Kate Beaton reveals cover for MEATBALL: KING OF THE FOREST, a graphic novel about a cat’s existential crisis

Kate Beaton’s follow-up to Ducks swaps oil sands for an unhinged house cat living his best (and worst) feral life. 

The #1 New York Times-bestselling author revealed the cover for Meatball: King of the Forest on Bluesky this week, calling it a "COVER REVEAL!!" for her next graphic novel aimed at young readers. The book is set for a March 2027 release from Macmillan Kids in the U.S. and Tundra Books in Canada.

The cover — all lush greens, sketchy tree lines, and a very startled-looking cast of woodland animals — sets the tone immediately. A wide-eyed, crowned tabby-and-white cat leaps mid-frame through the trees while a crow, a pair of raccoons, and a skeptical gray cat look on. It's silly. It's also unmistakably Beaton's linework, the same loose, expressive style that's carried her from webcomics to award shelves.

As for what the book's actually about: Meatball is an indoor cat who's had enough of domestic bliss. Per Beaton's own pitch, he "escapes outside to be a wild cat, where he poops wherever he wants, hunts for his meals (badly), and learns the true meaning of home." A nature documentary apparently does the damage, awakening what Beaton calls his "Inner Wild Cat," and from there it's less Homeward Bound and more a 240-page reality check about what freedom actually costs when nobody's serving you Nummy Num Time anymore.

It's a hard pivot in subject matter, if not in sensibility, for Beaton — whose past work spans the unsparing memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, the beloved strip collections Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside, Pops, and picture books like The Princess and the Pony and King Baby. Across that range, she's picked up Eisner, Ignatz, Harvey, and Doug Wright Awards, along with multiple stints on the NYT graphic novel bestseller list.

Preorders are open now through both publishers. No word yet on interior art or a full synopsis beyond the jacket copy, but if the cover's chaos-to-cuteness ratio is any indication, Meatball is shaping up to be exactly the kind of all-ages comic that works on parents and kids for very different reasons.

Meatball: King of the Forest hits shelves in March 2027.

Source: Bluesky