A chat with the director of Henri, Le Chat Noir

I am off to Mexico City today [this was written yesterday] for seven days to attend and speak at the second annual meeting of the Mexican Atheist Association (the list of speakers and topics is here).  Posting may be light as I wander the city seeing the sights and finding the local comestibles.

Reader “Smokedpaprika”  put this video in the comments associated with the last “Henri Le Chat Noir” video, but it deserves to be above the fold. It’s a chat with Will Braden, the director of the dolorous existentialist cat that we love so much. Braden also created Henri’s persona and the four films that I’ve posted. One of the Henri videos, “Paw de deux, you’ll recall, won the “Golden Kitty” award, beating out Maru and others for the best cat video on the internet.

As the reader noted:

Love what Will Braden says about his French accent. LOL!

It’s 23 minutes long, but worth watching.  Henri has become, as one might expect in America, an enterprise.

The Los Angeles Times has an article on Braden and Henri, which includes this:

[Braden] has signed his first book deal. “Henrí Le Chat Noir: The Existentialist Musings of an Angst-Filled Cat” will be published by an imprint of Random House next year.

He gets about $1,000 a week in revenue from his online store, selling Henrí mouse pads, mugs and T-shirts to the existentialist cat’s devoted fans.

Braden, 32, used to work as a wedding videographer, but he is no longer accepting wedding gigs. He doesn’t need to.

“These past few months I’ve transferred to Henrí full time,” Braden says. “I know how crazy it sounds to have this depressed French cat be my primary source of income.”

Ah, America! But will Henri lose his panache if he goes commerical?