WEB PHENOMENON: YOU'VE PROBABLYnever heard of Simon Tofield but there's a good chance you'll have seen his cat. In the past 18 months, six short animations inspired by Tofield's kitten have clocked up in excess of 35 million views on YouTube, and turned Simon's Catinto one of the hottest publishing properties of the year. A book of Tofield's cartoons goes on sale this month in more than 23 countries.
Yet what sounds like a textbook example of internet marketing is anything but: Tofield’s journey from struggling freelance animator to internet sensation is a tale of accident, luck and serendipity – and it all started, ironically enough, with Tofield’s fear of computers.
“I had it really bad – I didn’t even want to touch the keyboard,” says Tofield. “I’ve always drawn with pencil and paper but almost overnight, computers took over the industry. I realised I could either learn the animation software, or be left behind like a dinosaur.”
On the morning he was due to tackle the software for the first time, Tofield’s kitten, Hugh, woke him by gently bouncing on his head and batting at his ears. When Tofield decided to make a short film as a practice run, he settled on a small hungry cat’s efforts to wake her dopey owner as its subject. He was pleased enough with the result to include it in the online show-reel he sent out looking for work. A few weeks later, a friend rang him while he was in the supermarket with some bad news. Tofield’s cat film had been taken from his reel and put on YouTube.
“I was a little bit devastated. I was pleased that people loved the film, but everyone was thanking the person who posted it, saying: ‘You’ve really cheered my day up, I don’t know how to thank you.’ In the end, it was put up over 500 times and got well over eight million viewers. The only thing I could do to claw it back was to make a second film, with my name at the end.”
That was in 2008. Since then, Tofield has made five more films, including one called Simon's Sister's Dogfor the RSPCA. Fly Guy, his last animation was YouTube's top-rated film of all time following its release, racking up two-and-a-half million viewers in less than a month.
So what makes Simon's Catso infinitely irresistible? There's the cute factor, and heaven knows the worldwide interweb loves cute, but what sets Tofield's cartoons apart are the truly comic moments of pure cat-ness: the merciless patting at a half-dead fly, the single-minded determination, that weird little dance thing that segues seamlessly into a look of utter boredom.
“Cats are great to animate because they’ve got a wealth of body language that’s brilliant to draw. In my cartoons, there is no language involved, apart from me making cat noises. All of the comedy is visual.”
Despite having an inside view, Tofield is still uncertain what makes something go viral. It helped that the first animation was a small enough file it could be tacked onto the end of an email – within weeks, Tofield’s friends were sent his film by people who didn’t know of the connection.
For reasons not clear to dog-lovers, all things cat-related do well on the web, and the lack of spoken language in the films also worked in its favour. The US and Canada remain the biggest fans, but Simon's Catis also huge in Russia, Germany and Poland.
“A cat’s miaow is one language that doesn’t change anywhere in the world. They spell it differently but it always sounds the same.”
With a built-in fanbase in several countries, it was only a question of time before publishers came knocking, a dream come true for Tofield who had long harboured a desire to do a book.
“A few years ago, I looked into getting into illustration, but gave up on the idea because it was so hard to get into. It’s such a delight that when I did these films, suddenly the books came to me.”
The resulting book deals are the first time Tofield will make any money out of his wildly popular cat. Involving up to 25 drawings per second, each animation takes Tofield eight weeks to make. Yet, when a hit falls in the YouTube forest and every one sees it, no one hears the sound of a cash register.
Initially, Tandem, the animation agency of which Tofield is a member, offered some financial support and there's now a Simon's Catcompany which allows Tofield to spend all his time on the books (there's another due out next year) as well as the website, Twitter feed, Facebook page and all the other clutter that goes with being a 21st-century web phenomenon.
As we spoke, Tofield was just completing the preliminary sketches for a new film, but he admits that he actually prefers doing the books.
“I’m 38 now and I started to animate when I was in my early 20s, but I’ve drawn cartoons since I was five or six. Drawing on paper with a pen is still what comes naturally to me.”
As for the future, Tofield is unwilling to commit to any specific goals for the years ahead.
" Simon's Catstarted off as this little tiny doodle that I did to learn a computer programme and now 35 million people know who he is. I could never have predicted that so I can't really predict where he's going to end up."
For the moment, it’s Simon’s cat that has the public profile, while Simon Tofield is a relative unknown. If Tofield has his way, that’s the way it’ll stay. “I don’t tell anyone who I am. I’m quite shy. I’m very pleased that people like the films and I’d just quietly like to carry on.”
Simon's Cat– simonscat.com – is published by Canongate (£12.99)