Category: Uncategorized
Happy Jerry Lewis Day!
Well it’s Jerry Lewis day here in the old USA! I think they should change the name of the holiday from Labor Day (all the jobs are outsourced anyway) to Jerry Lewis Day. I watch at least part of the telethon each year to see to what extent poor Mr. Lewis has deteriorated from the previous telethon. He is not fat this year, he looks thin and emaciated, and very out of breath at the beginning of the show (great kid singers and tapdancers by the way at the start). My wife thought he looked a bit like Fred Astaire at times. There are a lot of “Report to the Chairman” sections this year, MDA is getting very serious about telling just how much (or how little) progress is being made toward a “cure” for Neuromuscular Diseases. It seems like they know what causes the more than forty such ailments, but are approaching them from a “more powerful drugs” standpoint than a cell or DNA gene-splicing attack. Our beloved President is standing squarely in the way of the stem-cell research that could make a “cure” for those forty diseases POSSIBLE! I wonder how strongly MDA tried to lobby against the ban on stem-cell research? Or are they content to just drain off the millions they collect each year into big pharms’ pockets? I like the seriousness and sobriety that Jerry displays as he listens patiently to the doctors explaining a lot of complex medical information to his telethon audience. I wonder if the “kid” in Lewis wants to break the doctors up every once in a while? This is not to denigrate Mr. Lewis for his over 43 year devotion to the “cause”, I really love and admire the guy. His Al Jolson medley this year was very poignant. Jerry squinted, sweated and grunted his way though “Mammy” and “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody”, as the band seamlessly covered his tempo variance. I hope to see him sing “When You Walk Though A Storm” once more at the end of the broadcast. For the first time, thanks to AT&T’s digital video recorder, I can “tape” the entire broadcast and “troll for Lewis” by scanning through the hours at high speed! If you can get AT&T UVerse by all means sign up. Every channel is flawless, and the DVR that comes with the service is incredible, I can’t tell the difference between the live broadcast and the recording! Sometimes I get confused which one I’m watching. At last we dumped Charter Communications cable “service”, just in time as it turns out! We just got a “new channel line-up” notice from them that they are moving Turner Classic Movies (our favorite channel) to a higher digital “tier”, so we would have been forced to go to their more expensive service to keep what we already had! AT&T even has the Boomerang channel (no commercials on this one), which has a couple of interesting programs, “The Boomerang Zoo” which features mostly old Hanna-Barbera animal cartoons such as Yakky Doodle (Fibber Fox is funny!) and Loopy De Loop. They show old H-B sitcoms like “The Jetsons” (cut-down), Tom and Jerry cartoons and “The MGM Show” which runs the Avery, Harman-Ising and Barney Bear pictures. Did I say the picture was flawless?
   This just in, Jerry Lewis raised over $65,000,000 for MDA this year! His dialog with the little ambassador girl, Amy I think her name was, toward the end of the show was very heart-felt. It’s so sad that so few of these children live to be very old. Jerry did a good job on “When You Walk Through A Storm” and must have shuffled off the stage tired and happy. As Amy said, “You got your dollar more.”
     If you like Golden Age Funny Comics, head on over to www.stanleystories.blogspot.com and read some nice-looking scans of early John Stanley comics. I didn’t know that Stanley wrote for so many diverse characters besides the Little Lulu gang. There are Peterkin Pottle, Oswald the Rabbit, Andy Panda, Woody Woodpecker, Nellie the Nurse and even our own Krazy Kat! YOW! This blog is the work of Frank M. Young of Seattle WA., who really has a great love and appreciation for John Stanley and the old funnybooks. You don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars to read 1940s Golden Age books, just visit Stanley Stories, tell Frank that “The Cat” sent you.
Our comics this week are, the next two pages of “Mangy’s Blues” by Cathy Hill, Cathy even developed a “cat language” for this story lettered in symbols. MARVELOUS MIKE’s homework service is curtailed, but the schoolboard thinks that Cliff Crump is the genius in the family and enters him in a TV quiz show! Remember in 1956 that quiz shows were top draws and got into a lot of scandal. Krazy Kat has a continuity with Ignatz and a “tecolote” (Spanish for “owl”). There is a lot of cactus by-play this week. Felix winds up the “Clothes Make The Cat” story from Felix #6, and starts “A Biscuit-A Basket” from #7. Kitty is quite managerial in these stories, in the “Biscuit” story she sports a heart in her hair. These are by Jim Tyer, in case you hadn’t guessed.
Didja notice that WordPress has turned on the comments again? Let’s see if I can manage them better this time. You can also email me at blogmolasses@att.net.
AT and T Taking Over
Hi folks, the Eagle Rock paint-out continues, we painted at a beautiful house last week, high up on a hill with surrounding views of Occidental College and desert foliage (cactus). I did a pretty lousy WC, but my wife did a very nice oil of a little stone path leading down a prickly slope to a house with an orange tile roof. Don’t forget to attend  The Collaborative Eagle Rock Beautiful Event Sept. 13th and 14th, at the GLAD center, 2222 Laverna Ave., Eagle Rock CA 90041. The big Gala event is from 4 Pm to 7 PM at the GLAD center on Sept. 14th, $35.00 donation gets you champagne, hors d’ouvres and admission to a sale of fine paintings of Eagle Rock created just for the event, and succulent drought-tolerant plants will be for sale as well. We’re lining up a woodwind music group to play at the event as well, tres elegant! In case you missed it in a previous post, this is to help preserve the last open space between Eagle Rock and Pasadena, and to keep the area landmark, the Eagle Rock, from being blasted out for Condos! Help (PLEASE!) CERB raise the remaining 70,000 dollars and keep the Eagle flying!
I’m switching my Cable and DSL services to AT&T next week, so my email address for this blog will change to blogmolasses@att.net. This is the new fiber optic cable, I’ll let you know if there is any improvement in reception or DSL speed. It sure will be cheaper, that’s for sure. Comics this week are the last page of “A Package For Virgil” featuring Mangy the cat as Virgil’s big surprise! Also I’m starting another Mangy story, “Mangy’s Blues”, done in modern graphic style, sans dialog, all by my incredibly talented Cathy! MARVELOUS MIKE this week is from 9/17 to 9/22/1956: Mike and Merrie start a “homework answering service” much to the horror of the school-board! Check out Krazy Kat this week 2/6-2/11/1939, for a lot of “helmet jokes” and the mysterious disappearing Ignatz in Pupp’s jail.  Felix returns with pages 2 and 3 of “Clothes Make the Cat” from Felix #6. Tyer is in fine form, with funny drawings of the maniacal suit salesman, and Kitty’s girlish amusement at Felix’s shopping phobia. Be seeing ya! Rest in Peace Bill Stulla and Harry Gibbs, two childhood heros, hosts of local kid’s TV shows in Los Angeles and St. Louis, Mo., I’ll be seeing ya wranglers!
Save the Eagle Rock!
Hi Readers! Currently, we are painting in various locales around the town of Eagle Rock, CA. The big rock that the town is named for is in danger of being blasted out to clear the land for condominiums, so we are trying to raise 70,000 dollars to buy the land around the rock to keep the developers away. Our group is creating paintings of the town to celebrate Eagle Rock and to bring people’s attention to what makes the town special, the Rock! A Gala event on Sept. 13th and 14th at the historic Women’s Temperance League building, will have a live paint-out with many fine artists participating. If you live nearby, come out to the event! I will post more details next week. Or just write to me at blogmolasses@att.net  to get a flyer. PLEASE NOTE NEW EMAIL ADDRESS FOR THIS BLOG!!! THANK YOU!!!
     This week’s comics are the penultimate page of “A Package For Virgil”, can you stand the suspense? The exciting conclusion to the story will be next week. MARVELOUS MIKE is from 9/10 to 9/15/1956 and concludes the saga of “The Serenader”. Once again, Mike’s talents are ignored and disbelieved and Mike quotes from Sir Walter Scott. Krazy Kat this week is from 1/30 to 2/4/1939. Mostly “Brick Antics”, the little sign on the fence in the 2/3 episode means “Big Flea Circus” in English. There is a freeway offramp near La Jolla called “Las Pulgas”, must be a pretty flea-bitten offramp! The cat’s tail this week is a one page gag from Felix #5 by Jim Tyer starring Felix and Rock (not Bottom, but from “Rock and Rollo”), and the first page of “Clothes Make the Cat” from Felix #6. I love the design of that clock with the little cherubim kittens around it and Kitty’s “Beauty Mark” on her cheek. C.U.
Seaport Village and Naples
Hello again, readers. Cathy and I had a most memorable painting experience last Thurs. August 7th. We visited Naples! No, not Italy, but Naples, California. You can reach this Naples by driving down the 405 freeway south to Studebaker Road. Go right on Studebaker Road and left on Marina Drive. Make a right on 2nd Ave. and proceed to Naples. Naples is a small, hidden little village surrounded by Alamitos Bay. If you walk down a street called “The Toledo”, you will come to bridges that cross over the circular walkway that ambles along by the seawater stream. Walk down these lanes, and you will be transported! The homes, some new, some Victorian and Greek in style, sport balconies that look out over the water. Each home has a little dock in front of it, many with sight-seeing craft anchored there. A lot of the homes have gardens; flower and vegetable. A friendly black cat was napping underneath one of the chairs; he jumped up on the wall when we passed by and rubbed his head on our hands, then took a playful swipe at us with his paw, meowing in a raspy tone. Naples, California rivals Venice, California both in charm and how human housing can interact with the sea. Ideal painting spots would be up on the bridges to get a wide view of the sea canals, boats and homes. My poor powers of description can’t match the joy of being there, come and look! We didn’t actually paint in Naples on Thurs. but instead parked along Marina Drive and set up by Alamitos Bay in the boatowner’s area. The Harbor Police are there, as are many restaurants. We painted a sailboat race from Naples to the breakwater, and a beautiful yacht anchored nearby with highly polished wooden trim all over it. It was great painting weather, until the wind came up and pushed us (the Thursday Painting group) off our bayside perch. Bring your sketchbooks to Alamitos Bay and Naples (they are in Long Beach), very soon. It’s another little corner of beauty in the ugly and lovely County of Los Angeles.
    This week’s comics are pages three and four of “A Package For Virgil” from Cathy’s MAD RACCOONS #7. Virgil the raccoon was one of the featured characters in the comic books, he could go from placid to manic in a few panels, as you see here. Mangy is the co-star, but you’ll have to wait to see her. There are only 5 episodes of MARVELOUS MIKE this week, from 9/4/56 to 9/8. 9/3 is missing, donations gladly accepted! “The Serenader” storyline continues, with Cliff hiding from the mob while Mike plays on. Krazy Kat this week is the complete week’s strips from 1/23 to 1/28/39. I really like 1/25, as Herriman makes fun of his own laziness by not completing the last panel, and making a gag out of it. The only real continuity in this week’s KK’s are 1/27 and 1/28 in which Krazy meets two fireflies, one widowed and one with a wet husband. I have also re-printed the final two pages of Jim Tyer’s “Some-Her” from Felix the Cat #5. My favorite panels are Felix socking the bully on page four and his big reaction to the mischievous kittens on page five. Enjoy the strips! Any reactions may be sent to molasses@earthlink.net.
Pencil Test is Finished!
It’s hard to believe readers, but the pencil test for my short cartoon: “There Must Be Some Other Cat”, is cut together and synced up at last! Maybe some day we will post the pencil test on itsthecat.com, we’ll see. There are a few little adjustments, but the timing of the animation and the musical ideas work well. Greg Ford, Larry Q. and company worked hard and smoothed all the rough edges from my scribbled exposure sheets and did some first-rate camera work. Maybe some day soon I will see the first color scenes of the cat in his desert environment! I feel like taking everyone out for nopales at the Cacti Cafe!
In comics this week, I’m presenting the first two pages of Cathy Hill’s “A Package For Virgil” from Mad Raccoons #7. This story seems to star Virgil, but is really a showcase for Mangy as co-star. Mangy was originally just a back-up feature for the Raccoons, and in this story…..well, you’ll see. Marvelous Mike from 8/27/56 to 9/1/56 continues the story of “The Serenader”, Mike’s “Dad”, Cliff gets all the credit for playing Chopin like Van Cliburn, much to his wife’s disgust. Krazy Kat this week is missing Monday, 1/16/39, anybody have it? In KK from 1/17/39 to 1/21/39, it’s guest or “guess” week, as the action moves from Krazy’s house, to the Jail and back to Krazy’s house again. 1/20 is a bit obscure, Offissa Pupp and Ignatz emerge from Jail, only to see Krazy approaching and put themselves back in stir again. The “love triangle” theme was so well established by this point, that it only has to be hinted at to form a springboard for a gag. From Felix #5, we have the first two pages of “Some-Her” by Jim Tyer. Kitty as drawn by Tyer, is one strange cat. I love the delicately drawn foot with the shoe dangling from her toes in the first panel. Kitty is more human than cat by this time; look at her profile on page two, panel two. Sometimes Jim puts heart-shaped “beauty marks” on her face making Kitty resemble Lilly Langtry or some Robert W. Service heroine. They only gave Tyer one story and a gag page in this issue, we’ll continue the story next week, if we can.
Remember if you wish to comment, write to me at molasses@earthlink.net. Remember to click on the thumbnail images to see them larger.
New and Old
Hi Readers, hope you are enjoying yourselves at the San Diego Comic Con! Hello to my friend Ed Buchman, make sure you visit his Little Lulu Fan Club meeting at the convention. It will take place July 26th (Sat.) from 3 to 4 PM in Room 24A (on the top floor, off the city-side hallway near the South end of the immense building). Tell him that Mangy sent you! Here’s a “new” installment of Mangy written and drawn by my wife, Cathy Hill, which I call “Mangy’s Cocktail”, it’s from Mad Raccoons #6. Mike Fontanelli, cartoonist De Luxe, wrote in about Mangy. He thinks she’s “right up there with MUTTS..”! Wouldn’t Mooch be jealous? He thinks Mangy should be syndicated in newspapers. It’s an interesting thought, but for now we will be “syndicating” her adventures via this blog. Cathy was flattered by the compliment, thanks Mike.
In old stuff this week, we have Krazy Kat from 1-9-39 to 1-14-39. Krazy spends the week debunking old sayings, pretty much as he did last week. Marvelous Mike’s “dad” Cliff goes on a vacation to the Indian Rock Hotel (Catskills?) and Mike fills in playing piano for “The Serenader”. Of course, Mike plays an excellent Chopin. Here is the conclusion to the Rock and Rollo story we started last week: “A Moving Story” from Felix #4.  I love the sign pointing to Rock’s injured finger in the last panel on page two. It’s a Jim Tyer “understatement” as a coda to an overstated slapstick situation. This completes the reprinting of Felix #4. In Felix #5, Tyer gets fewer pages, unfortunately. See you next week!
Down on Mike’s Farm
Hi Reader (s) ! The last two weeks Cathy and I went to Rubel Farms on March 27th and a Pasadena Plant Nursery near Sierra Madre on April 3rd with our Thursday Morning Painting Group. The paintings this week are watercolors that I did at Rubel Farms and some Borrego Springs studies leftover from last week. The late (sadly) Mike Rubel’s farm in Glendora, Ca. is now being taken care of by the city since his untimely passing. It is a sprawling collection of giant boulders stacked up and hewn into castle turrets, a clockworks from England that chimes out the hours, at least a dozen old model T Fords and Ford trucks used as farm machinery in the early 20th Century, an old red caboose filled with train memorabilia, tin “palaces” full of model train layouts, twenty ancient wheelbarrows and a coop full of feisty roosters and hens; the subject of my painting. The roosters were so curious about what Cathy and I were doing that they walked right up to us, stared us in the face and walked through Cathy’s pallette and pecked at her turpentine rags! Inside Rubel’s Farm in one of the “tin palaces” is a display case that is a tribute to Mike’s dad, Heinz Rubel, who under the name of Hal Raynor, wrote a lot of Joe Penner’s radio material, including the line “Wanna Buy A Duck?”. It is fitting that the son of the man who wrote such crazy songs for Joe Penner as “When The Pussy Willow Whispers to the Catnip” and “When The Berry Blossoms Bloom” should have built this crazy edifice, this farm of fancy, this edifice of eccentricity. Get in touch with the city of Glendora and see this one of a kind farm, say hello to the roosters for us!
The little study in phthalo blue and orange is called “Borrego Springs at Night”. I went outside our trailer in the moonlight and tried to paint and draw in near darkness, this is the result. All I could see was the silhouette of the trailer, the faint light seeping through the Venetian blind, and the light of the desert moon. I also did a larger watercolor of the Resors’s Airstream trailer, with a puddle of water reflecting it’s image. The puddle wasn’t really there, it is the desert after all, but I felt that the foreground needed something. These paintings help me to remember the Borrego desert, and take me to that peaceful space whenever I look at them. If any of you readers would like to own an original painting of Cathy’s or mine, just write to us at molasses@earthlink.net and let us know. My watercolors are a bargain, larger ones like the Airstream are $50.00, small studies like the night painting are only $30.00. If you want to own any of Cathy’s beautiful oil paintings, just click on her website on the right side of this page. She has Gallery representation at www.tirageart.com, just click to the artists pages and go to her alphabetical space. By the way, did anyone notice the hands drawing Bugs Bunny with the bunny Oscar from “What’s Cooking, Doc?” on the cartoon Oscar DVDs, Disc three documentary? That’s my hands modeling (and drawing) at my old animation desk.
The comics this week are MARVELOUS MIKE, 5/14 through 5-19-1956. Mike tames Goliath the dog by getting a cat! Also we have the next two pages of “The Vicious Cycle” from FELIX #4 by the great Jim Tyer!
Easter Jackrabbits
 Hi everyone! Cathy and I are back from the Anza-Borrego desert, where we spent Easter week as part of the Borrego Art Institute’s 
Plein Air Painting Competition. Cathy completed 5 oil paintings during the week. The Airstream trailer painting is called “Silver Baby”, and the painting of the Coyote mountains is called “Fireworks At Sunset”. We stayed in a “Terry” trailer, on the same property as the Airstream. Cathy fulfilled a dream by painting the Airstream; she is in love with their streamlined design and silvery, shiny skins. Our hosts were Stuart and Bonnie Resor, just great folks; Stuart is not only an architect (dynamite at lettering and drawing), but is an expert in astronomy. He showed me the planet Saturn through his telescope one night, and it looked like the Saturns in an Al Capp swear word! Perfect circle and perfect little ring around it. The sunsets were magnificent! We painted the last day we were there at an old resort, called the Hoberg in the 1950s, The Palms, now. We saw our first live jackrabbits, they were very large animals and their ears were longer than their bodies! You couldn’t have wanted better Easter Bunnies than these wily desert jacks! They hop very slowly compared with their neighbors, the Cottontail rabbits, which are a lot smaller. It was hot in the sun all week (85 degrees), but cool in the shade, it got downright cold at night. The Terry trailer we rented for the week was small, but beautifully decorated by Bonnie Resor inside. I had to learn a lot of new skills to keep all the pilot lights running, had to make an LP gas run one morning to the hardware store, shades of Hank Hill. The desert culture is so peaceful, the birds sing different songs out there. The wildflowers were in bloom (yellow and violet) and people came from miles around to see them. It was the wettest winter they’ve had in Borrego Springs for years (over 4 inches). If you want to read more about the event and see the prize-winning paintings, go to www.borregoartinstitute.comand find the link to the Plein Air Competition for 2008.
    It’s almost the end of the temperate season in Borrego Springs, April is the last month you can visit with 80 degree temps, but the little town and the State Park are worth while seeing. We last visited ten years ago, and the only major changes to the town are the costs of an evening’s lodging in the local motels and resorts! The locals who live through the 120 degree summers are hardy souls indeed. One guy I talked to said he never has to wait in line for anything in July or August, he practically has the town to himself! Only 3000 people live in Borrego Springs year round, so if you like it hot, git out thar!
    This week’s comics are Marvelous Mike, May 7th through May 12th, 1956. Mike continues to baby-sit the lummox dog, Goliath. Too bad Goliath’s so hard to see! I have also put up the first two pages from Jim Tyer’s Felix the Cat #4, 1963. “Chairman of the Bored” features Pussyfoot in a one page b/w gag, he’s looking pixillated and more Tyer extreme! “The Vicious Cycle” also begins this week, an eight page story, page two next week. I will also tell you the story of our latest visit to the late Mike Rubel’s castle in Glendora next week as well. Remember, if you would like to leave a comment, send it to molasses@earthlink.net. If it is an interesting comment, it will be posted.
Happy Easter!
Hi folks, that old b/w photo at the top is of Tex Avery and me in 1969. This was taken at his office at the old Cascade Pictures studio on Seward St and Romaine. Seward is where an animation museum should be located, what an historic spot!  Walter Lantz, Walt Disney, Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising, Bob Clampett , Tex Avery and Gabor Csupo all made pictures on this street. I used to visit Tex at Cascade every once in awhile hoping to pick up free-lance work, but he never used me. I was a pretty gawky stringy kid in those days, but Tex put up with me. I think he could tell that I was a really devoted fan. Sometimes Tex let me hang around the studio until the early evening watching him shoot a Pillsbury doughboy commercial. Tex actually manipulated the puppet frame by frame! He could do almost anything in animation. Tex was developing a pilot for Playboy at the time I met him, animating gag cartoons from the magazine in short film vignettes. They were very limited animation, and unfortunately, didn’t really plus the humor in the original magazine cartoons they were based on by very much. Tex had already done most of the Raid and Bugs Bunny Kool-Aid spots that were so popular by that time, so now he was just trying things to bring in business to Cascade. I think that’s a picture of Ronald Reagan on Tex’s office wall at the extreme right hand side of the photo. I remember Irv Spector visiting Tex one day at Cascade. Tex seemed to have a lot of respect for this Easterner and gave him a big welcome. I don’t know if Irv was anymore successful than I was at picking up work from Tex, however.
This post’s comics are MARVELOUS MIKE from 5-1-56 to 5-5-56. I am missing April 29th, the Saturday episode, and May 6th, another Saturday. This is a new storyline introducing a pesty dog, “Goliath”. Unfortunately, the Post-Dispatch assigned a color to Goliath that renders him almost invisible in most of the strips, but bear with me. If anyone can supply missing Mikes, please write me at : molasses@earthlink.net. I also have finished reprinting the Jim Tyer Felix story: “You Auto Be In Pictures” from Felix #3. Jim’s style has been a bit subdued up until now, but he really busts loose in Felix #4, coming soon. Hope the bunny brings you all some nice healthy DARK chocolate, full of antioxidents, for Easter. Gotta Hop-a-long now, Cassidy!
Management
Hi Folks, I’ve been a prodigal blogger again. It’s starting to dawn on me that writing a blog is kinda fun, but MANAGING a blog is like presiding over a remedial classroom, a classroom the size of the WORLD! In other words, the comments have been hacked. I have had to turn the access to the comments off from all un-registered people. However, I don’t know how to turn the registration process ON for those who wish to participate in a reasonable way. In the meantime, please communicate with me by my special email address: molasses@earthlink.net. I will manage comments from there. I will keep reminding readers to use this address in future posts, also, don’t forget to click on the small images you see on this page to see larger versions of them.
The MARVELOUS MIKEs this week are from 4-23-1956 to 4-28-1956, the Felix pages are from Felix #3, the next two pages of “You Auto Be In Pictures” by Jim Tyer. Cliff Crump is so astonished by Mike’s ability as a painter that he winds up in the police station! Of course, allowing for today’s inflation, “Whistler’s Father” would now command a price of fifty grand. Felix drives Mr. Mogul’s Alpha-Ravioli luxury car down to the power train in this week’s pages. You can easily feel what these pages would look like moving in Tyer’s animation style, lots of flying debris and staggered contacts as the Alpha-Ravioli falls apart, with those little black lines that break off and whirl around.
Cathy and I went to paint at Eaton Canyon in Pasadena last Thursday, March 6th. It was ideal weather down there, not much wind and plenty of light. Cathy did a great little 9″ by 12″ oil painting of a sycamore and an oak tree side by side. The sycamore was a warm white and the oak tree was in dark raw umber, topped by accents of orange leaves and a faint suggestion of violet mountains in the distance. Not so long ago, Cathy wouldn’t even TRY to paint an oak, they present too great a challenge in value and detail, but now she’s fearless. I titled her painting, “The Finish Line”, as the trees resemble a horse race, with a white and a black horse in a photo finish. I think she liked the idea. I still haven’t learned how to edit a complex environment like Eaton Canyon in watercolor and I produced a real mess. When that didn’t work, I made two MORE messes! It was one of those days when you just want to chuck all the paints in the nearest waste can and swear off! I didn’t put the garbage into the critique at the end of the session, not worthwhile.
I think I have seen just about all the Tex Avery MGM cartoons complete now, I finally saw the uncut GARDEN GOPHER. This one has a scene which is always faded off prematurely. Spike puts a big can of dynamite over the Gopher’s den and lights it. In the meantime, the Gopher pours a slippery pool of grease under Spike’s feet. When Spike turns to run, he can’t get traction in the grease and is caught in the explosion when the dynamite can blows up. This is where the action always fades out, in the middle of the explosion clouds. In the original, the clouds clear and Spike is burnt black, (with big lips and spit curls, natch) and running on the grease, VERY SLOWWWWLY. It’s a black stereotype gag, but it is also animation based, going from a fast run pre-explosion, to a slow run, after the blast. It works on two levels at the same time, the Stepin Fetchit reference, and the natural drag that being blown up has on the dog’s body. I will admit that I laughed, but I love Tex’s humor. I used to write Tex fan letters when I was a kid, sent in envelopes illustrated with my crude drawings of Screwy Squirrel, to which he never replied.  When I met Tex years later at the Cascade Pictures studio on Seward St., I reminded Tex of those letters, and asked him why I never heard back from him. He told me, “If I got letters from anybody with Screwy Squirrel on ’em, I’d pitch ’em in the wastebasket!” I have a few more little stories about Tex, but I will save them for another post.
Catchin’ Up
Girls and Boys, I have dried my eyes and now present the next two pages of Jim Tyer’s “You Auto Be In Pictures”. Mike Kazaleh, a regular reader of this bag of spaghetti, wrote this comment about Felix: The current Felix comic story you are printing seemed familiar to me somehow. Then it hit me… so far the story is just like a Muggy Doo cartoon (animated by Myron Waldman)Â that goes by the same name! Did Hal Seegar borrow the story from Tyer (who was working for him at the time)? The cartoon has no story credit.Â
If Seeger asked Jim Tyer for the story, Jim probably gave it to him to oblige, after all, why alienate your steady employer? Thanks, Mike for writing this comment. I have seen precious little MILTON THE MONSTER, MUGGY-DOO BOY FOX or STUFFY DURMA, so it’s hard to speculate about these things.
Also in this post are the MARVELOUS MIKE episodes from 4-16 to 4-21-1956. Will Cliff Crump and his wife be torn to bits by the enraged members of the P.T.A.? You will note that this is the first time that Mike speaks directly to Cliff. At this point, Cliff doubts his sanity and doesn’t believe that the infant quoted Sir Francis Bacon to him. Their relationship changes around as the strip progresses. I’ll be posting again soon, ’til then enjoy the strips!
I Can’t See Ya, Wranglers!
Whew! I accidently deleted last week’s post this morning. I was attempting to delete an unwelcome comment, and scrapped all my text! At least all the comics were saved! If any of my readers copied my post, please mail me a copy of the text and I will re-type it. The post contained “Marvelous Mike”, 4/9/1956 through 4/14, “Wee Pals”, 2-19-2008 and the next two pages of “You Auto Be In Pictures” by Jim Tyer from Felix #3, Dell 1963. That’s a very dark photo of Harry Gibbs, alias Texas Bruce, reproduced from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of 1956. Harry had a show on St. Louis television called the “Wrangler’s Cartoon Club”, that poisoned my mind with countless old cartoons, Looney Tunes, Betty Boops, Little Lulus and the Fema Noveck Flamingo package including many Soyuzmultifilm and Zagreb productions. That’s about as far as I want to go in re-creating this post for now. I will do a new one very soon; right now, I’m going to go someplace and cry a lot!
What Causes “Runtime Error”s?
Alright you computer scientists out there, what causes “runtime error”s? I keep getting a pop-up window supposedly from Microsoft that says there is a C++ Visual Runtime Library “runtime error”. The address seems to be: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE R6025 -pure virtual function call. Is this a virus? It doesn’t seem to be causing any slow-downs or any other problems, just an annoying pop-up window every so often. It may be connected with streaming radio, I don’t know. Any offers of help would be gratefully accepted.
Last week, Cathy and I went to Claremont and a new housing development near the Padua Hills Theatre, an old theatre building dedicated to live performance. It was a beautiful place, we painted the side entrance to the theatre, a series of white columns receding into the distance, surrounded by a dark grove of olive trees. Cathy’s painting was well-composed and well-balanced, with the columns on the left and the Padua Hills Theatre sign on the right. She got some beautiful yellows, olive greens and violets into her painting, and good dark values. I got some good darks into my painting as well, but balanced the composition so that the image was split right down the middle of the page, with the columns on the right and the dark olive trees on the left. Brenda Swenson, our crit master, pointed out that I could re-mat the painting and take the curse off the evenly spaced composition. We’re all getting a lot of valuable advice and experience painting with this great group. After we painted we were invited to the nearby home of Karl and Sandy Flores for lunch! They displayed digital photos of all of the painters at work on the biggest DLP (?) television screen I have ever seen! It was so big and dominated the room so much that it was hard to concentrate on the paintings and the critique. After lunch, Cathy and I drove up to the Mt. Baldy Lodge and village center, hoping to find a little snow. We even brought our snow boots, but only found a few dirty patches of snow, most of it had already melted off from the storms in January. That didn’t stop us from putting a little of the cold stuff down each other’s necks!
This week’s “Marvelous Mike” episodes are from 4/2 to 4/7/1956, and continue the story of Mike’s entry in the school’s first-grade painting contest. Mr. Crump, Mike’s “father”, has to get Mr. Van Goth, the company’s art director, to be the judge of the contest, which puts him in an uncomfortable position. Again, Mr. Crump is usually the victimized clown in these early Mikes. His adopted son almost always extricates Crump from his convoluted schemes. We also have the last page of “Fair Weather Enemies” and the first page of “You Auto Be In Pictures” from Felix The Cat #3. Jim Tyer, one of the world’s most creative cartoonists, is once again at the helm.
Last week, I did a little tribute to Al Scaduto, as King Features ran his last “They’ll Do It Every Time” strips. A note on the King Features website explains that the last TDIE Sunday page was 2-10-2008. The last one they ran on the website was 2-3, so what happened to 2-10? I’ll let you know when I find out. KFS also says that Scaduto has been doing TDIE since 1948, and that the strip was in 100 papers. I’ll bet that’s one of the main reasons, besides Mr. Scaduto’s unfortunate death, that King is ending the strip. Not much income from those few outlets.
Comics and Scaduto
In our comics this week, we pay tribute to the late Al Scaduto, who drew and wrote “They’ll Do It Every Time” for King Features Syndicate for many years. He continued the feature started by Jimmy Hatlo in 1929 for the sports page of the San Francisco Call. Scaduto used gag suggestions from his readers as did Hatlo and Bob Dunn before him. Hatlo’s family, the Tremblechins originated in TDIE, as did his devilish little girl: L’il Iodine. TDIE was syndicated in 1936 and continued up to Feb. 3, 2008, the last Sunday page, a run of 72 years! (That’s the last daily, Feb. 2nd, and the last Sunday page above.) Hy Eisman and Scaduto were assistants to Hatlo and Dunn originally, now Hy Eisman is the sole surviving member of the Hatlo “gang”, he still draws The Katenjammer Kids and Popeye for King Features. Milt Gross is tacitly connected to this gang, as Bob Dunn was Gross’s assistant for awhile.
Here is the text of an e-mail I wrote to Al Scaduto’s family:
Hi Scaduto family,
> Please accept my sympathies on the passing of Al Scaduto.
> I’ve been a fan of Al Scaduto, Bob Dunn and Jimmy Hatlo for a
> long time. I’ve noticed that “They’ll Do It Every Time” is
> continuing under his by-line. Are these strips that Al Scaduto
> back-logged, reprints or done by a new artist under the Scaduto
> name? I really have enjoyed the feature, and hope it can
> continue, if only My Daily Ink would display the Sunday page
> larger with more detail! Again, I think Al’s work was funny and
> I love his drawing, his attention to detail in props was
> especially impressive. He kept pretty much up-to-date with the
> feature right up to the end. He will be missed.
> In Sympathy, Mark Kausler, a fan
And here is Al Scaduto’s daughter Pat’s reply:
Mr. Kausler: Thank you for writing. My father worked approximately two months ahead of schedule so the strip will continue until February 2nd which is the last piece of artwork that he submitted. From what King Features says, they will not have another artist continue with the strip. I can’t imagine anyone else doing it. My dad was one of a kind. I wish you could have met him. He was one terrific guy. Thanks again for your sympathy. Pat Violette
    It was very nice of Pat to write me back, I really didn’t expect a response. I think this is an important milestone; the conclusion of a strip that ran a total of 82 years going back to the local run! Scaduto’s drawing remained pretty strong all the way up to the end, I liked how the characters always looked a little like the 1940s, even though they were using cell phones and Hi-Def TVs. I noticed that the hospital jokes were more numerous in the last few months, maybe Mr. Scaduto did some of those strips from his sick bed. I wish I could have met him, as Pat said. It’s very unusual that King Features elected to discontinue the strip, look how long they’ve continued The Katenjammer Kids, for instance. King Features must have recognized how personal Scaduto’s version of the strip was. So long, Al and goodbye to “They’ll Do It Every Time”.Â
Also this week, I have reprinted the next two pages of “Fair Weather Enemies” from Felix #3, by Jim Tyer. Jerry Beck thinks that maybe Joe Oriolo did clean-up on Felix, because he seems to be drawn “on-model”. That may be so. “Marvelous Mike” continues with the strips from 3/26 to 3/31/1956; the next episodes of the “Kimball Ad Agency” storyline. That Mike was a genius, he could write and he could draw. I have started to do real scans of the strips, but they are from inadequate microfilm copies. They are murky, but you should be able to make most of them out. This is probably the only reprint you will ever see, so enjoy.
Cathy and I went out to Encanto Park in Duarte, Ca. last Thusday to paint with our group. We did studies of Mount Baldy all covered with snow. Snow is rare around here, so we all thought it was worth turning out to paint. That brilliant white mountain with dark hills and Eucalyptus trees in the foreground was quite a challenge. I did two watercolors, and was criticized for leaving too many white outlines around my trees. It was a good call, I do tend to carefully brush around my tree branches and left gaps. Cathy did a very nice oil of the scene, using a lot of purples for her foreground hills. Afterwards we were all invited to a nearby artist’s house for the critique led by Walter McNall and Brenda Swenson. Hot tea was provided, very welcome on a cold morning. An old friend of ours, Dick Tarkington, visited our group from Arkansas, where he lives in a house that’s buried in the side of a hill, on 30 acres. Dick does some of the best figure indication I’ve ever seen in watercolor, he can really give a great impression of humans and animals in action with only a few strokes of a brush. He looked a little thinner and has developed a cough, but still had his old sense of humor. It’s so inspiring to paint with all these great artists! You should come to Encanto park and paint for awhile, now’s the time. While you’re there, visit the Duarte Museum, a beautiful little building on the park grounds. See you soon!
Blogged Agin!
September 11, 2008
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Mark
Hi again, Readers!
Don’t forget the big “Save The Eagle Rock” event this coming weekend, Sept. 13th and 14th at the GLAD center, 2222 Laverna Ave. in Eagle Rock CA 90041. Please help the old Rock to survive the developer’s wrecking ball, and buy a painting or a plant! You will hear and see musicians playing classical compositions on woodwind instruments and painters painting classical images on wooden easels! Saturday’s hours are 10 AM to 4 PM and Sunday’s are 10AM to 6 PM, with the big Gala celebration to follow. You can donate $35.00 for the big celebration, this gets you champagne and hors d’ouvres. I would like to meet my readers in person (I’ll be there on Sunday with my talented wife, Cathy Hill).
In tribute to the late Bill Melendez is a comic strip commemorating his vocal talents doing Snoopy’s howls and yips. It is from a Hollywood Reporter special issue on animation from 1992. It says “Apologies to Don Albrecht” on the edge of panel 8. Does anyone know who that was? My guess is that Albrecht was a cartoonist who first drew the basic idea that this page is based on. Bill will be sadly missed in the cartoon biz, funny storyteller, tremendously versatile animator; able to eat a whole jar of red hot yellow chilies without even a glass of water to wash them down ( I saw him do it!).
The comics this week are pages 4 and 5 of “Mangy’s Blues” by Cathy Hill. Mangy keeps bugging the racoons Virgil and Uncle Erf with her never-ending need to be noticed. MARVELOUS MIKE this week is from 10/1 to 10/6/1956. Cliff Crump is so intent on studying up for his appearance on “The Big Donation” quiz program, that he doesn’t look where he’s going,  bumps his head and gets amnesia! Krazy Kat does six strips (2-20/2-25-1939) on the “walking under a ladder” superstition. Offissa Pupp and Ignatz use a ladder to get into and out of jail, I love the elephant in the 2/25. Felix proudly brings up the rear in the next two pages of “A Biscuit, A Basket” from Felix #7. I love the strange anatomy on Kitty in the second page as she talks to Felix on the telephone, her legs are really lost behind her red skirt, Jim Tyer didn’t believe in sketching the body before putting the clothes on it! (It’s funnier that way.) See you in Eagle Rock!
You may leave comments here on the blog, or write me at blogmolasses@att.net.