Category: Comic Strips


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 Fakes the Rocket Plans and Happy Holidays!


    

Hi Folks, Here are the Felix strips from 19320508 to 19320521 with the next chapter of the Spy story. Felix ingeniously fakes the rocket plans and slips them to the spy masquerading as the Professor. Also I’ve included our Happy Holidays card from my wife Cathy and myself. She worked out the color with Prismacolor pencils, and I did the layout and Gag. It’s a tribute in a way to Rube Grossman, a Fleischer animator who drew Rudolf for D.C. Comics in 1950. Happy Holidays to all my readers!

Felix Vs. A Spy From Brigandia


In these Felix strips from 4-24 to 5-7-32, Felix returns from the Moon, only to encounter a spy from the kingdom of Brigandia, who wants to steal all the professor’s secrets. Due to the recent attack on my blog, this post had to be rescued and done over. I hope you will enjoy reading it.

Felix On the Moon


 

The Catblog presents Felix from 4-10 to 4-23-1932. Felix meets a kindly old scientist in the 4-11, who tricks Felix aboard his one-cat rocket to the Moon! Felix spends his time on the Moon pining for his girlfriend Trixie, much to the scientist’s disgust. Felix wins a race with comets and foils a spy’s attempt to steal the Old Scientist’s secret rocket invention in the 4-23. In the Sundays, Felix uses an Octopus he caught undersea to feed his animal friends and win a boxing match against one-round Gorilla! Make sure you clip and save the Felix Comic Stamps for your album! See you soon, Mark and Itza

Felix Gets a Tail Implant


 

Here’s our Felix from 3-27 to 4-9-1932. Felix’s Police Cat adventures continue in the dailies as Felix trails a mysterious scientist to his weird old house in the country. The little black cat is almost fooled in to thinking that a movie of a gorilla is the real thing, then succumbs to gas. The scientist places a metallic ring on Felix’s tail which acts as a receptor for the “Mystic Waves”, which influence the cat’s emotions and enable the scientist to magnetically control Felix’s body. In July of 1932, the comedian Charley Chase made a two-reel comedy called “Now We’ll Tell One”, about a scientist who invents a belt that can transmit a person’s personality to another one wearing the same kind of belt, ten miles away. In 1934, Chase made a second two-reeler, “Another Wild Idea” featuring a scientist who invented a ray gun that had the power to transform any person into one without inhibition. So Charley Chase picked up on an idea from the Felix strip, and formulated two film comedies out of it. This idea of the tail implant, and the impact it had on Felix’s personality, was used a few times in the Felix comic books of the 40s through the 1960s. I think, though, that this was the earliest appearance of the basic idea of mechanical alteration of the personality in the Felix comic strip. Today, the descendants of Otto Messmer might be tempted to plant A.I. in Felix’s body, and use it for the same type of gags. The Sunday pages continue Felix’s adventures with the Noah’s Ark animals on a tropical island. Enjoy these, the best drawn and designed Felix strips of the Golden Age! Mark

 

Felix Foils an Umbrella Thief


Welcome back readers, as we present the Felix the Cat strips from 3-13-1932 to 3-26-1932. Felix is still a Police Cat Detective in these, trying to locate a sniper who is actually an umbrella thief who is using the umbrellas for golf clubs. In the 3-21 through 3-26 strips, Felix solves a cheese theft as Skidoo and his friend steal a whole wheel of cheese from a Nordic accented proprietor. It doesn’t pay to use guns, as Detective Felix shoots at Skidoo so many times that his shots penetrate the cheese wheel. The bullet holes leave the wheel looking like Swiss cheese, much to Detective Felix’s chagrin. I love the art all the way through these, but my favorite panel would have to be the last one of the 3-22 daily. There’s something very comical and appealing about Felix drinking milk from a punctured pail (Otto’s cow isn’t too tragic either). The old Catblog has been shut a long time, I hope it will be back in action before too long. See you then, Mark

Felix, Holiday Cat Gets a Clue


 

Here’s a special treat for the Holidays, my wife Cathy has done a special color drawing for the Catblog, featuring special ornaments of a steam engine and Laurel and Hardy. Laurel is an icicle design and Hardy is a nice round glass ornament. If you look a little further under the tree, Felix is here from 2-28 to 3-12-1932. I love how Messmer uses shadows in the 2-29 and 3-1. The 3-3 strip is highlighted by the “Saved by a Shiver” line in the last panel, as Felix narrowly escapes being “plugged” by a gangster. In the 3-9, a “depression in crime” robs Felix of his feast which he earned by capturing the whole bunch of criminals. Felix is mysteriously shot by large white pellets in the 3-10 to 3-12 strips. All the farm animals are knocked out in the 3-12 by the same pellets. I love the little house and the fence in the background of the last panel in the 3-12, just pure pen and ink magic!  The Catblog wishes you the best for the Holidays, be they Christmas, Chanukah or Kwanzaa. Thanks for reading and don’t forget the Catblog in 2023.

Felix Gumshoes Again


The Catblog presents Felix at his best in the strips from 2-14 to 2-27-1932! My favorites are the 2-19 and 2-20 dailies as the gangster is clobbered with his own rock in the former (Love that Felix pointing and laughing pose) and Felix deftly popping through a hole in the fence in the last panel of the latter. Prohibition is referenced in the 2-22 and 2-23 dailies as Felix says “I put extra raisins in this home brew to make the corks pop..”. There is an Aesop Fable cartoon from 1923 called “The Fable of A Raisin and a Cake of Yeast” which were the main ingredients of home made beer, so the recipe was well known in the era of the Great Experiment. We also learn that Felix’s Girlfriend was named “Phyllis” in 1932 as opposed to “Kitty” for so many of the other Felix years. Phyllis is such a wispy little cat, isn’t she?  Sorry it’s been more than two months since the last entry around here. I keep busy with my weekly post of “Someday Comics” for the Daily Dose online comics sharing group. But I love to do these blog posts best of all. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 

Felix the Police Cat


Folks, this time up we have Felix the Cat from 1-31 to 2-13-1932.  The Sunday pages continue the adventure of Felix’s Ark, which you can see in color in David Gerstein’s book, “Nine Lives To Live”. The dailies have not been collected, and continue the story of “Felix the Police Cat”.  Having secured a place for his friend the dog in the police department, Felix catches the Cop Bug himself, and wants to be a great Police Cat and Detective. The art in these strips is just superb, look at the woods background in the last panel of the 2-1 strip as Felix closes in on the Hobo. I also love the detail on the bank door in the second panel of the 2-2 opus. In the 2-4, second panel, Otto shows a real eye for “noir” shadows on the gangsters, and he repeats the motif in subsequent strips. The angularity of Felix’s elbows really comes in to play in the 2-10 strip, as Felix fishes a nickel out of a hobo’s burned-up clothes. There are many more well-designed and staged panels in these comics, look for ’em! You know how to blow them up, don’t you? Just right-click the image and a pop-up menu appears which says, “Open Image in New Tab”. Click on that, and the comics will appear in a new window, just click on it and you will see enlarged panels. Enjoy, everyone.

Felix and Snoopy?


I’m having fun reading these old Felix strips from 19320117 to 19320130. It’s different to see Felix operating as his own “cat” and not in thrall to the Danny Dooit family. The police dog that Felix teams up with is called “Snoopy”, many years before Charles Schulz used the name for his dog creation in “Peanuts”! I wonder if Mr. Schulz may have read this Felix story in his youth and remembered the dog’s name? Felix solves the Missing Mule Mystery in the 1-22 and finds a crook’s derby hat in the 1-27. This clue goads Felix in to a totally independent investigation and he pursues his man as a full-fledged ‘Police Cat”. Is that a “gat” in his had in the 1-29, or just a “gitten”?  I love that frog on the lily pad in the 1-30, perhaps he’s an ancestor of Flip the Frog! The Sunday pages are the last chapters of “Felix’s Ark”, a story begun in 1931. Find a copy of David Gerstein’s “Nine Lives To Live”, to see the entire Sunday continuity in color. Until next time, “Right-e-O!”

Felix Goes Back (to 1932)


As promised, here are the Felix strips from the first two weeks of January, 1932. The model of Felix used in these comics has to be one of my favorite cat designs. His fingers are square, his knees are pointy, his torso looks like a miniature bowling pin, and his ears go high up off his head and end in points. I love how Otto shows the bottom of Felix’s feet and the Sleuth Hound’s feet as they walk along in the first panel of the 1-15. If you animated the foot coming forward almost parallel to the ground, the character would stumble or trip over his own shoes (see also the burglar in the second panel of the 1-5). The main story here really starts in the 1-7, as a funny old guy complains to the police captain that his mule is “gone”. Felix decides to train the “Official Police Dog” he met in the 1-5 to become a detective by taking up the mule case. Felix and the Hound keep coming up empty, until they see the imprints of the mule’s shoes on the rear end of a black mule wrangler. We’ll see what happens to Felix in the next exciting chapter in the Adventures of Felix The Cat!

Remember to right-click on the images until you see a menu of instructions. Click on the line saying “Open Image in a New Tab”. When you see that, click on the new tab at the top of your screen. You will then see the image in a new screen with black on both sides of it. Then enlarge the image by clicking on it, or hitting plus or minus on your keyboard. Can you figure that out?

 

Felix Hits A Milestone


Here’s Felix from 12-18 to 12-31-1933. Felix closes out the year by trying to serve out his time as the millionaire’s mascot. Felix misses Danny and wants to spend Christmas with him, so he tries a lot of tricks to mess up the millionaire’s office so he’ll get thrown out, but nothing works. Then in the 12-29 strip, Felix blows the millionaire’s gold bonds out the office window by turning on a fan accidentally. Danny and his brother are in their back yard cleaning up when they notice the gold bonds have landed right in front of them. If you want to read the rest of the story, find my blog post from 10/1/2013 in the archives, where you will find the Felix strips from 1934. This post concludes the Felix strip from 1933 which I started posting on 3/11/2016. It took SIX years to post the 1933s! Now as before, Felix will magically project BACK IN TIME to 1/1/1932! Look for that in an upcoming post. Don’t forget to right-click the images for the menu which will enable you to open the strips in a new window. There you can blow them up larger so you can read them more easily. Let me say “Thanks” , good readers, for staying with the old Catblog for all these years. Mark

Mascot Felix Serves the Wealthy


Here’s Felix from 12-4 to 12-17-1933. In the dailies, Felix sells himself for 5K to Homer “The Boss”, a very wealthy stock speculator, preventing Mr. Dooit from selling the family house. Felix is not happy with being Homer’s mascot, but he brings “The Boss” luck, so the Good Luck Cat is in servitude. I like the little poignant touches like the last panel in the 12-12, as Felix has no appetite because he misses Danny and the old house so much. Danny and Chipp miss Felix in the 12-14 so intensely that they declare “ice cream wouldn’t taste like ice cream with Felix gone”. In the 12-10 Sunday page, Otto trots out the old dachshund and the rolller skate bit, and in the 12-17, inspired by O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi”, Danny and Chipp sacrifice their football and drum in exchange for bottles of milk for Felix. I love panel 9, as Felix gets cozy in Santa’s snipped-off beard. This period of the Felix strip is just about the peak of Otto’s 1930s style, strong blocky shapes for the humans, and a few simple circles for Felix’s body and head. Enjoy these, thanks for your letters! Mark

Felix Goes Under the “Blanket Code”


Felix this time is reprinted from 19331120 to 19331203. Felix is once again hired out as a mascot to Mr. Doremi Fasola, the Operatic “Barren Tone”. Mr. Fasola cruelly kicks poor Felix, resulting in yowls and moans that sound like music to Fasola. In the 11-30 and 12-1 strips, the Depression really comes to the fore. In the 11-30, a dog remarks to Felix: “..busy as usual on the recovery drive?”, to which Felix replies, “Yeah, I’m operating under the blanket code”. The Blanket Code was an early version of the National Recovery Re-employment Act, which was generally adopted in July, 1933. Among other reforms, such as making child labor a crime, it set minimum wages at between .35 to .40 cents an hour in most jobs. It’s hard to even conceive of wages that low in our inflated age, but that’s what they were. By August 1933, the NRA code “Blue Eagle” signs were printed and posted in merchant’s and employer’s windows to show that they honored the minimum wage standards and the other labor standards covered in the Blue Eagle guidelines. These helped put a floor under the plunging economy in the mid-1930s. By the end of the thirties, the Blue Eagle was no more, ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. You can look it up. In movies of the 1930s, you will often see the NRA Blue Eagle at the beginning and end of a feature picture. In the Sunday pages, Felix and Danny emerge from the woods and their adventures with the bear family, to intercept a little fox being chased by hounds. Felix shows his cartoon license and breathes in oxygen and exhales helium in to balloons which he attaches to the little fox, lifting him out of the hounds’ path. The fox has one word of dialog: “Saved”. In the 12-3, Felix distracts the hounds with pepper, but the huntsman decides to pursue Felix instead of the Fox. If you want to see the comics larger, just pass your mouse over the comics and right-click to reveal the command: “Open image in new window”. When you have a new window with the comic in it, you can enlarge it and read it more easily. Enjoy!

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