Category: Felix the Cat
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!
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!