Under the Radar: John Porcellino’s King-Cat Comics and Self-Publishing as Cultural Work

Abstract

Root Hog or Die: The John Porcellino Story, a 2014 documentary, draws to its conclusion with a scene in which Porcellino describes a conversation he once had with his father about cartooning. “My dad eventually realized I’m a cartoonist,” a middle-aged Porcellino explains, “but his thing was … why can’t you do Luann? Or…Garfield is funny, everyone loves it. You could do that! My dad would read King-Cat, and we would talk about it … he totally understood the whole [King-Cat] thing, but he would say ‘you could come up with your own Garfield,’ because he wanted me to not be suffering” (Stafford 2014). The scene is introduced by a silent title frame, white, smooth, sans serif text on black, using this phrase to preface Porcellino’s description of his father and his father’s perception of his cartooning, ensuring a narrative payoff and the sting of irony when Porcellino repeats the phrase “you could come up with your own Garfield!”