How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You

This illustrated humor collection gathers comic strips, satirical guides, and comparison charts unified by a single comedic premise: that domestic cats are not the affectionate companions their owners believe them to be but are, in fact, scheming, self-interested creatures whose everyday behaviors betray sinister motives.

The collection opens with a series of short standalone pieces that establish its tone. "6 Ways to Tell if Your Cat Thinks It's a Mountain Lion" takes six ordinary cat behaviors and reframes them as evidence of wild predatory ambition. A cat that disappears outdoors for days is undertaking a "kitty 'vision quests'" (3). A cat eating dog food is trying to bulk up on excess protein. One that sneaks up on a lawnmower is practicing hunting caribou. Excessive meowing, the piece insists, is the cat's belief that it produces terrifying roars. "How You See Your Cat and How Your Cat Sees You" then contrasts the owner's affectionate view of the cat, noting features like ears that hear everything except the cat's own name, with the cat's supposed view of its owner as a "Giant Hairless GorillaPig Slave" (7) whose tiny brain leads it to waste time cleaning and paying bills instead of napping. The cat regards the human's hands as the most important body part because they deliver free food and massages.

"How to Pet a Kitty" presents a step-by-step instructional guide governed by one overriding rule: The cat, not the owner, decides when petting begins. A grading system rates the owner's performance: If the cat purrs, the owner earns a C; if the cat dozes off, an A+; if the cat stares with ears pointed backward, an F. The piece warns that an exposed belly may be an invitation for a tummy rub or a trap, described as a "whiskered bear trap composed of claws, teeth, and agony" (12). Biting and clawing are labeled "love mauling" (12), and the reader is instructed to endure the pain. Ending a petting session prematurely, the comic cautions, will cause the cat to log the deficit and compensate later by waking the owner at night.

Several brief pieces follow. "Gift Ideas" presents a cat's handwritten birthday list for its owner, consisting entirely of dead birds left in various rooms, vomit on shiny objects, chewed-up family photos, and an ambush claw attack to the groin. "When Your Cat Likes to Sprint at High Speeds" lists three occasions for sprinting: when in a hurry, when called by name, and at 3:37 a.m. when "a Formula One race track magically appears around the sides of your bed" (15).

The book's title piece, "How to Tell if Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You," catalogs common cat behaviors reinterpreted as evidence of murderous intent. Kneading becomes the cat checking the owner's internal organs for weaknesses. Excessive litter shoveling is practice for burying bodies. Staring contests are dominance challenges where looking away invites attack. Dead animals brought to the owner are warnings, not gifts. Sleeping on electronics is an attempt to cut off human communications. Pawing at the owner's face during sleep is an ineffective but persistent smothering attempt. Sprinting out of rooms is a failed ambush, and sleeping in high-traffic areas is a "kitty landmine" (20). The list ends with the cat's inexplicable stink eye and excessive yawning, described as the cat's "war face" (20).

The longest sustained piece is "The Bobcats," a six-episode serial comic running Monday through Saturday and following two anthropomorphic office cats, both named Bob, who work at a company called Boydtech alongside human coworkers. Across the week, the Bobs bat coworkers in the face and sprint away, steal lunches from the fridge, fall asleep on keyboards, chase laser pointers during presentations, and terrorize a coworker who begs for a cubicle transfer because they leave dead birds under his desk. They conduct a job interview featuring absurd vegetable trivia, argue with a client about a logo depicting a tiger with chainsaws for feet called "the TigerSaw" (32), and trip an earnest new intern. They fire a long-tenured employee without authorization, and when CEO Mr. Jimmers confronts them, they attempt to fire him too. A flashback depicts the Bobs as elementary school bullies stealing a child's pudding cup, and they use the same intimidation tactics to take a coworker's sandwich. They eliminate a coworker they dub a "howler monkey" (50), their term for someone who calls pointless meetings, by phoning him with a fabricated emergency about his wife being hit by a meteor. One Bob drinks an entire bottle of hot sauce, producing a fiery reaction dubbed "BOBRACHA" (53) and vomit trails in figure-eight patterns throughout the building. Friday features the Bobs interpreting casual Friday as wearing only underwear to the office and an epic narrated battle between one Bob and a pigeon, described in mythological language as a fight against a "SkyBeast." On Saturday they chase a squirrel on a riding lawnmower, attempt to pass a love note to a Bengal tiger at the zoo, and watch their favorite team win the championship. The series concludes with both Bobs asleep, one dreaming of flying a fighter jet and the other of riding a dinosaur.

The book's second half collects additional standalone pieces. "Homeless Man VS Your Cat" is a comparison chart noting shared traits between a person without a home and a cat: not paying rent, abundant body hair, hanging out in cardboard boxes, and washing private parts in public. "Things Cats Love" pairs supposed feline favorites with absurd rationales, including giant beards for camouflage, howitzers that reek of death and glory, and reflective surfaces that cause birds to fly into windows. "Proximity to a Tuna Sandwich VS How Much Your Cat Likes You" charts affection from total indifference when no tuna is in sight to outright hostility when the owner finishes without sharing.

"Cat VS Internet" is a mostly visual comic depicting a cat's escalating campaign to pull its owner away from a laptop, progressing from sitting nearby to building a trebuchet, a type of medieval catapult. Only scratching the furniture finally works, and the comic ends with the cat purring on the owner's lap, captioned "VICTORY!" (103). "Imperial Walker" is a brief visual gag comparing a cat weaving between its owner's legs while the owner carries a fragile box to the iconic scene in Star Wars in which a cable trips an enormous AT-AT walker, implying the cat is attempting to topple its owner in the same way.

"How to Tell if Your Cat Is a Raging Homosexual" uses deliberate absurdism to satirize the idea of policing sexual orientation. The piece instructs readers to watch for "signs" such as same-gender frolicking and "mega gay rainbows" in the cat's eyes, then escalates by advising readers to examine their cat for colorful "gay demons" that can be scared off with heterosexual reading material. The piece concludes sincerely: Whether a cat is gay, straight, or something in between, what matters is that the cat is happy.

"How Kittens Are Plotting to Take Over the World" reinterprets five kitten behaviors as covert military preparations, from shadowboxing as rehearsal for battle formations to sleeping in packs as the kittens combining their bodies to become "ULTRA MEGA KITTEN" (119), depicted as a giant masked cat towering over a city. "If We Treated Our Cats Like They Treat Us" reverses roles across common scenarios: A human pokes a cat trying to work at a laptop, stands at a door meowing to be let in only to immediately want back out, sits on the cat's lap with steak knives taped to his hands to simulate claws, and abandons an expensive gift in favor of a cheap plastic ring.

The collection closes with "Having a Baby VS Having a Cat," a side-by-side comparison across six categories. Babies emerge dramatically from birth while kittens are cute within seconds. Upset babies wail while upset cats kill something and take a six-hour nap. Babies lack special abilities, but cats see in the dark and perform acrobatics, compared to having a private Batman. At age 15, children become hormonal teenagers; at 15, cats die of old age, which the piece frames as bittersweet, likening cats to "furry little cruise missiles" (130) whose lives burn fast and bright.