I had not heard of the Cat’s Cafe online/webtoons. Or if I had, they had not registered in my brain. Therefore, When I found All Are Welcome: A Cat’s Café Collection by Gwen Tarpley as an online copy (due at the end of July 2025) I was going into a new found territory.
While it is said to be for middle readers, a lot of things are mature and good for adults as well. What I mean is that Cat’s Cafe is easy. We have Cat, Bunny, Snake, Penguin, Kiwi and a few others, all animals with names that are very literal, that have funny moments, silly moments, even a few sad moments as well. And they also talk about mental health issues, such as Bunny finding herself lost in a locked room and floating in space. But this is countered by Caterpillar and their butt literally “still in bed.” We adults get the joke, but also, it is literally in bed, while Caterpillar’s front end is at the cafe.
These stories have at least one page per story, but sometimes they can have a few pages for one particular story and/or the arc goes over a few pages. The colors are bright and basic, minimal details and not overly “in depth” but not lacking in any way. It is an experience that each person has uniquely to their own backgrounds, experiences and so forth. But it is just some sweet reading, too. Sometimes the fourth wall is broken as Cat talks to the “customer/reader” but mostly, things are traditional readers watching our friends on the pages.