''Billy the Cat'' is the title of a Franco-Belgian comic by the Belgian

Stéphane Colman Stéphane is a male French given name an equivalent of Stephen/Steven. Notable people with this given name include: *Stéphane Adam (born 1969), French footballer *Stéphane Agbre Dasse (born 1989), Burkinabé football player *Stéphane Allagnon, ...

and

Stephen Desberg Stephen Desberg (born 10 September 1954 in Brussels) is a Belgian writer of comics. In 2010, he was the 10th bestselling author of comics in France, with 412,000 copies of all his comics together sold that year. Biography Stephen Desberg was bor ...

, 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.

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

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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

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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.

History

The character Billy first appeared in the magazine Spirou in 1982, with the story written by

and illustrations by Stéphane Colman.

Animated series

References

Belgian comic strips Humor comics Child characters in comics Fictional cats Comics about cats Dupuis titles Works set in Wallonia Fictional characters from Wallonia Belgian comics characters 1981 comics debuts Comics characters introduced in 1981 Comics adapted into animated series Comics adapted into television series {{Comics-stub