Videogame Cat of the Week: The Fabulous Screech / Remembering Hannah Frank

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I began this series as a lark, inspired by my friend Hannah Frank’s Tumblr omgcatrevolution. I linked to her Tumblr here, she reciprocated by posting some of this material over there. We chuckled about trading some of the meager traffic our endeavors attract; it gave us a chance to chat. A chance to chat with Hannah was always welcome.

Today, omgcatrevolution posted its final post. This morning, at 1 AM, Hannah Frank passed away from a sudden illness. Her death has come as an utter shock to her friends.

Last week, I promised another “sad cat tale” in this Monday’s spot. I had planned to reserve this spot for Jonas and Verena Kyratzes’ The Fabulous Screech (2012), a point-and-click tearjerker about a cat’s adventures through heaven and hell, and eventual decline into old age.

I cannot, at the moment, bring myself to write about The Fabulous Screech. But I think I will leave the screenshots in, and leave the title of the post as it was (with a new acknowledgement). I can think of plenty of people who wouldn’t want to be eulogized in a blog post about a cartoon cat. Hannah Frank was not one of those people. And so that is where I have decided to take this post.

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Prolegomena to a History of Cats in Videogames

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As opposed to cats among videogames. That is an altogether separate matter. Apologies for the confusing header image.

Ian here—

By now, every right-thinking person on the internet knows that omgcatrevolution is the most essential Tumblr in existence. (Perhaps even the greatest site, bar none, on the internet.) But although it is an ever-more-exhaustive archive of cats in mainstream cinema, cats in experimental cinema, cats in animation, cats on television, cats in music videos, and cats in porn, there one crucial bit of moving-image culture that remains its blind spot: cats in videogames. I am swooping in to rectify this.

In all seriousness, the summer has hit, classes are over, and I have some big things brewing on my horizon. I’m determined to still post regularly, though, so I’m trying to design some sort of mechanism that forces me to update on a set schedule. It is for this reason that I now announce a new feature on this blog: videogame cat of the week.

Yes, really.

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