The cat from the bestselling memoir Homer’s Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, Or How I Learned About Love and Life With a Blind Wonder Cat now has his own comic book. Author Gwen Cooper teamed up with her husband Laurence Lerman to create Handicats!
Homer the Fearless Feline and Ajax the Bionic Kitty star in the first issue, Of Origins and Oil Spills. Each hero carries a disability: Homer is blind and Ajax’s back legs are prosthetics. Ajax is based on a real-life story of New Jersey-native feline named Oscar. After a near-death accident with a combine harvester, Oscar underwent surgery to be fitted with two hind prosthetic legs.
Cooper explained the inspiration behind the first comic: “It seemed appropriate to have them tackle the Gulf oil spill. As a Florida native who grew up in the waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf, I viewed the daily news stories about the disaster with horror. Watching the oil spread–destroying the communities and ecosystems and marine life that formed some of my earliest memories–was like watching my childhood disappear. It seemed like the only solution would have to involve some sort of superhuman intervention.”