Around 1972, High Times magazine contracted with Gilbert Shelton to exclusively print Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics in colour. For various (creative) reasons, the one-page black-and-white Fat Freddy's Cat (beginning humbly as a one-row strip at the bottom of Freak Brothers comics) rose in prominence (as one-page b&w comics can be cranked out at a much faster rate than multi-page colour epics 8)

Fat Freddy's Cat was a neat loophole nominally featuring the cat (sometimes only in a one-panel cameo appearance) but providing further use of the Freak Brothers characters outside of their contractual bonds. The FFC series eventually attained epic-story status on its own, primarily dealing with the cockroaches in the Freak Brothers' apartment.