Mark Kausler’s CatBlog

Adios Barker Bill

 Well Folks, here are the last three weeks of Barker Bill strips available to me, from 8-8-55 to 8-25-55. If you find more of them, please write to me, I still don’t know the actual end date of the strip. These are all gag-a-day circus strips. The gag in the 8-24 was used by Stan Laurel for a phonograph record that he made with Oliver Hardy on their trip to England in the 1930s! Since it takes me quite a long time to get all the Jr. Times material on here, I won’t be replacing Barker Bill with another strip.

 The L.A. Junior Times for Dec. 1926 burst forth with a comicopia of material from Fred Moore (rooster cover), Phil De Lara, with his cover, Pearl Handle panel and Hezy Tate strip. Note in his bio from 3-11-28, that his ambition was to become an editorial newspaper cartoonist (animation wasn’t on his radar yet), he was 14 years old in 1926 when he did all these cartoons for Aunt Dolly. You’ll see some episodes of “Dunk Dank” by I. Ellis, a Morris Redensky (Morey Reden) portfolio with episodes of “Hank’s Hash House”, “High Shine Joe”, “The Snickle Bros.” and many more drawings he made to promote the T.J.C. There are also three “Lucky Lem” strips by Bill Zaboly, a “Fido Bark” by Bob Wickersham and a T.J.C. promo drawing by Lee Morehouse. To enjoy all this work by future animation and comic strip greats, just click on the thumbnails. 1926 and early 1927 were the high points for the Junior Times for kid cartoonists. The Times published a great deal of their work, with several pages per week, loaded with amateur comic strips. The Junior Times cut back on the cartoons as 1928 chugged along, featuring more games and puzzles for the “juniors”, as we will see later on.

 From 7-21 to 7-26-1941, Ignatz mostly takes to the air to bombard Krazy with bricks as he parachutes down. I like Offissa Pupp’s flying club in the 7-25. I don’t quite understand what Ignatz is using to hold down a brick evidently filled with helium gas in the 7-24. Is it a wad of gum, or a rock? Offissa Pupp knocks it off the brick, and the brick becomes a “billoom”.

 Felix, from 9-9 to 9-14-1935 finds him waiting for rescue in the underground city. The sailors decide that Felix is “a pest and a nuisance” in the 9-9, and Felix stays underground to escape their wrath (everybody has such short memories in Messmer’s world). Felix discovers a one-eyed idol in the tunnels and uses it as a disguise, it comes in handy, as you shall soon see. The Sunday has Felix swearing off dreaming, as he tries to get adopted by an old professor who has invented an “energy drink” called Zowite. At first the Prof is hostile to Felix invading his home, but when Felix drinks some of the Zowite, thinking it is milk, he becomes quite powerful and beats up the Prof. The Prof decides to keep Felix around as an experimental cat!

 Here is Myrtle from 4-7 to 4-12-1947. I love Sampson’s poses in the 4-11, as he hangs off the back of Uncle Freddie’s chair, and makes a hasty exit in the last panel, followed by his Uncle’s shoe. I like Myrtle’s attitude in the 4-12 as she nonchalantly shoots out the garage light with her slingshot. Fred commends her on her “fast work”, to which she saucily remarks, “I’m speedy!”

 Here’s “The Flintstones” Sunday pages from 8-12 and 8-26-1962. These are the earliest examples of the strip that I have, and I’m using them here to augment Yowp’s recent post on “Flintstone Weekend Comics”. Just click the link over on the Blogroll to read Yowp’s account of this month’s strips. The 8-12 is the only half-page episode I have. I think Yowp credits Gene Hazelton with the art, Barney looks a lot like he does in the “Swimming Pool” episode. The other Flintstones strips I have are thirds like the 8-26, but I’ll help Yowp as much as I can. He gives good blog. It should be a tad simpler to do posts without Barker Bill, so maybe I’ll squeeze in another one soon. Make sure you go over to the Facebook page, www.facebook.com/someothercat to see some of the credit title designs and the original storyboard for the Cat’s latest cartoon. It may be one of the very last cel-animated cartoons produced in the USA on 35mm film!