Felix Soap Opera
Felix is back, and in Danny Dooit’s home to stay! Danny’s Dad finds out that Felix rescued Danny, so the Cat deserves a reward. It takes a bit of chasing to convince Felix that Dad is sincere, but at last the stubborn little cat is rounded up. I love the depiction of speed in the last panel of the 11-24, as Felix runs like a Cat out of Hell to get his dinner before Zero the Pup can eat it. I also like the last panel in the 12-3, as Danny brings his Dad a special gift of 6 cats, with 6 more outside the door. Otto’s versatility in Cat design is once again on display, the second cat after Danny looks a lot like Krazy Kat without the ribbon. Note how the story line has turned softer and more friendly as Felix at last gains a family! We’ll see how long he keeps it! At the top of the page, as an advance Easter gift, here’s a drawing by Cathy Hill, my favorite cartoonist, of Felix meeting a Bunny with a wide skirt and a basket with radishes in it. Her skirt has a soft cotton feel to it and her little brown eyes are even softer. Enjoy the post! See you soon, Mark
Felix and Danny
Howdy Readers, As our introduction to this post, we present “Felix On His Stick Horse”, drawn by my most beloved cartoonist, Cathy Hill. I love the chunky feeling of the wooden horse and Felix’s joyful attitude at being on board for a ride! In our post, here’s Felix in more from his finest year in comics, 1932, specifically 19321106 to 19321119. A lot of pathos this time out, with Felix leaving his new friend Danny Dooit, because Danny’s mother doesn’t understand their friendship. Felix and Danny keep missing each other, until Felix stays up all night to protect Danny, calling himself “a no-count cat” in the 11-18. Felix makes another sacrifice in the 11-19 as he takes Danny home to his Mother and saves the boy from a freezing snow storm. I love the poignancy in the last panel of the 11-19 as Felix exits Danny’s window saying, “Well, that’s that.” I am fond of the last panel in the 11-10, demonstrating that Otto Messmer could draw 9 different black cats, all funny and not like Felix (along with funny people to boot). The last panel of the 11-11 is also nicely designed, with 9 forest animals surrounding the dozing Felix, “…sleeping here in the woods—and all ALONE.” Otto must have favored the number nine, since both panels contain 9 different animals. The Sunday pages, 11-6 and 11-13, both feature a moose, which Felix saves from cold weather and hunters. Happy New Year everyone. Mark and Itza
Felix Can Dooit
Howdy Readers and Merry Christmas! Here’s Felix from 10-23-32 to 11-5-32. Danny Dooit is introduced and becomes one of Felix’s best friends. Danny becomes a principal player in the Felix strip for years to come. His Mom doesn’t spare the corporal punishment for Danny’s devotion to little Felix, does she?. In the Sundays, Felix enjoys reading Mother Goose and tries to be “Puss In Boots”. My favorite strip in this batch is the 11-5, where Danny sends the homeless Felix a bottle of milk which he in turn gives to a poor little girl. “You Don’t Know How Good It Feels To Give Until You Do It”, in the last panel, sums up the whole Christmas season to me. Cathy Hill, has graced the Catblog with her header design, the “Cherry Chocolate Mouse”, I love the colors of the cherry sauce and the red lights on the fir tree branches. Makes me feel like grabbing a cup of cocoa and writing some Christmas cards. It’s been fun posting these 1932 Felix strips this year, back soon with more! Your Pals, Mark Kausler and Cathy Hill
Felix Arrives in the Sunny South
Howdy Readers! First off we have a color drawing by Cathy Hill, my favorite cartoonist. She’s celebrating Halloween night this year and many years past in “Halloween Cat and The Ghost of Halloween Past”. She can design her own cats besides channeling Otto Messmer’s Felix. These cats were inspired by shadows on the bedroom walls. The Felix strips this time are from 19321009 to 19321022. Felix continues his “100 Smiles” trek to the Sunny South. He meets a real Georgia Peach in the 10-10, and some good natured black folks in the 10-17 and 10-18 strips. Felix gets a bad sunburn in the 10-21 and meets Danny Dooit for the first time, at least I think it’s Danny, since it looks like an early version of him. I wonder if cats can really get sunburned through their coats? I think their noses would be most vulnerable to sun exposure. In the 10-9 Sunday, Felix pulls a Tom Sawyer and paints the Farmer’s fence. Felix just manages to paint the farm animals with stripes and spots and himself 100% white! In the 10-16 Sunday Felix saves the Farmer’s feet from the pinch of new shoes by accidentally fishing the Farmer’s old shoes out of the brook! The old shoes are worth a million to the Farmer, so he rewards Felix with a big feed! I hope you are continuing to enjoy the comics from Felix’s best year, 1932! Mark
Felix 100 Smiles to Dixie
Hi Readers, Welcome to Felix from 19320925 to 19321008! Felix tries to find a new home in the dailies, but can’t stand a guy with the gout in two feet groaning with pain, and has to crash out of a taxi window to escape paying the fare. He then tries to hitchhike to a Southern clime and gives a little bird a ride on his bindle stick. Soon Felix is carried almost to Dixie by a flock of swallows in the 19321004. Felix is gloomy in the 19321008 but a happy bird makes him change his attitude and he makes a special road sign in the 19321008. Felix is telling his readers to “cheer up” in this strip, in the early part of the Great Depression. The 19320925 Felix Sunday is another Farm page in which Felix tries to start a school for the animals and winds up rounding up twenty cats to go after a goat. I love that last panel with all the cats leaping over a fence, the goat is a great Otto Messmer character design. It isn’t easy to make a goat comical and appealing, but Otto does it here. In the 19321002 Sunday, Felix is thrown out of the house by the farmer. Felix has sympathy for a poor little newly hatched chick who wants to get back into the egg shell, after the chick witnesses what happens to a chicken when it becomes of age! I hope you will enjoy these strips from Felix’s best year and the Cathy Hill Felix design as our page “topper”!
Cruelty To Felix
Hi Readers, Here’s another two weeks worth of Felix the Cat from 19320911 to 19320924. I think you might accuse Otto Messmer of Cruelty to Animals in these comics, for Felix is butted by a goat, socked with crockery, beaten up and kicked out of the house by Snobbs the butler and has his arm fractured and body chewed up by a vicious dog! Felix brought the latter dog attack on himself by trying to placate his steady date, Phyllis. Felix decides to leave his current home after the “Mawster” proposes to import mice into the house to keep “that cat” busy. In the Sunday pages, Felix is still throwing his animal Olympic games with the Farm animals. In the 9-11 a pig with a cold propels Felix to win the marathon race by sneezing him across the finish line. The rabbit says: “..you can’t beat Felix”. In the 9-18, Felix wins the Olympic Hammer Throw by tossing a convict’s weighted ball and leg irons, thus winning the 5 Thousand dollar reward money. Felix puts himself in solid with the farmer by paying off his mortgage.
My favorite cartoonist, Cathy Hill, contributed a few of her Felix drawings for our Catblog header this time, with the theme, “Felix Eats”. She loves Felix, and draws sketches of him nearly every day. I hope you enjoy Felix on the Catblog, see you soon!
Felix Home Alone
Hi Readers, Here’s Felix from 19320828 to 19320910. The Sundays involve the farm animals rehearsing for the Summer Olympic Games, and Felix winning the shot put and broad jump. Pipe those cut-out Felix play money lucky bucks! In the dailies, Felix is left home alone by the snooty family. Snobbs the butler gets back in to the action in the 9-10 and kicks Felix out of the house again. Felix is accosted by Skidoo the Mouse in the 9-1, but defeats the rodents in the 9-6. My favorite in this batch of dailies is the 9-8, in which a strange cat is put out for the night by Felix, so he can see how if feels. I love Otto’s alternate designs for cats, they are all appealing, but never more than Felix. Speaking of appealing, Cathy Hill has contributed another header to the blog this time with her rough sketches, inspired by Otto Messmer drawings of the 1930s. I like Felix running two different ways with a puzzled version of Felix looking on. Enjoy all these wonderful comics, see you soon! Mark
Felix Goes Camping
Hi Folks, Our special header this time is by my favorite cartoonist and artist, Cathy Hill, inspired by Otto Messmer’s art, called “Felix On The Rocking Horse”. I love the Felix rug on the floor and the little duck following the rocking horse, ably rendered in Prismacolor pencils. Thanks, Cathy! The Felix strips this time are from 19320814 to 19320827. In the dailies, Felix goes camping with the selfish wealthy man and his wife, but has a miserable time of it. Felix grows tired of being kicked and starved, so he goes home to the wealthy family’s town house in the city, and takes up residence while the couple are still roughing it. I love the 8-25 with the owl being gagged, and the giant prehistoric fish skeleton in the 8-23. Look at the beautiful stippling effect Otto tried in the 11th and 12th panels of the 8-14 Sunday as the dogs bust a vacuum cleaner bag, thinking it’s a sausage. In the 8-21 Sunday, in panel 5, Felix gets konked with a rock, not unlike Garge Herriman’s Krazy Kat! I hope you enjoy little Felix’s 1932 adventures and keep watching for the next batch! Comically, Mark
Felix is a Rich Man’s Toy
Hi Readers, Here are the Felix strips from 19320731 to 19320813. Felix is really passed around from rich family to rich family in these dailies. The 8-1, with a rare use of Felix’s trade-mark pacing walk (“I simply GOTTA WALK when I’m upset” declares the pedestrian puss) has Snobbs the butler tying a small whisk broom to Felix’s tale so that he cleans up his tracks as he paces. I also like the graphic gag in the 8-4, as Felix attaches a spigot to a painting of a ship at sea in order to get a drink. The rich couple give Felix away as a Bridge prize in the 8-9 to Mr. Billington Boo. Mr. Boo is convinced that black cats are bad luck, and shows complete contempt for Felix as a new house pet. Felix is tossed out of the Boos’ house in the rain, and then stuffed in a valise to accompany the Boos on a camping trip. Mrs. Boo suggests that Mr. Boo drill some holes in the valise, or “the cat will smother”. Felix gets no love from any of these aristocratic families. In the Sundays, Felix has his troubles with summer Boarders on the farm in the Sunday pages. He throws mosquitos on a sleeping boarder in the 7-31, then can’t sleep as the boarder keeps coming back to the guest room for fishing supplies in the 8-7. Enjoy these 1932 Felix strips, Folks, they have not been reprinted before. See you next time, Mark.
Felix is sold!
Hi Readers and fans of the 1932 Felix comic strips! Here are the Felix comics from 19320717 to 19320730! In the 7-22, Felix hits another milestone, the owner of the Curio Shop sells Felix to a well-to-do lady who is looking for a new house pet! The butlers will not buttle for a cat and the cook will not serve him any food! In the 7-29, the lord of the manor cuts expenses by not feeding Felix at all! Felix thinks up a brilliant scheme in the 7-30 and gets the key to the pantry full of goodies! In the Sundays, Felix is back on the farm! He tricks the crows away from the farm in the 7-17, and saves the plump and juicy chickens from the farmer’s roasting pan in the 7-24! I hope you enjoy more of Felix’s adventures from 1932, the best year of the Cat’s comics! Why all the exclamation points you ask?! It just looks more comical to me that way! Until the next time, Mark!
Felix Has CURIOS-ity
Hello again dear Readers, this time we have Felix from 19320703 to 19320716. In the Sundays, Felix finally returns from his long ocean voyage in the 19320710 page, but nearly goes on another voyage immediately! The dailies continue Felix’s attempts to please his new master, the proprietor of the Curio Shop. “Golf Widows” referred to in the 0707 and 0708 strips, were women who didn’t see much of their husbands because of the hubbies’s addiction to the sport of golf. I single out the 0713 as Felix tries to carry an invisible pane of glass that Kitty smashes with her purse, and the 0716 in which a new dog character is introduced named “Fibbo”. Fibbo sounds like a refugee from “Hawkshaw the Detective” by “Watso” (Gus Mager). I like Felix’s ingenuity in foiling Fibber’s fish story. Please continue to enjoy the best year of Felix, 1932! Comically, Mark
Felix Curio Shop Chuckles
Happy Easter to my Catblog readers! Here’s Felix from 19320619 to 19320702. In the Sundays, Felix is shipwrecked on a desert island with sailor Archie Pelligo. In the dailies, Felix is still keeping house with the proprietor of the old Curio Shop. Felix tries to balance the books for his “Boss”, and washes the window with a French poodle in the 6/27, and in the 7/1, in the act of selling rare old paintings, meets a “rare old master”. Enjoy these terrific old comics, as usual drawn by the “rare old master”, Otto Messmer!
Felix Loses A Million Dollar Baby
Here’s the next chapter of Felix from 1932, 19320605 to 19320618. Felix’s new home in the Curio Shop provides some scientific laughs as a Dad thinks that radio kilocycles are like bicycles to be ridden in the 6-7, and check out the Gags about X-Ray cameras in the 6-9 and 6-10. A quaint notion about X-Rays, yes? In the 6-11, the Magic Ring of Allah Gazam appears and opens a mysterious storyline. A Hindi seeks the ring (it is worth a great deal to his mystic cult) and has a million dollars to pay the owner of the Curio Shop if he will turn over the ring. Alas, Felix has given the Ring to his girl friend Phyllis, and has to pretend to break their engagement to get it back. Felix is very sad as he thinks he has lost his “Million Dollar Baby”, Phyllis. More to the story very soon. Thanks for reading Felix from 1932 on the Catblog!
Felix Homeless Again
Hi Folks, Things are getting heavy, so I better update the blog with the next episode of Felix the Cat from 1932! Here are the strips from 19320522 to 19320604. Felix winds up his battle with the Army of Brigandia, with the Professor’s rocket attacking them and going haywire, thanks to Felix’s re-working of the capacitors in the rocket’s control panel. The Professor, being the idealist that he is, rejects a 10 million dollar offer for his rocket designs and once again Felix is homeless. After many attempts at finding a home, he holes up with a Curio and Pet Shop owner. Felix’s luck starts to work in the 6-4, as he uses a rabbit for a pen pad and the lady customer takes the lapin for a rare spotted variety. In the Comic Stamps featured in the Laura topper for the 5-29 Sunday, look at that “Blinky the Owl” stamp. It looks like Felix got cross-bred with an owl! I love that design. Sorry I’m so far behind on the Catblog posts, I’ll try harder. See you very soon, I’m hopeful. Mark
Felix and the Dooits
April 8, 2025
Cathy Hill's Comic Art, Comic Strips, Felix the Cat
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Mark
Howdy Folks, Here’s the Felix strip from 12-4 to 12-17-1932. Felix is settling in to the Dooit home in the dailies, which results in gags featuring Felix trying to keep his status as the Dooits’ house cat. The 12-5 was a timely joke as FDR was planning on taking the USA off the monetary gold standard and finally accomplished this on 4-20-1933. Look at poor Felix in the last panel of the 12-8. He is really thrashed from his fall down the steps trying to save Mrs. Dooit’s thousand year old vase. He looks so wacky with his scars and right arm in a sling, that he seems like a different character. The cat in the “Laura” topper for 12-11-1932 looks like a cross between Felix and Krazy Kat, minus Krazy’s neck ribbon. In the 12-13, Felix confuses a mailbox with a fire alarm box, which have all but disappeared in our age of i-phones. Felix goes into frenzy looking for the Venus De Milo’s arms in the 12-16. The gag is predicated on the cat’s fear that he will lose his home for any mistake, even an artistic one. The Doctor in the 12-17 recommends that Felix get “the Air”, meaning he should be thrown out of the Dooits’ home. Felix has labor trouble with a group of window washers in the Sunday page of 12-13-1932, he just wants them to clean a pair of spectacles. Check back soon for the concluding chapter of Felix’s Greatest Year, 1932! Our header this time is once again by my favorite cartoonist and artist, Cathy Hill! She thought the old Catblog could use an Easter Seasonal touch, and here it is, “Bunnies and Potatoes”, sprouted Japanese Sweet Potatoes, that is! Mark