Billy the Cat (Belgian comics)

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (May 2015) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 4,738 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Billy the Cat]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Billy the Cat}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Billy the Cat: Before (a boy) and After (a cat)

Billy the Cat is the title of a Franco-Belgian comic by the Belgian and Stephen Desberg, as well as an animated cartoon adaptation, amongst others. Both comic and cartoon deal with the everyday and secret lives of urban animals, although they take very different approaches to it, and while the characters are largely the same in both versions, the stories and situations are very different.

The comic debuted in 1981.^[1]

Comic series[]

Billy starts out as a normal human schoolboy who delights in mean-spirited pranks and often bullies animals. However, early in the first comic album, he is killed when he carelessly runs out in the street and is hit by a car. In the afterlife, he is told that he has done so many misdeeds in his life that his chances of getting into Heaven are slim, but he can get a second chance. Thus, he is sent back to Earth; now in the form of a young cat, but still able to remember his former life as a human boy.

The comic follows Billy as he struggles to deal with life as a cat, making many new friends (and a few enemies) among the many animals he meets - most importantly Mr. Hubert, a kind-hearted but blustery white alley cat who lives in a Cadillac in the junkyard, and who takes it upon himself to look after the new kitten - though very few of them (with the possible exception of Pirmin the circus bear) ever sincerely believe his claims that he used to be a human boy.

Compared to the cartoon series, the comic is slightly darker and more dramatic in spirit, with slightly grander adventures, bigger dangers and a more linear storyline, though it does remain largely comedic, with various eccentric characters and humorous dialogue.

Animated series[]

References[]

This comics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

• v
• t