The first issue was adorable, the second was cute & fun, and the third was surprisingly… wise. The comic is CINNAMON, by Victoria Douglas and published by Happy Tank, an imprint of Behemoth. The third and final issue came out this week, and while I very much enjoyed the first two, it was this one that made me really take notice.
The star of CINNAMON is an orange cat who, like all of their ilk that I have ever known, is fun-loving, charming, manipulative, self-centered and destructive, often accidentally. The conceit of the comic is to render it primarily from Cinnamon’s fantasy world in which she is a badass biker action-hero cat-person rebelling against her tyrannical, giant-Mech piloting human owner, the Mayor.
The first issue has fun with the premise as Cinnamon introduces us to Big Kitchen City, through her eyes a dangerous metropolis in which she must undertake a great catnip heist. Cinnamon’s feline failings betray her and the crime ends in violence and capture. We establish that panels with rounded corners are the real world and panels with squared corners are Cinnamon’s fantasy world. This is directly opposite to an old shorthand that the big publishers used to employ, where square corners was standard and rounded-corner panels usually indicated flashback. It subtly suggests, for old comics nerds who know the shorthand, that Cinnamon’s ‘world’ is the one that’s more important even if it’s not necessarily ‘real’.
The second issue gets more complex as the Mayor introduces a nigh-unbeatable villain, an anthropomorphic laser pointer. Douglas introduces much more ambitious coloring, adding hues of yellow and giving us a gloriously epic battle. Cinnamon leaves with her confidence shaken.
The third issue shows us how Douglas’ skills have further advanced, as the story becomes a mature exploration of the complicated relationship between person and cat. The Mayor redeems her behavior during the traumatic laser pointer incident of last issue and connects with Cinnamon on new levels while making constant fourth-wall breaking references, which works much better than it sounds. When I say the Cinnamon vs Laser Pointer Round 2 battle is epic doesn’t do the sequence justice — The Odyssey is epic, Ragnarök is epic. This is a beautiful, cosmic fight scene rendered even greater by how the combatants part as new friends.
Victoria Douglas gives us a very rough, personal art style in the real-world sequences, one that feels very 90s autobiographical indy comics. In the more dominant Cinnamon-eye view sequences, the art becomes beautifully stylized and very phone-book reprint manga. It’s very much about motion lines and stretching/skewing perspectives to exaggerate action. The heavy use of zipatone textures, or I expect more accurately the digital art equivalent, also puts me very much in mind of newsprint manga, as does the flexible use of limited colors. In the second and third issue, where more color is introduced, it is to eye-popping effect.
Douglas delivers a simple, adorable concept with a lot of fun and a great deal of heart. A lifetime roommate to cats, I related to every page. I was charmed enough to buy each issue physically as they were released, and just now again digitally so I could clip images for this review. That I got to watch a talent grow and develop over the course of the series — I infer that the time between issues was far lengthier when creating than publishing — was a treat. I will keep an eye out for more work from this new voice in comics, as well as other work from Behemoth comics, a publisher that often flies beneath my radar.
CINNAMON #1 is available to read online for free at Victoria Douglas’ website, and there I also learned that the issue was her art school undergrad thesis. Whether the full miniseries now completes something like a dissertation, we definitely witness red-hot talent and a maturing of storytelling style throughout. Check out her Instagram for updates, as I plan to.
You can probably still get all 3 issues from your local comic shop. Even if they don’t have them on the shelf, and they probably won’t because today’s market sadly doesn’t allow for much shelf life for comics, they might be able to re-order, or let you pre-order the planned softcover collected edition. Alternatively, you can do all that directly with Behemoth.
Until next time, friends! Watch out for that Cat Scratch Fever!
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