The original LOL cats: 2-D art alive and well on the web

by Kaitlin | July 5, 2007 at 09:40 am

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Being a traditional, ink-and-paper 2-D cartoonist in a 3-D digital world is a tough gig. Those who survive do so because they know how to promote themselves, and use the viral, crowd-motivated nature of the net to help spread their ideas and images like wildfire.

There are many great 2-D artists out there working their magic on the web--check out husband and wife team Drew and Natalie Dee and their three great daily comics for starters.

My latest favourite online cartoonist, however, is Adam Koford. Adam's "great-grandfather" (wink, wink) drew a comic strip in the early twentieth century (ahem) featuring some characters whose diction you probably recognize--the LOL cats. Koford has posted the misadventures of the "original" LOL cats as a photoset on his Flickr page.

Not many people know this, but my great grandfather Aloysius "Gorilla" Koford, was also a cartoonist (see the video evidence here). From 1912-1913 he produced a comic strip which was featured in 17 newspapers, including the Philadephia Star-Democrat, the Tampa Telegraph, and the Santa Fe Good-Newser. The strip was entitled "the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats" and featured the exploits of one Meowlin Q. Kitteh (a sort of cat hobo-raconteur) and his young hapless kitten friend, Pip. The strip did not last long due to a run-in my great-grandfather had with none other than William Randolph Hearst.

Unfortunately, the original LOL cats strip lasted only one year, after which Hearst's threats forced Koford Sr. Sr. Sr. to leave the world of cartooning to become and adventurer and "sometime walrus hunter." Luckily his great-grandson, also a cartoonist (cough) was able to haul the strip out of the vault and let it see the light of day again...

The LOL cats strip is just one of the projects Koford is working on--more info about his current work can be found on his personal site, AdamKoford.com, or at his blog Hobotopia.

Smartly, artists like Koford and Drew and Natalie use the web as a sort of living portfolio for their work (in fact, Koford's actual portfolio can be found on Flickr). Unlike big media companies, artists often understand that what would normally be considered "stealing" where it comes to their art can be embraced and even used for their greater good:

You may display Toothpaste For Dinner on your website, blog, Myspace, Livejournal, etc. as long as you link back to this site. The code we provide next to every comic on this site (as well as Natalie Dee/Married To The Sea) allows you to do this easily. Just cut and paste.

If you like what Adam, Drew and Natalie or any of the great online cartoonists do, I
recommend buying their shirts, mugs and prints. Often these guys wish
to remain autonomous from advertisers and therefore depend on the
support of fans to keep their careers aloft. Seems to be
working so far--Drew's Toothpaste for Dinner pulls in half a million unique
views per month. And the LOL cats? They've been featured on Boing Boing, among other places,
and are starting to grab the attention of people all over the web.

Viva la 2-D!