Broken Frontier

It’s been so long since I’ve read this webcomic, I’m utterly confused and utterly hooked. An enthralling example of urban fantasy-horror, Clan of the Cats centers around the life of Chelsea Chattan, a seemingly ordinary girl who turns into a black leopard and may one day be an evil sorcereress (that one day seems extremely close given the events of the current comic).

If you didn’t already know, cats are big in webcomics, usually in the form of catgirls, but Chelsea definitely doesn’t fall into the latter category. Spunky yet vulnerable, Chelsea Chattan is real in a way that few webcomic heroines are today.

Updating since 1999, Clan of the Cats definitely has need of an extensive encyclopedia like I suggested for Girl Genius, but this time, it’s Clan of the Cats that jumps the gun, providing us with such an overflow of information it’s just as easy to get lost reading the Mythos  section.

Unlike Girl Genius, Clan of the Cats is a bit more accessible – once its claws are in you, you’ll find yourself reading for hours on end. But while Girl Genius provides some brief summary as what’s happened in its current storyline, Clan of the Cats provides virtually none – something which can prove very frustrating to readers who missed a storyline or two.

On the other hand, Clan of the Cats is the perfect example of a popular webcomic which probably should be higher on the lists. Ranked about 117 on Top Webcomics, Clan of the Cats certainly isn’t midlist (if there’s even such a thing), but in terms of consistency, popularity, influence, and well, sheer goodness, I’d place it at the top of my webcomic list any day.

This shows that while Top Webcomics is a good indicator of webcomic impact, it’s far from the only indicator. Putting too much effort into any one such list tends to blindside a lot of creators. The CotC team of Jamie Robertson, Alex Byrne and Miranda Prince on the other hand don’t seem to be sweating in getting this pitch-perfect product out day after day.

Clan of the Cats goes on holiday break December 7^th, so you might want to get reading. Then again, a holiday break may be the best opportunity for old readers like me to get back into the groove of this well-planned webcomic. Clan of the Cats will return January 4^th, 2008.