Kliban: The Man Behind the Cat (Published 1978) (2024)

SAN FRANCISCO—In one of his best‐known drawings, B. Kliban states that.i cat is “a hell of a nice animal frequently mistaken for meat loaf.” On the other hand, a Kliban is a very nice man WHO SOHICLIHICS oe laVeS MSC a SIly cat—the kind who has to be coaxed out from behind the refrigerator when strangers enter the room. “I'm a very private person,” he is fond of saying.

Indeed he is. So much so that the blandishments of his publishers and others who have helped turn the artist into a one‐man industry have not succeeded in getting him to sit still for a photograph. Those who know him say he sometimes draws a self‐portrait among the hordes of round‐eyed, striped cats in his books, calendars and posters, but it takes a close friend indeed to distinguish a Kliban (he pronounces it Klee‐ban) person from an ordinary meat‐loaf cat.

The passion for anonymity extends even to his first name. He is nicknamed Hap, because he was born on New Year's Day. But what does the initial “B” stand for? The artist looks so pained at the question, one wonders. Beauregard? Bronislav? “It's Bernard,” he finally answered. “But I don't like it.” Nor does he like the fact that he hails from Norwalk, Conn:, although he is frank about his age: 43.

But as Mr. Kliban relaxed over California specialty called a Black Rus- sian sandwich (turkey, roast beef and swiss cheese on black bread, decorated with fresh fruit), he let some of his innate charm come through. He is good‐looking man, tall, bearded and dark‐haired, and was wearing jeans and a jacket obviously donned because he was lunching amid the architectural marvels of the Hyatt Regency hotel here. At his home in Marin County, he's rarely seen in anything more formal than jeans and sandals.

Although his fans think of him as the “cat man,” and his cat drawings have sold in the millions, cats are comparatively recent in his life. Until about five years ago, he had not owned cat, and when he was younger he was violently allergic to them. “I almost died when I was shut up in a car with a sick cat a friend was taking to the vet's,” he said.

“People assume I'm gaga about cats,” he continued. “I like them, but I'm not silly about them. Cats look like cartoons. There's something funny and vulnerable and innocent about them. Not the females, they're smarter. My first cat, Noko Marie, was a North Beach stray. She had the street smarts.” (North Beach is a tough area in the center of the city, despite its name.)

Noko was brought home by Mr. Kliban's wife (they are now divorced) and was soon joined by a male dubbed Burton Rustle. And then, of course, there were kittens. With at least four cats around the house, Mr. Kliban began to draw them. All my cats had stripes, so I drew striped cats. I must have drawn 200 miles of stripes by now,” he said.

As any cat owner can vouch, felines have a natural tendency to get themselves into hilarious situations. Unlike dogs, they are not self‐conscious and think nothing of watching television upside down or crawling around with paper bags over their heads. They need, however, a kindred mind that can present their naivete and logic simultaneously. Hap Kliban is an ideal translator: His cats are delightfully funny, but they are never kitchy‐koo cute.

Probably the most endearing Kliban cats are the ones on the calendars for 1977 and 1978. They were also the most difficult to do, the artist said. “You have to think up a situation for them each month—the stoned cats in paper hats for January, picnics for July, and so on.” At the moment Le is catless (his wife got custody of Noko and Burton) and he is rather enjoying the respite. His new book hasn't a cat in it.

Mr. Kliban recounts an almost classic portrait of the artist as a young man. He planned to be a serious painter when he left Connecticut at 18 for Brooklyn and the Pratt Institute. He flunked out. Ditto for Cooper Union. “I was really serious about art and

did a lot of suffering in roach‐filled rooms,” he recalled. He then shipped out on a tanker to get money for the obligatory year in Europe, first Florence, then Austria.

He returned to New York, and with his last dime called a friend in Brooklyn, who came to his rescue at the airport. He moved back in with his parents in Connecticut, then married and had a child and did “nickel and dime” jobs for art directors—and not too many of those. From time to time, his father bailed him out financially.

“My father is a nice man,” he said with a smile. “He saved me from lot of honest jobs. I might have worked in an agency if it weren't for him.”

In the 60's, somebody in Connecticut asked Mr. Kliban to do a portrait. “As soon as I got paid, I was on a bus going to San Francisco,” he said, ‘It was love at first sight.”

He was working for the Post Office here when he sold his first cartoons to Playboy for $25 each. “If I hadn't sold the first six, I never would have become a cartoonist.” Those drawings were not based on cats.

Then Michelle Urry, Playboy's cartoon editor, came to visit Mr. Kliban in San Francisco and asked to see the work in his files. “What Iliad handiest was mostly the cat stuff,” he recalled. Miss Urry, who is an avowed cat lover, thought he might have a book. She suggested an agent, Toni Mendez, who in turn introduced the Kliban cats to Workman Publishing. The rest is history. “Cat,” the first book, which ap- peared in 1975, has sold 450,000 copies. The 1977 cat calendar ran to 90,000, while the current calendar swamped it by going to 237,000.

Kliban cats have multiplied faster than rabbits. Their newest habitats are on note paper called Catcards and they're due to appear on T‐shirts soon.

Which means that Hap Kliban no longer has to scrounge. And, if he chooses, never has to draw another cartoon. “I've been cartooning for 15 years,” he said. “There is nothing more tiring than to sit by yourself trying to be funny.”

He saga tnat IL is not the money that interests him. He lives simply—“mainly, I sit around and scratch and watch garbage on television.” However, he has gone back to serious painting. “I find that it calms me, it's good therapeutically to feel I have a craft again. I feel very good about it.”

Marin County is a painter's paradise: sunsets and blue water, fogs and rainbows around the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. His deck is over,a bird sanctuary=‐pelicans swim by. He is working in watercolors: “I love the challenge of it, it's a serious medium.” He gives his work away to friends, but believes he could sell them if he wanted to.

Is he living up to his nickname? Is he a happy man? ‘'Things are getting better as I grow older,” he said with a slow smile. “I feel mellow. That's a word people use a lot around here.”