Fritz The Cat - Characters

Characters

Marty Pahls, Crumb's childhood friend, describes Fritz as "a poseur", whose posturing was taken seriously by everyone around him. Fritz is self-centered and hedonistic, lacking both morals and ethics. Thomas Albright describes Fritz as "a kind of updated Felix with overtones of Charlie Chaplin, Candide, and Don Quixote." Fritz had a "glib, smooth and self-assured" personality, characteristics Crumb felt he was lacking in. According to Pahls, "To a great extent, Fritz was his wish-fulfillment... do great deeds, have wild adventures, and undergo a variety of sex experiences, which he himself felt he couldn't. Fritz was bold, poised, had a way with the ladies—all attributes which Robert coveted, but felt he lacked."

Crumb denied any personal attachment to the character, stating, "I just got into drawing him... He was fun to draw." As Crumb's personal life changed, Fritz would too. According to Pahls, "For years, had few friends and no sex life; he was forced to spend many hours at school or on the job, and when he came home he 'escaped' by drawing home-made comics. When he suddenly found a group of friends that would accept him for himself, as he did in Cleveland in 1964, the 'compensation' factor went out of his drawing, and this was pretty much the end of Fritz's impetus."

An early untitled 10-page story, drawn in 1964 and released in 1969 as part of R. Crumb's Comics and Stories, depicts Fritz as a beatnik caricature who has an incestuous tryst with his sister. In "Fred, the Teen-Age Girl Pigeon," Fritz is portrayed as a pop music star. The strips "Fritz the Cat" and "Fritz Bugs Out" portray him as a hip poet and college dropout in the hippie scene. "Fritz Bugs Out" uses anthropomorphic characters to comment on race relations, with crows representing African Americans. Fritz is portrayed as a self-conscious hypocrite, obsessed with his racism and associated guilt, while crows are portrayed as "hip innocents". "Fritz the Cat, Secret Agent for the C.I.A.," inspired by the popularity of the James Bond series, portrays Fritz as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency. "Fritz the No-Good" depicts Fritz becoming involved with terrorist revolutionaries; he also abuses and rapes one of the group member's girlfriends.

Fritz has an on-again/off-again relationship with a female fox named Winston, they break up at the beginning of "Fritz Bugs Out". Later in the story, she attempts to convince him not to "bug out", but eventually agrees to go on a road trip with him. When her car runs out of gas in the desert, Fritz abandons her. She reappears in "Fritz the Cat Doubts His Masculinity" and in "Fritz the No-Good", where the two reunite after Fritz is thrown out of his wife's apartment. Fuzzy the Bunny, who appeared in the early Animal Town strips, reappears as a college student in "Fritz Bugs Out" and as a revolutionary in "Fritz the No-Good".