Bored Panda reached out to Anthony Smith, the artist behind these hilarious comics. First, we asked the artist about how he got started with the comics.
"I can remember loving comics from a very early age. In the UK, we had comics like The Beano and The Dandy. I also used to buy Disney comics. Later, I got into Marvel and DC Comics in a big way!"
We were wondering how the artist came up with the idea for the "Cattitude".
"I'd had a good response to a cat cartoon I did for a national newspaper in the UK (Learn to Speak Cat) but I wanted to do something specifically for the US market. That's how it started anyway. It ended up running in 'Your Cat' magazine and a collection was published as a little gift book in the USA before it was syndicated online through GoComics."
Besides "Cattitude", Anthony has quite a few other projects he works on too.
"I do tend to juggle a few projects at once, but that said, I often do things in batches. For example, I might spend a couple of days doing a series of new Cattitude cartoons before turning my attention to something else. I also do creative work for ad agencies in between cartoon projects... which helps pay the bills!"
We were also wondering whether art was something, Anthony learned and pursued professionally, and here's what he told us, "No, the only real studying I did was getting a BA in Advertising at University. The cartooning and illustration just came about through practice. I have done a lot of life drawing classes though and these days I get a lot of tips online from other artists. I recommend Proko on YouTube! I've learned a lot from that channel."
In case you didn't know, Smith has released some books too! We asked the artist whether there was a difference between online audiences and people who bought a physical copy of his work.
"I'm not sure, really... I think it's the same audience, but it's easier to reach people online. I post a lot on Facebook and Cattitude also runs on GoComics, which is a great platform for comics. It houses all the classics as well as more recent stuff."
