Month: May 2022


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!”

Mabel and Her Pups


Ji

Mabel and Jimmie match wits and dating success as Jimmie tries to prove that he loves Mabel’s pup, “Tizwin”, when he really dislikes dogs. Did people really kick dogs around with such alacrity in 1919?  In 1912, a popular song called “They Gotta Quit Kickin’ My Dog Around” or “The Missouri Dog Song” was recorded for Victor. If you search for it, you can hear it, the lyrics are not easy to figure out. I’m sure the song was well remembered in 1919, and perhaps Garge used dogs and shoes as a nostalgic reminder of those canine kickin’ days. These strips are from Oct. 5th through Oct. 10th, 1919 with the strip from Oct. 7th missing. The San Francisco Examiner printed these all mixed up and out of date sequence, so I tried to restore order to them. The dogs in “Now Listen Mabel” don’t speak in anything but “grrrs”, “rowrs” and “Graaa”s. English is reserved for dog conversations in “Krazy Kat”. Remember to pass your mouse over the images until you get a menu that has the item: “Display Image in New Window”. Click on that, and you will be able to see the strips in a different window and displayed larger. If they are not immediately larger, just click on them with your mouse. Enjoy these for now, Mark

Recent Posts


Archives