Controversy sells big time – and if you publish a book that in the reviews is called “so weird that it’s sort of irresistible” – then you’re doomed to go down the road of success. That’s what happened to a New Zealand author Burton Silver and illustrator Heather Busch, after the release of their comedy book “Why Paint Cats: The Ethics of Feline Aesthetics“, a collection of bizarrely colored portraits of cats.

The book was designed to mock the current global obsession with cats. However, irony is not a universal strong suit of the cat lovers worldwide, so the book was both loathed as much as praised. The stunning retouching done on the cats was confused for real paint on their fur, which also added to the criticism.

Silver and Busch strongly argue that none of the feline models was hurt during the making of the book, and all the vibrant colors and effects on their fur are made using Photoshop.

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