Anyone who’s ever collected anything knows about obsession.

When I was a kid, I collected beer cans. That might sound strange like a strange hobby for an 11-year-old kid, but beer-can collections were actually quite popular in my Chicago neighborhood. There were plenty of days when I’d beg my dad to take me to the local dumps so that we could search for discarded cans.

You’d never know when you’d find that rare empty can of Williams Purple Cow Lager. Of course, you had to pick through a lot of trash to find it, and usually you'd just find fields full of rusted Budweiser cans, but you never knew when you'd stumble upon that rare treasure.

This obsession lies at the heart of Alias the Cat, a wonderfully funny graphic novel created by writer/artist Kim Deitch and published by Pantheon Books. The book covers a lot of ground, and strays from strange plot point to strange plot point, but at the heart of the story is the obsession that every passionate collector has.

The story starts with Deitch writing and drawing about his wife’s efforts to complete her collection of cartoon cats from the 1920s and 1930s. From there, though, it spirals to a manic adventure centering on conspiracy theories in old-time Hollywood, a rather evil cartoon cat named Waldo and an old newspaper strip about a Batman-like adventurer who dresses, of course, in a full-length cat suit.

Along the way, Deitch, who serves as the story's narrator, develops his own obsession: He needs to find a long lost film serial named, of course, Alias the Cat. Soon, his obsession outdoes his wife's. That's when the story really takes off.

Deitch is no stranger to the comics business. He was, in fact, a key figure in the underground comics movement of the 1960s. You can see this in his art style. His characters, even when dressed as giant cats, look decidedly human. There are no cartoony, exaggerated biceps or breasts here.

You can also see Deitch’s underground past reflected in the story itself. Alias the Cat meanders. Readers visit a tropical paradise, 1920s Hollywood, seedy bars and a town filled with midgets and miniature houses. If you don’t read this tale quickly, in two or three sittings, it might be hard for readers who flip the book open again to remember why, for instance, there is a town filled with midgets.

But this loopy style is what makes Alias such a fun read. And then there’s Waldo: He’s like a foul-mouthed, sour-tempered version of Felix the Cat. If you can’t appreciate that, then you probably shouldn’t be reading independent comics.

So, if you're still searching for that missing Spider-Man comic to complete your collection or that rare bottle cap, pick up Alias the Cat. Dietch knows exactly what you're going through.