on their own, but there’s also pleasure to be hand from the running mini-stories, such as the attempts of Simon’s Cat to fool the neighbouring cats with a range of disguises, traps and cunning plans. The trip to the vet doesn’t start until a good way into the book, and is the trigger for some limited colour panels.

As befits a cartoon book, the production quality is high – good sized pages, quality thick paper, clear printing and, where this is colour, nice and crisp (if a little muted in tones for my own preference).

If you like this, you might also be interested in Testing Times the latest collection of Peter Brookes’s excellent political cartoons.

Buy Simon’s Cat: Off to the Vet . . . and Other Cat-astrophes by Simon Tofield here.