Here’s Felix from 8-28 to 9-3-1933. Felix is confused with a mean Bulldog in a boxcar freight mix-up. The Bulldog holds Danny Dooit and his family hostage in their home until Felix saves the day with a fishing pole. In the Sunday, the Circus story continues as Felix and Danny try to sneak in to the show with disastrous results. Don’t the lions recognize Felix as a fellow cat?
Here’s Dudley Fisher’s Myrtle from 5-30 to 6-5-1949. My favorites from this batch are the 6-2, in which Sampson rearranges Myrtle’s braids so that she looks like a “rinotheroth”, and the 6-3 in which Myrtle plans on being sent to bed without supper for beating up Sampson! The Sunday page shows the start of the Picnic Season as Myrtle and Sampson scare Susie right out of her shoes by presenting her with a “little wild kitty” that looks very much like Hyacinth with skunk stripes. I like the little detail in the lower left hand corner of the men trying to light a campfire with their cigarette lighters.
Here’s the start of the final six months of “Krazy Kat”. The last week of 1943 through 1-1-44 is the work of George Herriman. He foreshadows the week of 1-2 to 1-8-44 in the strip for 1-1-44, as Krazy says “Wot this progrem nids is a guess artist”. And starting 1-2-44 that’s just what the strip gets. Garge was not well in January of 1944 and had to be hospitalized for what he called “dropsy”. Today we call it edema. So an old friend of Herriman’s pinch hit for him on Krazy Kat. You will note that all the comics from the first week in 1944 are carefully signed “Herriman”. Garge did not and had not signed his dailies for many weeks prior to 1-2-44. He didn’t sign any of the 1943 Sunday pages, and signed only four Sundays in 1944. So I think it’s a good bet that when Herriman’s signature appears on a 1944 daily, it’s the work of the “guess” artist. The “guess” artist went back to the late thirties for his models of the characters, perhaps tracing them. The lettering and balloons are a bit too neat and regular to look like Garge’s work. These strips are quite possibly the work of Bob Naylor, who worked with Herriman on the “Embarrassing Moments” panel cartoon of the early 1930s. Naylor could imitate the Herriman style quite well and also submitted gags which Garge used for the panel. He also drew the “Barney Baxter” feature in the late 1940s. If any one of you readers knows that Bob Naylor did NOT draw the KK dailes in 1944, please leave me a comment!
Herriman’s art was beginning to look a little shopworn in the last strips of 1943. Krazy’s head nearly looks like it’s melting in the first panel of the 12-28-43 strip The last panel of the 11-30 looks like Offissa Pupp and Ignatz are disappearing into the page as Garge uses his knife to scratch off the ink lines. He uses a similar technique in the last panel of the 1-1-44 strip as Krazy says “Looks like a stranger to me”, as the “Guess Artist” walks through the strip. Krazy nearly looks transparent in the panel.
In the ongoing tribute to my dear brother who passed away nearly a year ago, I present some more treasures from his collection of vintage movie stills. Above are color cigarette cards featuring Janet Gaynor who was in “Sunny Side Up” (1929) and starred as Esther Blodgett in “A Star Is Born” (1937). In the heyday of cigarettes, colorful little cards likes these were wrapped up in the cellophane that protected the packs. I think that Janet Gaynor had an influence on the character of Snow White. The two ladies have similar faces, and Snow White’s personality may have been based on the sweetness of Gaynor’s screen character.
Here are some rare stills from Frank Capra’s “Lost Horizon” (1937), directed by Frank Capra. That’s Mr. Capra behind the movie camera (right top) and his head cinematographer Joseph Walker is behind the blimped camera on the left. That’s Jane Wyatt as Sondra Bizet posing on the balcony of the Lamasery, designed by Stephen Goosson, in the second photo from the top. That house was put up near Hollywood Way in North Hollywood and evidently the exterior still survives. Perhaps Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Frank Capra and Isabel Jewell are celebrating the completion of principal photography in this photo, as they dig into a cake baked in the shape of the Lamasery. I hope one of my readers can tell me if these photos have ever been included in books about “Lost Horizon”.
2019 seemed about 5 years long without my brother. He and his girlfriend Linda were so generous to give me many fine books and stills like the ones here. But Kurt was so much more than just a collector. To say I miss him is not enough, he was a living reminder of our childhood in St. Louis, Missouri. With him died many memories and a big piece of my heart and soul. Again, at the risk of alienating readers of the Catblog, I say God rest you, kind and funny brother. Your memory will be with me forever. Look for more chapters of “Kurt’s Corner” coming up.
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