Felix Navidad, prospero Ano Nuevo y Felicidad!


 

Here’s a special Holiday greeting to all my readers from my dear wife, Cathy. She loves Felix and dabbles in studying Spanish, so the two interests got together and produced this delightful drawing, enhanced with watercolor. It was a big Christmas surprise for me, and I’m delighted to share the joy with all of you, and of course, Felix. Cathy thinks someone else must have used this pun, but for now we’ll say it’s her own invention.

Felix, from 5-15 to 5-21-1933, tries to help Danny in his arithmetic homework. Danny can only count to five, so this qualifies him to be a golf caddie, since no golfer wants more than 5 strokes a hole anyway. Felix is called a “black jinx” in the 5-18, and Danny is fired as a caddie in the 5-20 much to the delight of Felix, who was feeling neglected. In the Sunday, Felix throws a rock at an ape, thinking his head is a coconut. I like the shadows that Otto used in panel seven of this Sunday page.

Hyacinth the cat does a couple of bits in the Myrtle strip, from 2-14 to 2-20-1949. She appears in a mouse-hole gag in the 2-18, and pushing her kittens in a perambulator in the 2-20. I love Myrtle’s look-alike doll being pushed in a toy carriage by Sampson in the 2-20. Myrtle’s tomboy side emerges fully in the 2-19, as she is made to stand in the corner for showing prowess as a schoolyard fighter. If you had to pick a characteristic pose for Myrtle, it would be standing in a corner.

In Krazy, from 5-24 to 5-29-1943, an electric eel shocks Ignatz, who then harvests the eel’s electric output in the 5-24 and 5-25. In the 5-29, Offissa Pupp gets a hammerlock and a headlock on Ignatz before being beaned by a baseball that Krazy throws at his head. “Zup-Klup”!

 

As a late Christmas present, here’s another Story Book Record Company production, read by Walt Kelly. “The Three Bears” and “The Gingerbread Boy”. I put them up on Archive.org, so that you can hear them.  Here’s the link: https://archive.org/details/WaltKellyThreeBearsGingerbreadBoyComp . The records start abruptly and there is a repeating groove in the Gingerbread, but it’s so much fun being able to hear Mr. Kelly take all the parts and entertain us for a precious 2 minutes and 49 seconds. I hope we will have a happier New Year than 2017 has been, and that the repeal of net neutrality will not cut us off from each other, dear readers. See you soon, I hope, Itza and Mark

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