Do you want something that is pretty superficial, colorful, involves few words, and much cutsey-ness? You might be interested in The Many Lives of Pusheen the Cat. Pusheen is the chubby tabby star of many GIF and single panel cartoons, and this book is basically just a compilation of the several variations on the character that have been developed over the years. There’s Pusheen herself (the original cat is a she and according to the starts page for each character variant, they are all gendered ‘girl’), Pusheenicorn, Pusheenosaurus and Dinosheens, Dragonsheens, and you get the idea for the rest. Let’s go with the Dragonsheen for example, since that one is probably my favorite of the versions, and each section follows a similar series progression.
The introduction page has a general image, gender (always ‘girl’), birthday (always February 18), best feature (dangerous breath in this case; there will be a joke on this later), favorite food (related to the general creature features, toasted marshmallow in this case), favorite color (always the dominant color of the character or associated with the creature, gold in this case), hobbies (associated with the creature, breathing fire & collecting things), and attributes (cutesy and slightly relevant to creature and shared with cat, warm & cuddly here). Next is the series of cute and occasionally slightly clever images and cartoons; some of my favorites in this section include “Your cat may be a dragon if” (they hoard treasure, they perch on high, they have dangerous breath) and “Dragonsheen’s BBQ techniques” (imagine a dragon cat using it’s abilities to cook with direct and indirect heat, smoke, and rest a skewer of some sort (but also sometimes themselves too, like the ‘rest’ portion works both as a visual and verbal pun).
There is a heavy appreciation for general cat clichés and for snacks throughout; there is the occasional clever pun (‘Tea Rex’ is a good one), and I’m guessing that a whole lot of existential over-reading to be done if one is so inclined (and I am on occasion) in the manner of The D’oh of Homer or “Garfield Without Garfield”. For example, I had not realized that the “Pastel Pusheen” are actually their own distinct creature type (no spoilers on that here). That’s not at all what’s present on the surface, and I’m sure the intent is nothing but fluff. I’m ok with this.
