So I had a copy of this on the shelf at the shop, Massimo Mattioli’s complete Squeak the Mouse hardcover published by Fantagraphics a year or three back.
Have you read this? I don’t know just how far these comics seeped into the awareness of comic fans. But, as you can see from the delightful cover pictured above, this is a knockoff on the dynamic between the classic Hanna Barbera cat and mouse characters Tom and Jerry. It basically answers the age-old question “what if Jerry could rip open Tom’s intestines with a chainsaw, and then go [EXPLETIVE DELETED] Tom’s girlfriend and all her buddies?”
What I am saying is that there is a whole lot of explicit violence and, shockingly, explicit sex in these Squeak the Mouse comics. I first read these in a couple of paperback volumes from the late ’80s/early ’90s, which gave me a real sense of “…should I be reading this? I mean, is it allowed?” It was expertly done and lovingly drawn, with the occasional weird insert of a photo panel that is invariably disturbing in context.
Anyway, I said I “had” a copy because someone bought it on Sunday. This person is a Simpsons fan, and was seeking out my, alas, very few available back issues from the franchise. Very quickly, though, his eyes fell upon my Squeak the Mouse book and snapped it up, saying it reminded him of the Simpsons’ own in-universe violent Tom and Jerry parody, “Itchy and Scratchy.”
I explained to this customer 1) Squeak the Mouse actually preceded The Simpsons by a few years, and 2) this is really really really really really more violent and adult than its TV follow-up. It was literally stopped by U.S. Customs at one point for “obscenity.”
I told this person several times, surely to the point of annoyance, that one of these things is not like the other, but the purchase was nevertheless completed. (And this customer also gave me a 5-star review online, so I presume he hadn’t read the book yet.)
I mean, as I said on Bluesky talking about this, I did my part. I gave him sufficient warning! But I also wondered if Squeak the Mouse was in fact an inspiration for “Itchy and Scratchy.”
A little researching (i.e. Googling about) doesn’t seem to see any explicit admission that Squeak the Mouse was a direct influence, and after all the idea of “Tom and Jerry but super-violent” isn’t really a hugely unique stretch. But it’s also likely Simpsons creator Matt Groening knew of its existence, given his early involvement in cartooning, so who’s to say.
I was amused to see that book on your top shelf last week!
Groening and Gary Panter were associates and friends (I assume they still are) during the 80s alt weekly days so likely MG was also aware of RAW and Mattioili’s work published there. Even so, the classic toon formula frequently enough morphed chase-to-eat premises into attempt-to-maim (or obliterate) gags that multiple creative minds could explore that in similar but independent ways. Plus the Air Pirates preceded both of them.
Trying this one more time…
The 1940s Herman & Katnip cartoons have been cited by Simpsons producers as the main inspiration for Itchy & Scratchy. There was a collection of the toons a while back, and the Simpsons connection was the selling point. Though not graphically gruesome, they’re a lot more mean-spirited than what Tom & Jerry fans were accustomed to. Would imagine there’s a lot of them out on the YouTube…
The Herman & Katnip cartoons may not have been GRAPHICALLY gruesome, but they sure had their deeply disturbing moments. There’s a holiday-themed one that ends with the mice decorating Katnip’s corpse like a Christmas tree and dancing happily around it in celebration.
Or so my memory and the internet insist. I’m sure I can find the cartoon in question online to confirm, but frankly, they scarred me enough when they were in perennial syndication fifty or sixty years ago.
Of course, they were made by the same studio whose most successful original character was a little dead boy. Pretty much everything Famous Studios did was Deeply Creepy in some way or another.