James Joyce Foundation Objects To New Children's Book

Hidden for nearly 75 years "THE CATS OF COPENHAGEN" illustrated by Casey Sorrow goes public 

The Cats of Copenhagen was written in a letter to Joyce's grandson in 1936 as a "younger twin sister" to the already published story, The Cat and the Devil. The story tells of a Copenhagen, in which things are not what they seem. When asked whether it was unscrupulous to market a book without the owner of the manuscripts permission, publisher Ithys Press stated; "Joyce's works are now in the public domain". I think we all agree it would be unlikely that the Joyce Foundation would have gotten it together to publish this letter as an illustrated book, which raises a whole new set of questions. In a statement, the Foundation said it had "allowed serious bona fide scholars to inspect its documents", but was "never approached or informed" about the Ithys book.

Casey Sorrow, the books illustrator is a cartoonist, printmaker, and illustrator. He was raised on a steady diet of the Muppets, Schultz’s Peanuts, and Kung Fu movies. A rebellious streak and a quick quirky humour underpin his artwork and its focus on pop-culture iconography. Casey derives much of his inspiration from his father’s lauded military service and from the war imagery of vintage comics. He lives and works in the state of Michigan, ‘America’s High Five’. For this Ithys letterpress first edition, Casey’s specially commissioned, original pen and ink hand-drawings were made into clichés typographiques and printed on a rare American-built Vandercook SP 33 proofing press.

During his college years, Casey attended Michigan State University, where he channeled his artistic abilities into a lesser known academia of studies known as the art of the flaming skull. Useful skills obtained through those years of studies included how to properly screen print a flaming skull with fluorescent ink, how to properly place a pot leaf insignia on your flaming skull without making it look like a maple leaf, and the correct proportions to draw your flaming skull while still keeping within the proper death metal genre.

During these years of intense flaming skull studies, Casey noticed that someone was using his screen printing room as a shower facility while living out of a nearby Buick Lesabre. This man was Eric Millikin, future co-conspirator on Fetus-X. The daily version of Fetus-X ran in the university newspaper for nearly a semester and a half before the newspaper canceled it, but not before achieving record amounts of hate and love mail and managing to get Christian advertising dropped from the paper.

"In this tiny text, we see Joyce commenting on fascism, even in its guise as communism, with the 'red boys' carrying out the orders of the Politburo.The book was conceived not as a commercial venture but as a carefully crafted tribute to a rather different Joyce, the family man and grandfather who was a fine storyteller".

Casey Sorrow is better known as the founder of Monkey Day.The holiday was started in 2000 when as founder he jokingly scribbled Monkey Day on a friend's calendar, and first celebrated by Lansing residents and art students at Michigan State University. It gained notoriety when Casey Sorrow and Eric Millikin's own comic strip, Fetus-X, began promoting it online along with other cartoonists. Since then, Monkey Day has been celebrated internationally, across countries like the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Although the Joyce foundation based in Switzerland has raised their concerns about the publication which was taken from a family letter in its archives, It is thrilling that the book has been dusted off and published for all to read, not just a group of privileged scholars.