Webcomic / Cat's Café

Hi, my name is Gwen "Gwendolyn" Tarpley and I am the creator of the comic Cat’s Cafe! Cat’s Cafe is a heartwarming comic about a tiny cafe where all the local animals come to unwind. It’s a place of understanding and acceptance where you can feel safe to be yourself. When you visit, you’ll meet characters like Rabbit, an anxious bunny who is doing their best to overcome their fears. Penguin, the coffee addicted flightless bird, and of course, Kiwi, the knife wielding pink ball of vicious energy. When it’s time to head home you’ll be sure to leave feeling warm and floofy!

— Gwen Tarpley, in the webcomic's "About" paragraph

A cutesy Gag-per-Day webcomic about cutesy animals going through life that can be found here. The titular cat owns the titular cafe, but the cat is just a little (if frequent) part of the fun. Despite the animals, the webcomic is no Sugar Bowl as a regular theme to it is the daily trials and tribulations of its characters, like suffering from anxiety or depression - but it's hardly negative about these things, and takes its self-applied label of being a heartwarming comic seriously.

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This webcomic provides examples of the following:

• All Love Is Unrequited: Snake and Bear seem to have a thing for each other, but they're both too shy for any requiring.
• Bait-and-Switch: The regular use of Goose. Kiwi gets this sometimes too to play into the slight implications of it always, always having a knife.
• Bedsheet Ghost: One appears to Cat. However, it only didn't finish washing its dishes. Another appears to Rabbit, and Rabbit dresses like it to make it feel comfortable. Finally, one appears to Penguin, and Penguin subsequently gets it wired on coffee.
• Broke the Rating Scale: Armadillo considers five out of five stars unacceptable for Cat's cafe - it's at least six or seven out of five. Armadillo also later a swan's dive as eleven when everyone else gave it a ten, presumably out of ten.
• Comically Missing the Point: Walrus eats Halloween candy a few weeks before Halloween. Otter tells them to be more responsible. Walrus abides that they've been doing it all wrong and proceeds to keep eating Halloween candy while dressing as a Bedsheet Ghost.
• Cute and Psycho: Downplayed by Kiwi, who is a funny little red kiwi bird that only speaks by saying their own name...and unsettlingly likes to constantly hold a kitchen knife for some reason. There's an indication Kiwi committed some sort of crime with said knife, but what crime exactly is unsaid and it otherwise is never actually known doing wrong with their knife (and lives with Penguin, who is never harmed by Kiwi)...Kiwi just seems to be a bit fixated on it.
• Dungeon Bypass: Penguin of course does this instead of navigating to the middle of a maze for coffee.
• Face of a Thug: Toad perpetually has a giant frown on his face, but he's not anywhere near as negative to be around as he looks.
• Family Business: The cafe was started by Cat's parents and passed on to Cat. "Mr. Penguin" was the cafe's first customer.
• Furry Reminder: Happens sometimes, like Cat suddenly deciding to sleep in a sunny spot right when they were about to walk over coffee to Penguin.
• Mistaken for Brooding: One strip features a toad who is actually very happy, but has a frown naturally. First a duck asks him if he's having a bad day and he says that he's actually having a great day. Then, a snake asks if he's in a funk, and the toad says no. Finally, a penguin enters and the toad preemptively says, "This is just what I look like, alright?! I'm actually quite happy!", surprising the penguin.
• Must Have Caffeine: Penguin is introduced in the first comic by zipping through the cafe's door and yelling "COFFEE!!" the moment the place opens. The subsequent comic has Penguin wanting a coffee cup with coffee in it that makes it the size of a hot tub.
• Shout-Out: "Penguinator 2" is pretty obviously just the ending of Terminator 2: Judgment Day if the Terminator was Penguin and the molten steel was instead hot coffee (that Penguin drinks all up).
  • Its Goose character repeatedly appears to be up to no good, chuckling evilly before actually doing something perfectly nice. As said in its first appearance's annotations, it was inspired by the horrible deeds of Untitled Goose Game.

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