Where in the world is Street Cat Bob?

By John Freeman on September 17, 2013

Yes, yes, we know it’s only mid-September – but you can positvely smell the dreaded festive season coming when books like Where in the World is Bob? go on sale – inspired by the best-selling and oh, all right, quite touching tale of rescued street Street Cat Bob, revealed in A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen.

While it’s not quite comics, the illustrations by Steve Wiltshire, whose credist also include Where’s the Meerkat?, look great, so we’ll relent from our usual cynical world view and give this new title a quick plug (and because the cats will do horrid things to the computer if we don’t mention it).

Steve is both an illustrator an designer, working across all disciplines of the graphic arts. He says he has a huge passion for global cultures and architecture (evident from his page of superb travel reportage illustrations), which feed the inspiration for much of his work. As well as book illustration his client base includes Marks & Spoencer and the National Union of Students.

The book is written by James Bowen, the musician-turned-writer who found and rescued Bob in the first place, helping him recover from addiction (James, not the cat) and leading to the now global Street Cat Bob following on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (where his activities as a James’ companion first featured). Bob even has a Hollywood agent, so a film must be on its way at some point…

• James and Bob also engage in fundraising for the animal charity Blue Cross. To donate visit their Just Giving page: https://www.justgiving.com/streetcatbob

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.