If you have ever lived with a cat, you already know who is really in charge. Cody Stone Stowe turned that daily power struggle into WeFlaps Comics, a series starring his black cat Coral: a round, wide-eyed troublemaker who ignores expensive toys, attacks ankles from under the bed, sleeps on his face and kicks litter across the floor.
Stowe began the comics around the time Coral came into his life, and by his own account the series dates from about 2016. The strips are drawn in a bright, clean style with exaggerated expressions, and many end with Coral turning briefly into a demon before going back to looking adorable. In an interview with Bored Panda he called Coral “a true prankster” and added a simple message for readers: “Adopt black cats.”
Below are thirty of his comics and a photo of the real pair, grouped by theme, with notes on the cat behaviour behind each joke.
Coral, a round black cat with huge yellow eyes, stares out from the opening panel of one of Cody Stone Stowe’s best-known strips. The full four-panel version, about a freshly cleaned litter box, appears further down.
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Meet Cody and Coral
The real duo behind the comic: Cody and Coral in a selfie, her bright collar and wide pupils already looking like the drawn version. Seeing the photo makes it clear how closely the cartoon cat is based on her real face and colouring.
Litter box diplomacy
Cody cleans the litter box and announces it is ready; Coral uses it immediately while staring at him. His exasperated “But Coral, why?!” is the punchline many owners recognise, since a fresh box often gets used straight away.
Coral kicks litter over the edge of the box with such enthusiasm that a growing pile ends up on the floor. The four nearly identical panels make the slow escalation funnier.
As Cody scoops the litter box, Coral watches with growing outrage, finally asking where he is going with her poo. The swear word is softened with symbols, and the joke is about cats’ odd possessiveness over their territory.
Toys, strings, spiders and ambushes
Thirty dollars of wand toys, jingle balls and toy mice earn a bored stare, while a stray piece of string from the rug sends Coral into a red-eyed frenzy. Many cat owners know the feeling: the cheapest, most unpredictable object often wins.
Scratching the base of the tail turns a polite cat into a rising, purring “elevator butt”. Stowe exaggerates the reaction panel by panel until Coral is practically flat with pleasure.
Drawn in stark black and white, this strip shows glowing eyes under the bed, a bare foot stepping too close, and a sudden ankle attack. The horror-film style suits the familiar night-time ambush.
A staring contest ends abruptly when Coral’s pupils turn into “TRIGGERED” and she launches herself across the room. Stowe uses speed lines and a close-up eye to sell the sudden switch.
Coral asks for scratches, melts into the attention, and then suddenly turns on the hand with a “HECK!”. Many cats tolerate petting only up to a point, and the switch from bliss to biting is drawn perfectly here.
Cody thinks it is cute that Coral loves playing with the drawstring of his hoodie, until she pulls hard enough to drag him to the floor. The comic exaggerates a common game into slapstick.
Coral meets Max the chocolate Labrador, taps his nose, and then turns into a glowing-eyed terror shouting “FEAR MEEE!!!”. The joke draws on how often small cats bully much larger, friendlier dogs.
Cody orders Coral to get a spider, but she befriends it instead, and his final “CORAL NOOO!” comes too late. Hunting instinct in house cats is real, but so is their talent for ignoring requests.
Coral darts between Cody’s feet, gets bumped, and then yells at him to watch where he is going. The humour comes from the cat confidently blaming the human for her own ambush.
Coral parks herself on a stair just as Cody hurries down, and the result is a tumble to the bottom. In the final panel she sits calmly on his back, as if the whole thing was his fault.
Sleep, food and personal space
“Stages of a cat yawn” moves from cute to puzzling to alarming, ending with a flaming demon mouth. It plays on the moment a yawn shows how many sharp teeth a sweet house cat actually has.
Coral settles on Cody’s lap and he cannot bring himself to move her, through hunger, thirst and finally a skeleton surrounded by tally marks. It is a running joke among owners that a sleeping lap cat makes it impossible to get up.
“Cat sleeping positions” charts how a small cat takes over a bed: the Butt Shelter, the Spinal Cave, the Frank Cannonball and finally the Fatality, with the human pushed off the mattress altogether.
Coral announces wet food time politely, then less politely, until the final panel shows a giant demonic grin. Anyone who has been woken by a hungry cat will recognise the escalation.
Cody wakes up in total darkness and panics that he has gone blind, until the last panel shows Coral sleeping across his eyes. Cats often choose a warm face or neck as their bed.
Cody greets Coral on the sofa back, and she responds by turning around and planting her rear end in his face. The four panels rely entirely on expressions, a sign of how well Stowe uses timing without words.
Two panels compare how Cody sees Coral (an adorable little face) and how Coral sees Cody: a walking scratching post wearing a T-shirt with a crude invitation. The rough wording is part of the joke about who exists to serve whom.
Cody tries to work at his computer, and Coral climbs onto his shoulders and over his face until he is buried in black fur. In a later interview Stowe said Coral is almost always in the room while he works.
“Typical Cat Relationship” uses a different, sketchier style and an orange cat: on the lap, on the kitchen counter, on the shoulders in the bathroom and finally on the owner’s head in bed. The joke is simple and true to life, since cats often choose the warmest spot closest to their person.
Holidays, gadgets and chaos
Cody proudly shows off a real Christmas tree, and the decorations reflect in Coral’s eyes as flames. The panel hints at the destruction to come, a seasonal theme Stowe returns to later in this collection.
Cody begs Coral to stay away from the Christmas tree, while small red devils whisper “Kill the tree!” and “Destroy!” from her shoulders. By the last panel the background is on fire and she has clearly chosen their side.
On Valentine’s Day Cody tells a friend on the phone that he has plans, and the plans turn out to be wine with Coral. It is a gentle joke about single life with a pet that is more loving than lonely.
Coral sits beside a phone at the edge of the bathroom counter, right above the toilet, and gives it a nudge while Cody screams. Knocking objects off ledges is one of the most widely shared cat habits online.
Where many families mark children’s growth on a door frame, the pencil marks here record Coral’s scratching height, and Cody cheers a new record. It doubles as a fair point: cats stretch and scratch to mark territory and keep claws in shape.
Cody asks Coral why she is staring at an empty wall and assures her nothing is there. The last panel reveals the Grim Reaper on the other side, cheerfully calling her a silly kitty, a joke on cats’ habit of fixating on things humans cannot see.
Cody admires Coral’s twitching ears, and in the last panel spaceships invade the city. The joke is that cats seem to hear things long before their humans do, which is true: their hearing range extends well beyond ours.
In an action-film parody Cody clings to the edge of a cliff, and Coral appears from nowhere to nudge his fingers away. The same habit that sends cups off tables is applied to her owner.
Why cat comics feel so true
Most of Stowe’s jokes start from something real: cats scratching to mark territory and keep their claws in shape, hunting small moving things, choosing warm sleeping spots, demanding food on their own schedule and switching from relaxed to playful in a second. The comics simply push each habit one step too far, which is why owners recognise their own pets in them.
They also make a quiet case for black cats, which are often said by shelters to be overlooked because of old superstitions and because they are harder to photograph. Coral is proof that a black cat can be the star of the show. If these strips make you want a Coral of your own, a local shelter is a good place to start.
Sources: WeFlaps Comics on Instagram; WeFlaps on Facebook; Bored Panda interview with Cody Stone Stowe.
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