Cats, cartoons and mortality: Lucy Knisley on her graphic novel, ‘WOE’

The Rundown | Chicago News

Linney was the name of a loud and melodramatic house cat who stars in a new graphic novel titled “WOE: A Housecat’s Story of Despair.”

Linney’s owner, Evanston-based graphic novelist Lucy Knisley, said she originally based Linney’s comic-strip voice off the character Sister Monica Jones, a British nun from the long-running BBC series “Call the Midwife.”

“She was complaining about stuff that was just so silly to complain about, but she was so eloquent about it, so I wanted to give her this eloquent, stately manner,” Knisley said.

In this episode of The Rundown podcast, Knisley tells host Erin Allen about her journey into comics – from her early love of “Calvin & Hobbes” to her education at both the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont.

Knisley also talks about the poignant comic strip she created following Linney’s death, one she says readers will still reach out to her about several years later.