I stop paying attention to Fortnite for half a second and it apparently starts turning into a 1930s-style cartoon? In the short cartoon above, perfectly titled Toona Trouble, Fortnite’s resident ripped cat cop Meowscles has been transformed into a Felix the Cat or Steamboat Willy homage. It’s a fun little short, but of course, this being Fortnite, Toon Meowscles is also a skin you can buy right now and use in-game.
This is cool, right? Everybody loves Cuphead, but this era of animation is still underused in games. I especially like that Toon Meowscles is a black-and-white cat living in Fortnite’s color world. The artwork below is especially rad, reimagining all of Fortnite as an early 20th century toon fever dream. But Toon Meowscles also makes me uncomfortable.
For one thing: He is too swole. Frankly, I’m intimidated. The “:3” expression says “innocent cat,” but those shoulders say “apex predator.” Toon Meowscles could tear me in half.
And the legs—the legs are so long. Meowscles has spent the last hundred years getting yoked but didn’t even think about spending some time on a Stairmaster? It’s practically body horror.
Judging by Twitter, I think Toon Meowscles is a hit. There’s already fan art of him popping up, as well as art reimagining other Fortnite characters in the toon style. I imagine there are more of those coming to the game itself, too, unless this is a very special one-off.
Toon Meowscles costs 1,400 V-bucks in the shop and should be available now.