Category: Comic Strips
Felix Saves Everybody but Himself
 
Here’s Felix from 11-6-1933 to 11-19-1933. In the dailies, Felix shows his savvy as he completely foils the counterfeitter. After Felix forces the bad guy to re-grow his whiskers, Tony the Barber gets the $10K reward and goes out to buy new clothes, completely ignoring Felix. In the 11-18, Felix makes a key statement: “When they put on the high hat—that’s the time to leave ’em.” Felix doesn’t even get a reward, he’s on to a new assignment as a mascot. Obviously he is not a fan of the wealthy classes. In the Sundays, Felix and Danny Dooit continue their adventures lost in the woods. Felix tries to feed Danny with fish he grabs from the lake. I love panel 8 in the 11-12 as all those eyes stare at Felix, very much like the scary sequence in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. In the 11-19, Felix and Danny take pity on two hungry baby Eagles and feed them worms that they intended for fish bait. Mother Eagle seems threatening, but instead gives Felix and Danny a soft bed in her nest. “One good turn always brings another,” Felix says. Enjoy these dear readers!
Have a Cat!
Here’s FELIX, another glorious two weeks of vintage 1933 feline frolics! These are from 10-23 to 11-5-33. I had a complaint from reader Peter Vollmann about the strips in my blog looking fuzzy, so these look vastly improved to me, hope they look that way to you, dear readers. Felix and Danny fight the depression in the 10-23 to 10-28 batch. I especially like the 10-26 strip, which has some terrific Otto Messmer fighting poses as Felix punches out a dog who unfortunately gets in the way of his feline fisticuffs. In the 10-28, an unshaven character enters the barber shop where Tony, the proprietor, has adopted Felix as mascot. In the 10-30 to 11-4 dailies, the story continues as the unshaven man takes a shave and pays for it with a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. Felix disguises himself as a poodle with some shaving soap and pursues the counterfeiter. You can imagine that “making your own money” was an idea on the rise in an era when legitimate currency was scarce.
The Sunday pages are also a continued story as Felix and Danny go fishing and are rescued from wild leopards by a bear. The bear is such a glutton that Felix resorts to assuage the bear’s hunger with an entire icebox full of food from Danny’s Mother’s kitchen.
Hope you can read these better and enjoy them more! Remember to click on the images to enlarge them. If you click again after they enlarge, they will get larger still. I hope to post more often, see ya!
New Old Comics
Here they ah! After a long absence, George Herriman’s “Now Listen Myrtle” from 8-18 to 8-25-1919. Most of the action takes place in a silent comedy movie studio, and Mr. Doozinbury, Mabel’s primary suitor, has to dress as an ostrich to appear before the cameras. The art is quite detailed compared with Krazy Kat, although the ostrich costume looks a great deal like Walter Cyphus Ostrich from the Kat strip. Mr. Herriman liked to hang around movie studios and had a drawing board at the Hal Roach studios in the 1920s and 1930s where he would visit his friend, and title writer, “Beanie” Walker.
Felix is from 10-9 to 10-22-1933 this time. Danny Dooit wants to lend Felix as a Business Mascot to Mr. Snip. the photographer. Felix has to sneak meals at first, since Mr. Snip is too frugal to feed his Mascot. Felix takes a picture of himself on 10-14 and offers it to the readers if they will write to their local newspaper for it. Both Sundays feature fishing gags, one hinging on golf and the other a fishing derby in equipoise. I am working on another post as well that should be finished soon. Sorry to have been away so long.
Felix from 1933 Returns
“Now Listen, Mabel”, a little-known Herriman strip from 1919, continues with the episodes from 8-4 to 8-16-1919. Note that Garge favors gags about twins and the confusion they cause Mabel and Jimmie, especially in the 8-9 (dogs) and 8-16-1919 (big and little guys). Herriman’s inking and control of blacks in the strip is certainly on a more complex order than the Krazy Kat strips. But “Now Listen, Mabel” was not destined to last very long. Stay with the Catblog for more!
Here’s Felix back again after a long break. The strips are from 9-25 to 10-1-1933 and 10-2 to 10-8-1933. Danny Dooit wants to sell Felix’s services as a mascot to a couple of fighters in the 9-28 and 9-29 strips. Otto Messmer’s fight scenes are nearly as full of “sock” as Segar’s Thimble Theatre comics. In the 10-2 to 10-7 dailies, Felix tries to be a mascot for Olaf the Plumber. He wins Olaf’s friendship by chasing a mouse away from the plumbing. I like the speed lines and quick crash in to a sandwich board in the Sunday page from 10-8. Otto’s composition in the last panel as the sandwich board turns in to an airplane with Felix aboard has a lot of depth. How about those funny Felix faces in the “Felix Movies” toppers? Remember, just click on the strips to enlarge them. Enjoy the comics, and I’ll be back soon. Feel free to comment!
Your Comics Page 3-29-2018
Hi all you readers of the Catblog! Happy Easter! It’s been a long time between posts, I know, but my weekly Sunday Comics posts which are shared through Yahoo Groups really keeps me busy. I’m leading off with a 9 X 12 inch watercolor study I did of the Pasadena City Hall a few years ago. It was a hazy, partly cloudy day, so my colors are just as they appeared to me that day, a bit muted. I used reds as shading in the trees, playing compliments against each other. The Pasadena City Hall finished construction in December, 1927, and was influenced by the 16th Century Italian architect, Andrea Palladio. The Lantern on top of the dome, is 206 feet from the ground. In this painting I don’t think I managed to represent the true scale of the building, but I condensed it slightly to fit the page.
In Felix, from 5-29 to 6-4-1933, Felix tries to ransom Danny’s clothes from a Tramp by plying him with grub stolen from Danny’s ice box, fished from a stream and waylaid from a restaurant delivery man. The Tramp is finally placated with a pair of Danny’s Dad’s trousers, which unfortunately contain the week’s salary. The Sunday has Felix back in 1933 again, helping out a little bicyclist by siccing an angry goat on to the neighborhood boys who puncture bicycle tires. Check out the Felix jigsaw puzzle and the play money given to the readers as a bonus next to the “Laura” topper!
Myrtle is from 2-28 to 3-6-1949 this time. I like the 3-4 daily as Bingo is shooed away from Susie’s bed, Freddie’s chair and his own doghouse. Winding up back on Susie’s bed, Bingo exclaims: “Now we’re ready to start all over!” Also funny is the 3-2, as Freddie strips a stuck sweater over Myrtle’s head and she irons out her mussed-up, ruffled hat. The Sunday page from 3-6-49 is beautifully laid out as Myrtle’s braids are once again clipped off. Dudley Fisher liked to “masculinize” Myrtle every so often, and she looks very much like a boy without her braids. Myrtle figures out how to instantly switch between boy and girl in the second panel.
Here’s two weeks of Krazy Dailies, from 6-14 to 6-26-1943. The first week is devoted to “heat” and “hot spots”. Ignatz pulls a Kat style pun in the 6-18 (Roam-Ants) and Krazy extends the pun a bit further by saying: “From Rome, Eh?” In the 6-16 and 6-19 strips, Garge shows the floorboards of the Coconino “stage”, along with Krazy heating a tea kettle over a “hot spot” in the 6-16. The second week is devoted to the 1940s dancing “Jive” craze. I like the “Jive Wire” joke in the 6-25 more than the other “Jive Jokes”. Garge draws one of his strangest Krazies in the 6-24. He attempts an all fours pose on the Kat as a couple of fleas do some “KooDoo Foodlin” on her back. She almost looks like a Scotty dog. (Garge loved Scotch Terriers, and owned a pair of them.) The approach to the anatomy of the Kat’s front legs radically evolves as she grows shoulders in the change from the first to the second panel. There is good foreshortening in the third panel of the Kat’s front legs, so perhaps Garge was troubled with his arthritis when he drew the first panel.
   May you all have a wonderful and blessed Easter. Remember, Rabbits can’t lay eggs.
   Rest in Peace, Fred Crippen, veteran animator and director. And one heck of a drunken golfer!
Christmas Presence
 It’s hard to believe that the Catblog hasn’t had a new post since October! So I’m present, front and center for the Holidays. This is a Christmas card rough featuring Lil Bub and Grumpy Cat, the famous Internet video felines. What? You’ve never heard of them? Well get over to You Tube and do a search! They are the cartooniest live action cats you’ve ever seen. Cathy and I love Lil Bub, look at the August post to see her Birthday drawing of Lil Bub. She’s funny looking, with huge eyes and short, stubby legs but she seems a very agreeable puss. I love the video of her sleeping in front of a fireplace, purring as she sleeps.
 Here’s Felix from 3-5 to 3-11-1933. In the Sunday, Felix knocks himself out trying to impress his haughty girlfriend, who finally thaws out when the Wonderful Cat finds a treasure map! I love that pose in the last panel as the couple stroll down the primrose path and Felix says “Stick to Me and you’ll wear diamonds”. In the Dailies, Felix and Danny find Col. Snooper’s plane as they continue their Arctic exploration. I like Danny’s sentimental attachment to Doris, his home girl, as he sculpts her out of snow in the 3-6.
 Myrtle is with us, originally from 12-6 to 12-12-1948. I love the timing in the 12-7 as Bingo is banished from a comfortable chair to the floor, when Myrtle describes the dog’s current mischief, including chewing the leg off a kitchen chair! The 12-8 is very funny too, as Sampson hurries Myrtle off to a party without checking to see who is throwing it or where it is. Sampson’s hair becomes a question mark as Myrtle asks him “Whose party are we going to?” The Sunday involves the whole neighborhood as Susie tries to balance the checkbook.
 Krazy does a whole week of strips submerged from 3-15 to 3-20-1943 as World War Two creeps into Coconino. The animals are deeply concerned about Uboats and Japanese submarines, although most of the boats turn out to be watermelons and squashes with periscopes stuck into them. I especially like the 3-20 as Offissa Pupp pulls an extra-long periscope out of the water with his crook.
 Here’s your Christmas Present! It’s the Barker Bill Sunday page from 1-2-1955, signed by Paul Terry but drawn by Bob Kuwahara. It was featured in the New York Daily Mirror concurrently with the Barker Bill TV show which featured a lot of the early black and white Paul Terry-Toons. You may remember the theme song: “Who’s the man in the big black hat, and who’s the man who is round and fat, He’s the man you are looking at, his name is Barker Bill!” You’ll notice that Puddy the Pup from the mid-30s Terry-Toons is Bill’s confidant and smarter sidekick in these pages. In this one, Ali K. Zam, the circus magician, gets beaten up by the strong woman; Phyllis Fezeek. As we continue this neglected old blog, you will see some earlier Barker Bill Sunday pages, from 1954. The best of the Holidays to all you readers. As Walt Kelly used to say, “let nothing you dismay”.
Latest Installments
Hello again readers!Â
The comics this week are the last page of “The Legend of Mangy” from MAD RACCOONS by Cathy Hill. The punch line resonates better if you read the entire issue of MAD RACCOONS, as the racoons are against any CATS appearing in their stories. Remember to visit MU PRESS’S website to order the MAD RACCOONS COLLECTION: www.mupress.com/catalogpg08.html. If you just want the original issue “The Legend of Mangy” appeared in, it’s MAD RACCOONS #2.
An old friend came back in out of the cold, Krazy Kat! He’s back with the first dailies of 1939: 1/2 through 1/7/39. Ignatz and Krazy spend the whole week declenching the words “Coat of Arms”. Marvelous Mike this week concludes the “Kitty Delight” cat food story. Cliff gets all the credit for Mike’s deft touch with a candid photo and a funny caption. All the little kittens get loving homes into the bargain, I love this strip! The Jim Tyer Felix department has a rare non-Felix story from Felix #4, “Rock and Rollo in ‘A Moving Story'”. Rock (no relation to Rock Bottom, evidently) is so dumb that he calls Rollo the Fox “Rock” on page one! Or is it a continuity error? The drawings of Rollo sticking Rock with a safety pin on page two are the essence of Tyer. I have no idea who created these two characters, their sole excuse for being seems to be the obvious pun in their first names. I still haven’t heard from any of you comics historians on whether Gaylord DuBois or some other scripter wrote these stories. I’d love to hear from you if you know anything about them at molasses@earthlink.net. Not much else to report on this week, see you soon!
Cartoon Brew Films, R.I.P.
Hi Readers, sorry for the long absence. Cathy and I have been doing some more location painting, two weeks ago we sketched and drew an alligator, many dogs and a cackle of hens and roosters at the Pasadena Humane Society. We would have drawn and painted some cats, but they had a lovely air-conditioned enclosure all to themselves and didn’t have enough space around them to house painters. The Humane Society has had the alligator for almost 10 years. She has her own generous space, complete with bamboo wall, a waterfall and her own splash pond. No wonder she’s always smiling! Two weeks ago, we visited Ports O’Call in San Pedro, near Long Beach. Cathy did a nice oil of an old boat house with a sail boat anchored nearby. I did a WC of an old kid’s merry-go-round. I concentrated on two goofy-looking pink and magenta rabbits with saddles on them. Our crit-master Walter laughed at my painting and remarked that I could do a merry-go-round anyplace, why didn’t I do a marine subject, since I was in San Pedro harbor? I replied that I suggested a cabin cruiser in the background, but I don’t think that satisfied Mr. McNall. On July 5th, Cathy was invited to be an “artist-in-residence” for an afternoon at the Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. She set up her easel right near the tea room and did a study of water lillies in oil. She based it on a beautiful smaller painting she did some time ago. She also displayed several of her recent paintings, a Flamenco dancer, the wildflowers in Borrego Springs. The hotel helped her get set-up, and I put down the tarp on the floor. It was a delightful afternoon, like being in an elegant salon with live piano music in the background, and brides, grooms and wedding guests filing past (there were about three weddings going on that day). No paintings sold, but Cathy wants to go back soon and paint in the Huntington again. The Huntington loves oil paintings, many old canvases adorn its walls. We loved being there.
A few weeks ago, I got the sad news that the Cartoon Brew Films website is being discontinued. I found out when I tried to log on, I was just directed back to the Cartoon Brew website. Brew Films was certainly a noble experiment in the marketing of new animated short subjects, Bert Klein and I were among the first to be on it. It seemed to get a lot of hits initially, but then interest tapered off. I was surprised that so few cartoon makers were using the site. Here was a chance to have new cartoon shorts on view to the public for only two dollars a download, how could it miss? The answer, You Tube and its many cousins offering loads of new “animated” shorts for free! I was hoping that “It’s ‘The Cat'” would have a chance to earn back some of its negative cost on Brew Films, but it wound up paying very little. The failure of Cartoon Brew Films means that the Internet has not yet found a way to market new short films in a way that returns any significant income to the creators. It is my fervent hope that some day there WILL be a way to bypass theaters and television and create an Internet cartoon theater that will be healthy both creatively and FINANCIALLY. Brew Films just wasn’t it. Right now, “It’s ‘The Cat'” does not have a home on the ‘net. Eventually, I would like to see it embedded in the www.itsthecat.com website, bracketed with ads for our merchandise. Maybe that time will be not too far away. For the present, however, the concept of the paying customer for new short cartoons on the Internet has proven a dead end. It was fun, and an honor to have “It’s ‘The Cat'” be part of the experiment. Thanks to Jerry and Amid for trying it. Thanks to all of you viewers who paid to see my little labor of love. Anybody want to invest in my next cartoon? I want to continue to make them and I could really use the help. Write me at molasses@earthlink.net.
Comics this week include page two of Cathy Hill’s “The Legend of Mangy”. I love the panel with Mangy’s BIG EYES and running off with an entire Thanksgiving dinner in her tiny mouth. This story means a lot to Cathy and me, we loved Mangy and enjoyed having her with us. The “Corporal Crock” story in L’IL ABNER concludes this week, it originally ran from April 30th through May 3rd, 1973. Bullmoose thaws out, and the FBI confiscates all the comic books! Abner won’t be back on the Catblog for awhile, look for a new feature starting soon! MARVELOUS MIKE continues the cat food campaign storyline, from August 6th through 11th, with August 8th missing. The Post-Dispatch failed to print the strip on that date, anybody got it? Felix the Cat by Jim Tyer ends the comics this week with the last two pages of “There Auto Be A Law”, from FELIX THE CAT #4. Next week, there will be the start of a “Rock and Rollo” story by Tyer, don’t miss it friends!
Mangy’s Origin Story
Hi Evvabody! Cathy and I are back from the San Clemente Plein Air Painting Event. It was very pleasant there, both for the weather and the many beautiful subjects for painting. We spent a couple of sessions at the Casa Romantica, which was the founder of San Clemente’s home in the 1920s. His name was Ole Hanson, a Swede who loved Spanish architecture. When he founded the town he created a city ordinance that restricted the style of building to Spanish. When he went broke in 1934, the city council changed that rule, but still the best and most beautiful buildings in town are all Spanish style. We actually got to paint INSIDE the Casa Romantica! Of course we had to put down tarps and make sure we stayed on them, but the view of the harbor and pier were nonpareil and the light in the spacious living room with its sunken tile fountain and arched doorways was gentle and lustrous. We enjoyed painting the reflections in the hardwood floor. On our last day, we came back and painted the front of the Casa from the parking lot. The entrance has a unique “keyhole” shaped doorway, and a lush rose garden on either side of the front door. You must come and visit, Ole would want it that way. On July 4th, they are having a gala celebration with the best view of fireworks in San Clemente.
The prizewinners in the Plein Air Competition were all very competent, but we liked our friend Ray Harris’s “Casa Romantica Interior” as well or better than any of them. He did a charming study of a museum lover examining some artifacts in the Casa’s anteroom. Ray made up the figure of a professorial type looking over some framed documents with indirect lighting. He got an honorable mention for his painting. Many fine painters were there, including Jason and Micheal Situ, Greg La Rock, Albert Tse and many others. It was a good way to escape the “triple digit” temperatures of the L.A. basin for awhile. Motels have gentrified quite a bit in San Clemente, it used to be 40 to 60 dollars for a room just a few years ago, now it’s 70 on the weekdays and close to 100 dollars on the weekends. A lot of artists just camp in their vans in the public parking lots all week, a practical approach to the high cost of motels. I’ve posted one of Cathy’s beautiful oils of the old Beachcomber Motel, a series of Spanish style bungalows overlooking the Pacific, with the Amtrak and Metrolink trains running between the motel and the sea. It’s a dream of ours to stay there some day, but at $200.00 plus a night, only a dream.
The comics this week are “The Legend of Mangy” from Cathy’s MAD RACCOONS comic book. She thought the readers might like to see how the character got started. This is not strictly new work, but it deserves reprinting. The story closely parallels the real Mangy’s life story, when we found her wandering through Cathy’s front yard in Sierra Madre and won her over with food. General Bullmoose tries cryogenics as a tactic in snagging Pappy Yokum’s copy of “Corporal Crock” #1 in this week’s strips from 4-23 to 4-28-1973. I wonder if Al Capp was thinking of all the rumors about how Walt Disney was supposed to have frozen himself, when he wrote this story? In MARVELOUS MIKE this week from 7-30 to 8-4-1956, Honeybear the cat eats like a horse and has some fillies, uh, kittens, much to Cliff Crump’s disgust. The charm of a bunch of cute kittens is lost on him. Also in the cat department, this is the Catblog after all, we have the next two pages of “There Auto Be A Law” from Felix #4. Tyer has a ball with the cop on page two, I love the cop’s enraged tantrum poses and his total collapse against the wall when Kitty double parks. I love being able to reprint these old comics, I hope you all enjoy them.
I got some response to the original Mangy comic I published a few weeks ago, this first is from my friend Milt Gray, who proposed I publish some new comics in the first place:
Congratulations to Cathy for her whimsical and stylish and observational comic strip, Mangy. I didn’t realize that you had already posted it, as I am often so focused on drawing my own cartoons that I sometimes procrastinate in surfing the Internet. I’m sorry that you haven’t gotten any comments yet, although people usually write only when they want to disagree about something. For the record, I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who is tired of the old classic comic strips — I love those strips, and I’m glad that you are making some of them accessible again. But I admit that I do advocate to my cartoonist friends that they should post their own work more, especially work that has never been publicly seen before. Hopefully that will attract an audience and we can begin to make at least modest livings (or better) from what we love. We should be promoting new talent — ourselves — at least as much as other people’s work from the past.
Best regards, Milt
Here are some words from Bill Warren on Cathy’s comic and other things:
Cathy drew a cartoon for me of our black cat Isadora (who tends to look a lot like Cathy’s drawings of Mangy) sort of haunted by images from 1950s science fiction movies. That led me to ask Cathy to do the covers for the initial two volumes of my huge survey of those movies, KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES. This was published in 1982 (vol 1) and 1984 (vol II), and were the first books from that company to have cover illustrations. I insisted on it, however, and included a frontispiece in one volume similar to the covers. Vol I covered 1950-1955; the front showed a little boy from behind watching a movie screen (or maybe the clouds of his imagination) illustrated with iconic images from that part of the 50s SF movies. Vol II covered 1950-1962 (they didn’t stop making 1950s-type SF movies when the calendar changed), so the boy (now taller) is seen watching images from that chronological period. Only time I’ve seen an illustration including a high of the Id Monster from FORBIDDEN PLANET and a goofy low of The Brain from Planet Arous. The first volume also had a similar frontispiece by Cathy, only the boy is seen from the front–and it’s me.
    I am just finishing a rewrite of the entire thing; it’s now about a quarter of a million words in length. And that’s before I do the index. Someone else is doing the covers–the publisher wants color this time–but I’ll be including all of Cathy’s illustrations as interiors. Along with some great semi-caricatures by Frank Dietz and a whole lot of photos.
   That Mangy and the Worm story reminded me of all this–no, this wasn’t just a blatant plug for myself–and that not long ago, someone discovered a black-and-white octopus in the waters just north of Australia that actually is an animal mimic. There were photos of it looking like an upright fish, like a flatfish (a skate or flounder or something) and other sea critters too. The world is full of wonders yet to be discovered.
Here’s another comment by Bill about Al Capp’s comics:
I still find 1950s Al Capp to be very funny, but the comic strip from that period that can still make me laugh about as much as I did when I first saw it is POGO.
   Of course, looking at it another way, PRISCILLA’S POP can still make me laugh about as much as it did originally–which was not at all.
Uh, oh! Now Al Vermeer’s fans are going to scream! Priscilla originally ran in newspapers from 1947 to 1983 outlasting Vermeer by a few months. The crictic Maurice Horn called “Prisilla’s Pop”, “impossibly sophomoric” and “trite”. Maybe I should reprint some of it!
My friend Larry Loc also wrote in: I did comment on Cathy’s page, (which I loved – more please) I just didn`t do so to you. I made my comment in the form of a blog posting telling people they really need to get over to you page and check out the cool stuff. I am very excited about your new animation. When can I see the pencil test work print? Here are my comments: http://www.agni-animation.com/blog/2008/06/mark-and-cathy-show.html Thanks Larry, to date, still no complete pencil test. I think we have one scene (#22) that is still unaccounted for. Maybe in a couple of weeks?
Remember, comments can be sent to molasses@earthlink.net.
Back to the “Old Stuff”
Whelp, I didn’t receive any comments on my wife’s “Mangy and the Worm” page. Those who wish to continue to see new or unpublished comics continue, please let me know at molasses@earthlink.net. Last Tuesday night, Jerry Beck did a show of “Pre-Code” (actually pre-code ENFORCEMENT) cartoons at the old Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax in West Hollywood. I hadn’t been in this picture palace for over 30 years! The current management, “Cinefamily” has re-done her inside and out, with a new marquee (see photos above), new Simplex and Elmo projectors in the booth (including a (gulp) digital projector), new photos on the wall, new popcorn machine, in summary, a nice place to watch old movies in. The theater seats about 100, in brand-new seats with cushions (!) and a couple of soft huge leather couches in front. A Hammond organ and a baby grand piano are on either side of the screen for the real silent movie evenings. The Silent Movie is now a rep house, that’s why we could run sound cartoons last Tues. We ran THE BEER PARADE, SOUTHERN EXPOSURE and BETTY BOOP’S PENTHOUSE in 35mm and several early 1930s cartoons in 16mm as well, such as ROOM RUNNERS, I’LL BE GLAD WHEN YOU’RE DEAD YOU RASCAL YOU, BOOP OOP A DOOP, PLANE DUMB, BIMBO’S INITIATION, SINKIN’ IN THE BATHTUB, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOIN’ and finishing up with SWING WEDDING in color. There were so many people that they had to do a second show to accommodate the overflow crowd. The “overflows” had to wait more than two hours to see their show. The presentation was good, with good lumens and good sound. The audience reactions were very good, they laughed a lot,  applauded some of their favorite cartoons and didn’t gasp and cry at some of the racial sterotypes and comedy, like some contemporary audiences will do. Maybe the Silent Movie will host another cartoon program sometime featuring (maybe) SILENT CARTOONS! I think a good program could be created showing the influence of silent comedy on the animated cartoon, both silent and sound. Think about that, Jerry! (By the way, that’s J. Beck himself in the photo up there with the projectionist cutting 16mm reels together.) The Silent has come a long way since the hard wooden bleachers and the one old 16mm projector (under-lit) that I remember. It’s wonderful that the Cinefamily people have chosen to renovate the Silent Movie, rather than sell it for Condos. Come out and support them if you’re local!
This week’s comics are L’il Abner from 4/16/1973 to 4/21. Barney Oldgoat dies from too much partying, but reveals to Bullmoose that Pappy Yokum owns a copy of “Corporal Crock” number one! Wait ’til you see the General’s reaction to that! In MARVELOUS MIKE, from 7/23/1956 to 7/28, Mike and Merrie foil the “Adoption Racketeers”. I wonder if there really were such operators in the mid-1950s, anybody know? To finish up, we have the next two pages of “There Auto Be A Law” from Felix #4 by Jim Tyer. The jokes about women drivers seem lifted from Cap. Billy’s Whiz Bang, but the drawings are very funny. I love the splash panel with Kitty’s car chasing dogs, funny chickens and running pedestrians up a telephone pole. This story reminds me of the Popeye cartoon, “Women Hadn’t Oughta Drive”, which I believe Tyer DIDN’T work on. I’m posting early because Cathy and I will be plein air painting a lot next week in San Clemente and I won’t have time to blog. She has a “quick draw” (actually a quick PAINT) to do on Saturday the 14th, for which she is already keyed up. I love the ocean and am looking forward to being with her in the lovely town of San Clemente, near San Juan Capistrano. I’ll be bringing you more material both old and new (?) soon!Â
The Return of Mangy
Hi Readers! Cathy and I had a wonderful time on Catalina Island, painting the Casino, the Fish Shack, the Via Casino archway, cruise ships and cabin cruisers. A friendly seagull was attracted to the red oil paint on Cathy’s pallette and tried to eat it! All he got was a beak full of red paint. Jason Situ, the famous Chinese landscape painter was there, he went up on Wrigley Road, looked down on the bay and did some aerial studies. Of course, Walter and Martha McNall were there along with about 10 members of our Thursday Painting group. Weather was great, although Cathy and I nearly froze when an unexpected sea breeze came along one day and caught us without our coats! We hope to come back to Catalina in the fall, you can’t do too many paintings of the island.
“There Must Be Some Other Cat” (my next cartoon short) now has a completed film pencil test, up through Sc. 26! Greg Ford has been slaving away at Larry Q’s 35mm film test camera and figured out all my wonky pan mechanics, translating them into his own math. The results look good, now I have the last third of the cartoon in test form spliced together! We should have a completed test with sound ready very soon. I don’t expect any of you readers to get as excited about this as I am, but it’s been quite a long time getting to this point, so pardon my enthusiasm!
A reader of this blog, Milton Gray, animator and cartoon historian, likes my efforts, but is tired of reading all the old comics I reprint here. He wants to see NEW comics! I don’t draw many comics personally, although that could change. My wife, Cathy Hill, drew a comic book for Mu Press called “Mad Raccoons”. It lasted seven issues, many of which are still available through Mu, go to www.mupress.com/catalogpg08.html to see the covers and order them! Cathy did enough material to fill at least one more issue. She has kindly consented to let me publish these pages for the first time here! I’m starting with a one-page story with her cat character, Mangy. Mangy was a real black cat that Cathy rescued from the Sierra Madre wilds. She had a bad case of mange on her back, which we cured with some topical ointment that smelled like barbecue sauce! We both adored her, Mangy became a loving member of the family, she let Cathy carry her around like a portfolio! The real Mangy is now playing by the Rainbow Bridge, but she lives on in comics. If you wish to comment on Mangy or anything here, write molasses@earthlink.net.
In the old comics this week, (L’il Abner, 4/9 to 4/14/73) Bullmoose hires Barney Oldgoat, the cartoonist who created “Corporal Crock” to re-create the first issue! Barney seems to be another sly slam at Ham Fisher, but that’s just a guess. Mike Fontanelli is enjoying “Corporal Crock”:
…Still laughing over the 1973 “Corporal Crock†strips!  They’re hilarious, thanks for posting them – I’d never seen them before.  LI’L ABNER is the only comic strip that can still make me laugh out loud after all these years. The Bullmoose stories are proof positive that Capp was an equal opportunity satirist – he let both sides have it, with relish!  I wonder why more people don’t remember that, or pretend not to remember it?
  “Corporal Crock†flies in the face of the many, many Capp detractors who claim ABNER degenerated into a rightwing political screed after 1965.  Capp continues to get a raw deal, almost three decades after his death. Â
BTW, I’m currently finishing the last of the Al Capp essays for ASIFA, (there are 12 in all, plus a bibliography/checklist.) Â
There’s a late chapter titled “MAD CAPP: Li’l Abner In The Sixties,†in which I reference the Joanie Phoanie continuity, which to my knowledge has never been reprinted before you posted them last month.  Thanks again for that.
  I make the point that Joan Baez herself forgave Capp decades ago, as she made clear in her memoirs from 1989.  Why can’t Capp’s critics let it go already?  That grudge has got whiskers, for chrissakes!
Make sure you go over to the ASIFA archives website and read Mike’s Capp pages, you’ll be glad you did, www.animationarchive.org/ . By the way, remember to click on the small comic images above, to see them at full size.
Bill Warren wrote that Corporal Crock looks like a caricature of Jack Webb to him. This could be, or maybe the stone face is a characteristic shared by both Webb and Crock. Also this week we have Marvelous Mike from 7/16 to 7/21/56; Mike and Merrie join forces to foil his phony “parents”.
“A Sample Assignment” from Felix #4 concludes and “There Auto Be A Law” commences. I love that spring neck “take” that Jim Tyer used in the last page of “A Sample Assignment”. It reminds me of Bosko’s spring neck in “Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid”, Tyer was using 1920s style cartoon iconography in the 1960s and making it look contemporary! I love how he draws Kitty in the “Auto” story, she has such trim little ankles, and a beauty mark! Come back next week for more ancient panels, and maybe we will have some more unpublished pages from “Mad Raccoons” as well!
Joanie! You Back Again!?
A little lesson in comparative panelology this week, dear readers. Cole Johnson, cartoonist and cartoon scholar has sent some interesting “Phoanie” strips, which we may compare with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch versions I have posted in weeks past. For the episode of 2/1/67, the color version is from the St. Louis paper, and the b/w is from the Washington Post. Note how the Washington Post chose to re-letter and re-center the dialog balloons in the first panel, and permitted the first line to remain. Cole sent the missing episode from 2/3/67, in two different versions, the first from the Los Angeles Times, the second from the Washington Post. The Times edited Joanie’s second panel speech quite a bit, and the Post let the two words “I’m paying..” seep back into the border-less balloon. Perhaps Joanie was saying:”I’m paying them $2.00 an hour..” or something to make her look like an exploiter of the poor. The episode of 2/9/67 which the Post-Dispatch edited with a ham-fist: “..14 songs of scorn…a hymn of hate…”, has been re-arranged by the Washington Post to read: “14 songs of scorn, and a hymn of hate!” I think the Post-Dispatch’s edits are a bit more honest, at least it’s obvious something’s been taken out. In the 2/11/67 strip, the Post-Dispatch let the ghost of a dialog balloon hover above Joanie’s head; meanwhile, the Washington Post took the offending dialog out, balloon and all! It seems that the liberal press was moved by the “Joanie” continuity to alter Capp’s dialog on a market by market basis. Maybe someday we’ll see these strips re-printed from the syndicate proofs. By the way, just look at that beautifully hand-decorated envelope in which Cole sent me the strips. The Spanish couple he drew remind me of an old George Herriman Philadelphia Sunday Press page from Dec. 8th, 1901 called: “A Yankee Romance in Old Madrid”: the first panel.
This week we also have the L’il Abner strips from 4/1/73 to 4/7/73. Capp satirizes fanatical comic book collectors in this story by introducing General Bullmoose’s ideel, Corporal Crock, an embryonic Neocon of the “Great War” period. What Crock does to those “tax the rich” liberals and the “votes for women” crowd makes him dear to the crusty old capitalist’s heart. MARVELOUS MIKE for 7/9/57 to 7/14/57 starts to heat up as Mike’s “real” parents show up to claim him! Mike is very cool under fire and refuses to get upset. Cole Johnson did some research and found that the Washington Post also started to run MARVELOUS MIKE from the beginning, but dropped the strip before May, so the Washington Post won’t be a good source of missing episodes. I’m proud of my home town paper, once they picked up a strip, they stuck with it!
From Felix #4, we have the next two pages from “A Sample Assignment” drawn and written (?) by that master of sweat drops, Jim Tyer. Look at Felix falling down the chute on page two, Tyer stages the fall as an x-ray cross section of the chute. He used the same x-ray staging in the Tom Terrific cartoon: “The Pill of Smartness” as Tom makes himself smaller and smaller to squeeze himself through the tubes in Queen Cleofatra’s tomb. Enjoy all the comics this week, and thanks to readers like Cole Johnson for contributing to my blog and the “science” of panelology!
General Bullmoose, Comic Book Fan?
Happy Decoration Day readers! This week, as promised, are the first two chapters of the L’IL ABNER story, “Corporal Crock” which started March 30, 1973. I have scanned the first two strips from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch full page comic section, so I couldn’t close the lid all the way down on top of it, and the scan is a bit light because of that. Next week, we’ll find out more about General Bullmoose’s “ideel”, Corporal Crock.
I have received a few more comments on the “Joanie Phoanie” strips that ran over the past several weeks. Here’s one from Mike Fontanelli, cartoonist and Al Capp Collector:
Thanks again for printing the Joanie Phoanie strips. Â Â I never knew what all the fuss was about, and now that I’ve finally seen them – I still don’t know what all the fuss was about! Â
It seems to me the most offensive aspect was the fact that some of the dialog – and at least one whole daily strip – was censored!  As a free speech advocate, that’s a lot more troubling than anything actually in the strips.It’s my professional opinion that Capp’s vivid portrayal of student protesters and “hippies†were really no more of a caricature than the hillbillies that regularly populated Dogpatch, anyway.  (I also think it’s ironic that Capp called them “wildly indignant†– and they’ve been reacting with wild indignation ever since!)
Speaking of censored strips, Mike, here are some enlightening words from eminent cartoon authority, Cole Johnson:
The missing dialogue in the 2-1-67 strip, as it appeared in the Washington Post : Joannie’s assistant says: “Why not keep the kid, Joannie baby? You’re supposed to love little people!” Joannie’s word balloon, much larger in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is shrunk down around “Oh, well, I’ll send him to school!!” in the WP. The missing 2-3-67 episode has fly-encircled Joannie with Honest Abe in her mansion, declaring what a wonderful, warm-hearted mother she’ll be to…what’s your name again, kid? Then she tells Abe how you can tell the servants to do anything you want, and a delighted Abe joyously jumps in the air at the prospect.In addition, the 2-9-67 strip ran in the Washington Post with the same “remaining” words as in the chiseled-up first balloon, only this time, they have been rearranged into a smaller and tighter balloon you’d never imagine to have been tampered with. The 2-11-67 strip also had no balloon at all from Joannie Phoanie. Since the WP ran their strips in the conventional B/W, there is nothing to imagine there would be a comment by her, but the Post-Dispatch had a color background which clearly shows the “ghost” of a balloon. I’ll try to get some copies of these for you! The Washington Post could certainly match the Post-Dispatch for left-wing aspects, and raise it. I wonder if this delightful sequence ran differently in a conservative paper, like the fondly remembered Philadelphia Bulletin?
(Mark here) It seems the Washington Post and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were sister papers in their attitude towards editing (censoring) L’IL ABNER. They even re-lettered and re-arranged the balloons to suit their individual editors’s tastes. Cole may send the missing strip, 2-3-67, along soon. When he does, I will post it here. Maybe Cole has some of the missing MARVELOUS MIKE strips as well; MIKE also ran in the Washington Post.Also this week, MARVELOUS MIKE winds up the “Baby Baker” storyline (from 7/2/56 to 7/7/56 with July 4th missing) and starts the Crumps off on a cruise with the money they’ve won. The Jim Tyer Felix Dell pages this week are from “A Sample Assignment” continuing Felix’s search for Kitty’s fabric sample at the department store. All the comics I reprint here generally fall into the “humouous (or ‘hoomerous’) continuity” type of strip. They are not necessarily telling a joke every day, but amuse because they LOOK funny. They tell a story that may actually be serious underneath the clown make-up. MARVELOUS MIKE is certainly an example of that “sad clown” syndrome, sometimes Mike is very emotionally moved at his adopted parents’s problems. He is very serious and efficient at almost everything he does, the humor mostly comes from Cliff Crump’s Dagwood-like clumsiness. Cathy and I painted a flower garden in Sierra Madre, CA. last week with our painting group and ran into our friend William Wray on the main street, Sierra Madre Blvd. Bill is an imaginative plein air oil painter and lives in Sierra Madre, his comment to us: “What are you guys doing in my town?” Go to his website www.williamwray.com and look at his book “Dirty Beauty”, it’s full of Bill’s contemporary “ashcan school” oil paintings of the Los Angeles urban landscape. Thanks for all the great comments on the “Joanie” stories, see you next time with more Bullmoose, Mike and Felix.
The Last of Joanie
Hello again, here are the final episodes of the “Joanie Phoanie” storyline in L’il Abner. This week’s episodes are from 2/6/67 to the following Monday, 2/13/67. Honest Abe really deserves his spanking this time! You will note that the Post-Dispatch censored the dialog on 2/9, and Joanie’s dialog balloon on 2/11 is completely blank! A few of Joan’s contemporaries sneak into the strip, Bob Dylan on 2/8, Abbie Hoffman on 2/11 and could the man with the dark beard in the first panel of 2/13 be Allen Ginsberg? Next week I will start reprinting an Abner story from 1973.
Also this week we have Marvelous Mike from 6/25/57 to 6/30. Cliff Crump as usual don’t get no respect! Mike bakes great biscuits and all Mr. Kimball does is yell at Cliff about them. I would call this story “The Baby Baker”. The next two pages of “A Sample Assignment” from Felix #4 by Jim Tyer brings up the post-ier. Note Tyer’s patented sweat drops on pg. 2, in the close-up of nervous Felix. It’s hotter n’ blazes in Glendale this weekend, I’m staying inside and blogging. Remember if you have any comments write to me at molasses@earthlink.net. I will assume that your letters are for publication unless you tell me the remarks are private. Bill Warren was a little upset over Mike Fontanelli’s comments on his comments. He thought that Mike got a little too personal. I erred in reprinting Bill’s letter verbatim, he thought his remarks were private. My apologies to Mr. Warren. See you next time.
Felix Goes Under the “Blanket Code”
February 18, 2022
Felix the Cat
3 Comments
Mark
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!