OOo Such a Hust-eling and Bust-eling!
Dear Readers, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and all the other Variant Celebrations! Vic Vac of the old St. Louis Globe-Democrat, did Christmas, Halloween and July 4th special covers for the Sunday Magazine through the 1930s to the 1980s. He was a staff cartoonist who liked to use aerial perspective in his work, as in the Halloween cover I uploaded a couple of posts ago. This one is from 12-25-1977, and shows Santa taking a break from driving the reindeer to worship at a little mid-western church. Maybe he’s listening to my Mother singing “Oh, Holy Night”. I like the little touches Vic Vac throws in, like the fox, raccoon, mouse and birds with their Christmas stockings, the old horses and sleighs, the barn and farmhouse in the distance, down to the boots and overshoes laid out by the church door. These drawings were never syndicated outside of St. Louis, and they really remind me of a hometown Christmas.
Here’s the front cover of a brand new book by my pal, Tim Walker. Tim has done animation, assistant animation, storyboard and sheet timing for cartoon studios from 1969 to the present, we met at Chouinard Art Institute in 1968. There are few people I know who love cartooning like Tim. It was a real shock for him, when in 2007 his right arm grew very weak, and what he thought was Carpal Tunnel was diagnosed as Lateral Parkinson’s Disease. Tim was very worried, because he had always been right-handed. How would he draw and write now?
On June 11th, 2007, Tim took up his pencil and brush pen in his LEFT hand for the first time and drew the character above, his first drawing with his left hand. He kept working that hand, and soon began to fill sketchbooks with his appealing characters, gnomes, bearded dwarfs, batmen and batkids, cavegirls and caveboys and naked ladies. I like the shaded line he gets with the brush pen and the way he spots black shapes behind his figures helps to tie them together. The caveboy on the front cover is drawing a caricature of Tim with his left hand. Tim really loves to draw these characters, and almost always has a sketchbook with him. They are really fun to look at, and now he’s published this hardback book so everyone can share his story and the sketches. If you would like to order a copy, Paypal $25.00 to Tim Walker at gobofspitaa@yahoo.com . He will ship your copy to any place on earth. The binding is very nice on this book, it’s printed on beautiful paper as well.
Felix bids goodbye to Punk Chow and Fooy Tu Yu in the dailies from 3-16 to 3-21-1936 as he rides a gas balloon to the sky and boards Fooy’s airplane. Felix steals Fooy’s suitcase containing the diamond and waves goodbye to the escaping crooks. In the Sunday, 3-22, Felix is still trapped in the 6th century waiting for the scientist to bring him back to 1936 with the time-control. Bell-bottomed knights pursue him with axes and hope. Remember, just click on the thumbnails to blow them up.
Offissa Pupp becomes royalty in the Krazy strips from 9-2 to 9-7-1940. The 9-2 is a Herriman rarity, a continuity hold over from the previous week’s story. I like Ignatz’s defiant attitude toward Offissa Pupp’s royal assumptions as he finds that he is a Marquis. Does that make him a Don Marquis?
The Patrick strips this time are from 6-6, 6-7 possibly 6-8 or 6-9, 6-10 and 6-11-1966. There is at least one strip missing this week. Maybe one of my readers can supply it. Summers tended to be a little spotty with the newspaper, as Dad’s vacation time came around, the Post-Dispatch became scarce. Dad didn’t pick up a copy on his way home, he WAS home. Patrick beats Dagwood with his 24 decker peanut butter sandwich and apes Pigpen with mud puddle gags. Mommy is fully visible in the 6-10, a rare appearance.
Charlie Brubaker sent me this very early appearance of Patrick in an anthology strip called “Nibbles”, drawn by Mal Hancock, printed in an Ottawa paper. Â It dates back to 4-17-1961, so Patrick has been around for quite some time for a little-known character. The link doesn’t work too well, so here’s the strip:
Thanks Charlie, for finding this!
Listen my readers and you shall hear a Christmas tale from Bret Harte, author of “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” and “The Luck of Roaring Camp”. Bret was famous for his stories about the California gold rush of 1848 and ’49, and the story I’m reading here: http://www.archive.org/details/HowSantaClausCameToSimpsonsBar/ is a good example of his short stories. It’s called “How Santa Claus Came To Simpsons Bar”, and is a tough yet sentimental tale of “The Old Man” and his sickly kid. It has a lot of Wild West action in the second half, takes about 19 minutes to tell. It is an abridgement of the original story, printed in a book called “Christmas Tales For Reading Aloud”. I’ll try to post again before New Year’s. Thanks for Listening!
Digesting the Expo
Presenting Col. Shuffle and Aces Wild at the CTN Expo, the weekend of Nov. 19-21, Burbank, Ca., after a three day poker game (That’s Jerry Beck on the left, and yours truly on the right). I was just about ready to go home when this was taken; I actually sold four cels from “It’s ‘The Cat'” to friends and strangers at the mighty Expo. Jerry had copies of his books on “Madagascar 2” and “The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes” for sale, which he autographed. In addition to the cels, I sold some scrap film and some Little Orphan Annie collections, one of which was bought by Moebius (Jean Giraud), famous French cartoonist. He watched “It’s ‘The Cat'” on my little monitor and enjoyed it quite a bit. I did not anticipate that this year’s Expo would be an even bigger hit than last year’s. The crowds were really lined up for all the panels and programs. I couldn’t go to any of them, because I was just trying to do business. Speaking of business, you can still buy cels from “It’s ‘The Cat'” anytime, free shipping and DVD included, just go to www.itsthecat.com, and go into the Gallery section. Click on Film Art, and you will be in production cel heaven. While you are there, consider giving something original for the Holidays! Help out my producer Greg Ford, and maybe get “There Must Be Some Other Cat” out a few days sooner. A special thanks to Milton Knight, for contributing to the Greg Ford Fire Fund. You’re now an Ailurophile!
Otto Messmer’s expertise in drawing all kinds of cartoon cats is in evidence in the dailies this time (3-9 to 3-14-1936) but Fooy Tu Yu tricks Felix away from the pound and out of the diamond and throws him into a safe! In the 3-15 Sunday page, Felix is still stuck in the sixth century where even the food is in armor.
Krazy is from 8-26 to 8-31-1940 this time. More puns and mixed associations this week, due to Krazy’s “Kat Langwitch” and twisty reasoning. I love the cow in the 8-30, and Herriman’s staging in the last panel of the 8-31; Ignatz standing on a platform just below the lip of the plateau, as Pupp laments the uselessness of his jail.
Patrick is from approximately 5-31 to 6-4-1966 this time. We learn that Elsa’s last name is “Primstone”, and that she collects movie magazines. Of course, Patrick has no scruples about smashing a bug with one of them. For the next several batches of strips, there will be educated guesses about the exact dates of a few of them, since I didn’t write the info down when I clipped them from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Dad was a little more relaxed about buying every issue of the paper in the summer time. I’m not even sure if these comics are from 1966 or not, they may be a couple of years earlier than that. I met two of my readers at the Expo who really seem to like Patrick, and were a little bit amazed that I clipped them so carefully in my childhood. Comic strips really had me dazzled in those days, they were free (for me), and I really looked forward to each day’s installments of the stories, especially L’il Abner, which also ran in the Post-Dispatch. I’m very happy to have readers who come back to read the strips each post. It’s a little harder to post as frequently over the holidays, but I’ll try!
Taken With A Grain of Salten
Hello everyone! Thanks Charles, Milton and Fortunato for helping to identify the Halloween mystery strip (Muggs McGinnis), and for the nice comments on Vic Vac’s cartoon from the Globe-Democrat. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Felix this time is from 3-2 to 3-8-1936. The adventures of Fooy Tu Yu and Punk Chow continue, as Felix escapes from them with the diamond to the CPS (Cat Protector Society). They shelter Felix, but Fooy pays a tramp to “adopt” Felix from the CPS. Take a look at the last panel in the 3-7, I love the variety of cats in that panel, and the very beat-up black tom cat that the tramp is holding. In the Sunday, Noah tosses Felix off the ark, and the scientist brings Felix forward through Time (400 BC to 490 AD).
Krazy comes to us from 8-19 to 8-24-1940. Bricks hidden everywhere this week, some falling from the sky by parachute. In the 8-23, Offissa Pupp and Ignatz are pining for the school to re-open. In the 8-24, the Elephant’s Feet formation from the Coconino County Navajo Tribal Park is evident in the background. If you haven’t been to Monument Valley, you must go if you’re a Krazy Kat fan. When Cathy and I went there some years ago, my favorite formation in the Park was “The Thumb”. Just a hunk of rock that looked like an 8 foot high thumb. We may run across it in a future KK strip.
Patrick is from 5-23 to 5-28-1966 this time. Godfrey (5-23 to 5-25) is a lot like Charlie Brown. Patrick and Elsa make like Lucy and Patty and beat up on him emotionally. Patrick even uses his fists for “good reasons” in an exact parallel of Lucy and Linus’s dialog. Just let anybody try to make a “Charlie Brown” out of Patrick!  In the 5-26 to 5-28 strips, Hancock reverts to his more familiar gags. They never spare the corporal punishment in Patrick land. Sorry about the tape stain on the 5-28, don’t repair your newsprint clippings with adhesive tape, folks.
I’m still on my Felix Salten kick, I borrowed “Perri” from the library, and read it. Now I’m reading a very obscure Salten entitled “15 Rabbits”. “Perri” turned out to be a very gentle story, compared with Bambi and Jibby the Cat. Perri grows up from babyhood, escapes being killed and “marries” Porro. The main focus of the book, is on the little girl who is under four years old. She can understand animal language and is visited by birds and deer, with whom she converses. Perri and Porro also talk with her. The book concludes as Perri and Porro return to the little girl after many adventures. However, she has aged a year or so, and can no longer understand animal talk. Perri and Porro are very downcast at losing their friend. Kind of a bittersweet ending, especially when you compare it with the Disney “Perri” story, with it’s cute “together time” songs, etc. Bambi and some of the stags from the “Bambi” book make cameo appearances in Perri’s forest and are hunted down by HIM again. There is some killing and blood, but it’s not quite as stark as in Jibby and Bambi. I found an alternate translation of JIBBY THE CAT in the Glendale public library called DJIBI, and it’s even bloodier that the version I have. The farmer gets tired of Jibby, and in the last chapter, throws a flat iron (?) at her, killing her. The killing is offhand, not sentimental at all. It made me wonder what the author’s true feelings about Jibby were. DJIBI is the British version of the book, published in 1946. Speaking of BAMBI, go to http://www.archive.org/details/DeerStoryChap.10 and you’ll hear 19 minutes of yours truly carrying on the oral tradition. I read Chap. 10 of BAMBI, in which Bambi’s mother is killed by HIM. Some of the dialog and situations are close to the Disney film, but the reader can’t help being saddened by Mom’s total inability to protect herself from HIM, and by extension her child. The “don’t fly” line, spoken by the pheasants in the film is here. One of the rabbits dies in a very human way, trying to deny that it’s leg is mortally injured until the very end. The line the old Stag speaks, “Your Mother can’t be with you anymore”, isn’t in the book. Salten has Bambi asking everyone if they have seen his mother, but only concludes that he never saw her again. He spares us the bloody details of Mom’s demise. Please listen in, I don’t make too many mistakes. I lack editing software, so I have to do these in one take!
BOOO!!
Hi Everyone! Happy Halloween! Do you remember when big city dailies had LOCAL cartoonists to decorate their pages? In St. Louis in the 1930s through the 1970s we had “Vic Vac” (Victor Vaccarezza), the “Chief Artist” of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. That’s a picture of him up there in the Globe-Democrat art dept. in 1931. He’s in the middle of the photo, near the trash can. He was very adept at funny “crowd” cartoons, and usually did the holiday front covers for the “Sunday” magazine section of the paper. His aerial perspective reminds me of Dudley Fisher’s “Right Around Home with Myrtle” Sunday pages. He had a great Halloween imagination, I like the little green ghost shoving the moon aside so that the haunted house can be moved. In St. Louis, it was a relatively common occurrence for an older home to be moved from one lot to another, sometimes rolling there on large logs placed under the first floor. This cover is from October 28, 1962.
Also from 1962 is this “mystery” daily drawn by Wally Bishop. I saved a few of these because I like dachshunds (sorry, cats). Our first family dog was a dachsie named Schatzie. One day she ran away from us and never returned! My brother and I loved her, and this strip reminds me of her. The dachshund is called “Junior”, here. Anybody know what the strip’s actual title was?
Felix this time is from 2-24 to 3-1-1936. Felix continues to foil Fooy Tu Yu’s gang, and sits on the chimney to their hide out twice, once to warm himself, and once to “smoke” them out. I love Messmer’s dialog in the 2-29, “Again, I laugh at the villains.” That could be the title of a Felix strip collection. In the Sunday (3-1), Felix says Messmer’s favorite word, “Fine”, and Noah says “So!” in the last panel. Where would Otto be without “So and Fine”?
Krazy this time is from 8-12 to 8-17-1940. The strip’s mostly “for the birds”, featuring three days of bird themed gags. In the 8-15, Krazy takes the term “Watch your step”, literally. Krazy’s strict interpretation of stock phrases also is the basis for the 8-17, in which Krazy reads a barometer.
In Patrick, from 5-16 to 5-21-1966, Patrick is true to form, hitting little Suzy, his most ardent admirer, and getting close to Charlie Brown territory as the baseball game is rained out. Godfrey isn’t called upon to do the “rain, rain, go away” gag, that Linus did so well. Speaking of Peanuts, maybe some of you watched “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” on ABC last week. I enjoyed seeing old friend Bill Littlejohn’s appealing animation of Snoopy and Lucy. I liked the staging of Snoopy’s emergence from the pumpkin patch as one cel just slides north with an eerie sound effect. If this was an ideal world, ABC would have dedicated the hour to Bill Littlejohn, who passed away just a few weeks ago. The Peanuts specials wouldn’t have been as lively without Bill’s funny drawings. Not so very long ago, we used to look forward to animated specials on television. Now they are very rare critters indeed. And I, for one, don’t look forward to them anymore. Now go out and raid your neighbor’s storehouses, that’s what Halloween is for.
More Comics
Hi readers! There seems to be at least some interest in the Felix comics I’m posting, so here’s some more: 2-17 to 2-23-1936. Felix continues to elude the menacing men of China by running away with the diamond. The men fight among themselves and Felix throws onions at them causing a tear gas effect. The way is clear for Felix to escape through the roof. Another Messmer characteristic is to substitute “home remedies”, such as onions, for more lethal things like tear gas bombs. Sort of like making an airplane out of a dachshund and some oxygen balloons. In the Sunday, Felix mucks about with the Professor’s time machine to the Noah’s Ark era, and is rejected from the ark! This page must have looked beautiful in color with all the Messmer animals, but I don’t have it that way.
In the Krazys this time (8-5 to 8-10-1940) Mimi goes on a vacation leaving the principal cast devastated (they are all in love with her). In the 8-10, they learn she has a boyfriend, and revert to type. You will notice in strips such as the 8-8, Herriman put a lot of care into the rugs in Ignatz’s house that change in every panel. A lot of papers ran the strip severely cropped at the bottom, to save space. Because of this parsimony on the part of newspapers, cartoonists had to cram the dialog and the main figure action in the top two-thirds of the strip. Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy was designed that way in the early 1940s and so the Kat was truncated as well. These strips are the full size, top to bottom, so we get to enjoy all of Garge’s beautiful designs.
Patrick in the strips from 5-9 to 5-14-1966 enjoys mistreating Elsa and yelling at a bubblegum machine, while Godfrey eats several of Elsa’s mud pies to avoid hurting her feelings. I’ll bet Patrick grows up to be a spousal abuser.
Thanks for all the great comments on my last post! I will have another BAMBI reading posted soon.
Falling Leaves by the Salten Sea
Hi everyone. We’ve been on a Felix Salten kick lately. I bought a copy of Salten’s JIBBY THE CAT for my wife Cathy’s birthday, and we both read it. It was not the children’s book it seemed to be, but a rather sober and grim look at a cat’s life from both the wild and domestic side. Salten doesn’t spare the blood or the death, and we both laughed and cried reading the book. I had never read Salten’s BAMBI. JIBBY whetted my appetite for more Salten to the point that I checked out BAMBI from our public library. I love the Disney cartoon feature version of the story very much, but Salten’s novel is a very different deer from the Disney version. It’s not so much “love is a song”, but “Can’t you stay by yourself?” Disney’s subtext is the “circle of life”, but Salten’s is that all creatures, including man, are mortal and there is a higher power over us all. I have continued the oral tradition this time by reading one of my favorite deleted scenes from Disney’s BAMBI, the “Leaf Scene”, and also reading Salten’s original version of the scene from Chap. 8 of BAMBI. The Disney script used many of Salten’s lines from the book, but rearranged them and assigned a definite sexual identity to the leaves. In Salten’s book, once a leaf is severed from the limb, it loses all power of speech and life, but in Disney’s script, the leaves seem to have life even as they fall and wind up next to each other on the ground, giving a hopeful quality to the scene. The sketches above are from Robert D. Field’s book “The Art of Walt Disney”, as is the text of the “Leaf Scene”. Early treatments for BAMBI, anthropomorphized not only leaves, but even the raindrops, the original version of the “Little April Shower” song was called “I Like Falling” by Frank Churchill. In it, the raindrops are actually singing about how they enjoy falling from the sky. The screenplay of BAMBI evolved to the point that only the animals were anthropomorphic, and a lot of the proposed cast was dropped, such as a chipmunk and a squirrel character. Disney made major characters out of Thumper the Rabbit, “Friend Hare” in Salten’s version, and the owl, a Screech Owl in Salten’s version. The major change is that the Disney script is a matriarchy, with Bambi’s mother being very central, versus Salten’s patriarchy, with the Old Stag, Bambi’s father, becoming his son’s chief adviser and role model (“Can’t you stay by yourself?”) Here is a link to my audio on Chapter 8: http://www.archive.org/details/LeavesChap.8 . In future posts, I’ll read a bit more from Salten’s BAMBI, it is a remarkable and very affecting book, and really NOT for children.
Felix is from 2-10 to 2-16-1936. Felix and Danny Dooit run from the cobra and it turns on Punk Chow and Fooy Tu Yu. Felix becomes a high wire artist to retrieve the diamond from a clothesline. I like Messmer’s control of graphics to suggest Fooy Tu Yu’s change of mood in the 2/13, in panel one, he has rounded hands and rounded fingers as he talks to Danny, in panel two, Fooy’s hands and fingers change to menacing points as he chases Danny and Felix. In the Sunday, Felix is a hero again, as he retrieve’s the Professor’s radio from a thief. In the next to the last panel, a favorite Messmer word shows up in Felix’s speech: “Fine! It Worked” Messmer used “Fine” over and over again in dialog both in the strip and the comic books. Maybe Otto was a fan of the “Vic and Sade” radio show of the 1930s, one of the characters from that show, Uncle Fletcher (Clarence Hartzell) always said “Fine!”, when he wanted to cover up for his ignorance of a topic.
Krazy is from 7-29 to 8-3-1940. Ignatz is in trouble with his wife for bringing Mimi so many apples, and when Mimi sets up a private school of her own, the principal cast play hooky.
Patrick is from 5-2 to 5-7-1966. Godfrey, Elsa and Suzy wind up on the fuzzy end of an ice cream cone and a baseball bat, and Patrick is on the wrong end of a hypodermic needle.
I completed the scene of animation I mentioned last week. The characters were Private Snafu and the Technical Fairy, for Steve Stanchfield’s upcoming DVD with upgraded copies of all the Private Snafu cartoons, including a few that didn’t make it into “The Complete Private Snafu” videotapes of years ago. I really found myself enjoying drawing the characters, they were designed by Art Heineman to be fun to animate, and they are! Steve liked my animation and the drawings have been shipped to him. I was afraid I couldn’t animate or operate the test computer after such a long time, but it all came back to me. Maybe I’ll get to do another scene someday, maybe not. Experience counts not for a thing in today’s “animation” marketplace. Great working with you, Steve!
Animating again!
Well, thanks to a good friend, I’ve come out of a three year retirement to try animating another scene. The scene is only six feet long, but fairly involved with two characters, plus effects. I’m still doing it with pencils and paper, I’ll tell you if it’s worth bragging about after I shoot a test. I was really scared to try animating again, I admit it, but getting back on the horse was the hardest part. I’m trotting along again, and I’m enjoying drawing for animation.
Felix is from 2-3 to 2-9-1936 this time. Felix and Danny continue to explore Phooey tu Yu’s eerie Chinatown diggings. Keep an eye on that diamond on top of the cobra’s head in the 2-8, it’s going to be very important to Danny. In the Sunday, Felix continues to assist the Professor, but gets blamed for the Prof’s bad luck after a sharpster robs him of his radio. Felix never earns lasting respect from anybody!
Krazy is from 7-22 to 7-27-1940 this time. We continue the story of Mimi’s little red schoolhouse, as a strong streak of vaudeville takes over the strip. I am intrigued with the names of the games in the 7-22, what is “prisoner’s base” and “dug on a rock”? I could look them up, but I prefer to be educated by my readers, anyone know?
Patrick is from 4-25 to 4-30-1966, and is usual the mean little kid is beating up Suzy, Godfrey and his Mom, in that order. What does Suzy see in a brat like Patrick?
Perhaps Jim Tyer drew this picket sign in 1947, the last of our series of Terry picket signs from the strike. Thanks to Charlie Judkins for supplying some of the history behind the strike. I’m chagrined to say I’ve never read all of Tom Sito’s history of trade unionism in animation, “Drawing The Line”. I looked at Jerry Beck’s copy, and there is a whole chapter devoted to the strike, with great photos of Jim Tyer and Eddie Rehberg painting picket signs as only cartoonists can paint them. Jim was not only one of the three greatest animators of all time, in my opinion, but he cared about his fellow artists enough to paint signs and march! Very few Union members today would do that. So many studios, big and small, promise their employees Utopia, pension and health plans that evaporate as soon as the job is over, unpaid overtime, and promises of continued employment that never materialize. Unions are all we really have to help each other, make them better, people! Don’t work overtime (or straight time) for free!!!
Knight, Yoe, Terry, Whew!
Hi Everyone! That beautiful background painting you see up there below Felix is by Milton Knight, one of the last of the rugged American independent Cartoonists! Please go to: http://kck.st/cLaFYo to see Milton’s Kickstarter presentation of his new cartoon: Caprice, Teen of Tomorrow! Milton created Hugo and Midnight the Skunk for independent comic books, and was a key director on the “Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat” TV show some years ago. If you can, give a dollar or two to the production fund for Caprice. The little samples of finished animation are tantalizing and have an unusual take on animated motion that is uniquely Milton’s. He isn’t afraid to exaggerate body parts such as necks, legs and arms to follow through an action. Sometimes the effect is unsettling, but I like it! Milton is cleaning up and inking the action on paper, and then it is put over his backgrounds by aftereffects, I believe. The result is a lot more like his print comics in motion, than traditional cel animation, which looks terrific. Head on over there right now! Give if you can!
My fan and friend, Craig Yoe, who reads this here blog has come out with a beautiful new book on FELIX! The front cover and a sample image (trade ad for the 1927 Felix Daily Strip!) are displayed upstairs. Go to http://yoebooks.com and order up a copy for yourself. It contains beautifully reproduced selections from Felix’s comic BOOK career, drawn by our own Otto Messmer and Joe Oriolo. These range from the Dells, Tobys to the Harvey comics. Of course, I have a special love for the comic STRIP Felix, but I like the comic books too. It’s FABULOUS FELIX FRIDAY! Head on over there and take a look.
The Terry Picket Sign this time reflects what Paul Terry actually did during the strike, hired outside workers to replace his striking staffers. Can you imagine anybody in the industry today caring if an animator has experience or not? Now it’s PRICE that determines everything! No seniority, no union, no nothing can protect the American animator from the relentless march of NAFTA, GATT and Outsourcing! And that goes for traditional AND digital! I love the use of barnyard animals and cute cartoon images on these picket signs, with their eye-catching layouts. It’s a “big-city” concept, illustrated by “hick” images. The last in the series next post.
Felix is from 1-27 to 2-2-1936 this time. Danny Dooit and Felix invade the Chinese gang’s headquarters in search of the diamond and encounter a cobra! In the Sunday, Felix continues to interact with a nutty professor who can broadcast weather in the form of heat and cold. Beautiful Messmer UFA shadows in the 1/29.
Krazy this time is from 7-15 to 7-21-1940. The action mostly centers around Mimi’s classroom and the connection between her school bell and Ignatz’s brick tossing. The 7-15 is not as clear a scan as the rest of the strips, it came from a different source, so please excuse. I love that odd gag in the 7/18, as Mimi grows “Devil Horns” as she keeps her errant pupils after class.
Patrick is from 4/18 to 4/23/1966 this time. Suzy and Elsa do a pretty good exchange in the 4/20, and I love Patricks impassioned plea in the 4/23. Mommy saw through it, however. Enjoy your FELIX FRIDAY everyone, heck try Felix ANY day!
Oral Dorothy One More Time
Continued from last time, the parade of Terrytoons picket signs from the early 1940s. I don’t know who drew this one, but it’s a one-off, original design that looks better than most of the Terry one-sheet posters of the period. Beautifully lettered. By the way, the sign reads: : “A Standard Contract will Put Him On His Feet”, there is a light flare on the original that interferes with the lettering.
In the Felix strips from 1-20 to 1-26-1936, Punk Chow lives up to his name by trying to serve Felix poisoned food. Danny Dooit comes back into the action in the 1-24 and in the 1-25, whistles up a great collection of Messmer dog and cat characters. Look at all the variant cats from the last panel of the 1-25. Otto could draw cartoon cats many different ways. In the Sunday, Otto seems to be making a sly comment on the humor content of the “funnies”.
Krazy this time was originally published 7-8 through 7-13-1940. Ignatz is handled like a disobedient school boy by Mimi and Offissa Pupp, much to the disgust of Molly, Ig’s wife.
Patrick, originally published 4-11 to 4-16-1966 co-stars Godfrey Snodgrass. In trying to convince Patrick that the world is round, Godfrey gets the “Patrick Sock” for his trouble. Patrick sounds like the Global Warming deniers as he declares that he is a firm believer in “Might is Right”.
Last on the programme for this outing is Dorothy Parker’s story from the 1920s: “Here We Are”. This is another of her “bickering couples” yarns, featuring a couple of newlyweds out for a honeymoon trip to New York. It’s another example of her gift at revealing character through dialog. Can anyone supply me a list of her screenwriting credits? Did she receive credit for her Hollywood labors? Just click on the link below to visit archives.org land and listen to your storyteller reading “Here We Are”. (About 14 minutes)
www.archive.org/details/HereWeAre_677
I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you think I should continue reading stories, there are many others I like. Until the next time.
The Great Paul Terry Strike!
Ah, ’twas ever thus. Paul Terry’s artists struck him in the early 1940s, and eventually got an IATSE contract. I have reproduced an image of one of the striking worker’s picket signs. There is nothing more beautifully designed than a cartoonist’s picket sign. That strike was a difficult one for the Terry animators, the boss had built up a backlog of films to release in the interim, and he hired scab workers off the street to replace the strikers. Terry got his final revenge in 1955 when he sold all the rights to his cartoons and his studio to CBS for $3,500,000. He didn’t share a penny of it with his loyal employees. I like the poster of “By The Sea” from 1931, with the great animator Frank Moser’s name above Terry’s. At one point Moser was a business partner of Paul Terry’s (Terry, Moser and Coffman), but his interest was bought out in 1936. Moser’s drawing style was the Terry signature design from the Aesop Fables of the 1920s, right through the early 1930s. I love his very rough, loose, animation style, especially good in the 1920s in cartoons like “Barnyard Lodge #1” and “Do Women Pay?” This is the first of a mini-series of Terry picket signs, more next time.
Felix, from 1-13 to 1-19-1936, follows Felix into Fooy Tu Yu’s house. He is hot on the trail of the diamond, but Punk Chow’s wise. I don’t think I would eat any of “Punk Chow”‘s cooking. In the Sunday, Felix blows a hole out of the mine with a piece of radium placed under the drill bit. Instead of black gold, the miners strike black cat! What a contrast between Felix at the beginning of 1936 and at the end. There is a lot of continued adventure fantasy here that devolves into situation comedy with continuity of little or no importance, like the out-of-work football team in the December strips. Felix is quite a brave little adventurer here, I like him that way.
Krazy, from 7-1 to 7-6-1940 takes place in Mimi’s classroom. Does anyone understand Offissa Pupp’s jargon in the 7-2, where he refers to Krazy as “so Navy”? I like Ignatz’s jealous wife Molly in the 7-4. It’s amazing what a tall poodle with a French accent can do to the citizens of Coconino. They all seem to love her. Except Molly.
Patrick introduces a new character this time, Suzy. In the strips from 4-4 to 4-9-1966, Suzy falls in love with the little brat and gets socked for her trouble. Patrick’s got problems this time, Suzy actually likes getting socked! Don’t give that brat any Easter candy, Bunny! He’s undeserving.
Come back next post for another Dorothy Parker story, the last in the series. Read aloud by your faithful blogger.
Real Quick!
In a rush to do things today, so here’s Felix from 1-6 to 1-12-1936, Krazy from 6-24 to 6-29-1940 and Patrick from 3-28 to 4-2-1966. Enjoy and I hope to be with you all again very soon!
Time Trifles With Felix
At this point, we conclude Felix the Cat for Dec., 1936 with the episodes for 12-28 through 12-31. They continue, but do not conclude the off-season adventures of a football team. Felix does not appear in the 12-28 strip, and doesn’t have another speaking part until 12-31. Obviously this story is too easily sans cat. Now, rather than go into 1937, I’ve decided to stick with 1936 and go back to the first five months of the year that I haven’t reprinted yet. So here is Jan. 1st through the 5th of 1936. You will note that Danny Dooit and family are once again with us, and the story is in progress. Felix is trying to hide a rare diamond from two Mandarin Chinese, Fooey Tu Yu and Punk Chow, which he acquired on the “mystery island” in the 1935 strips. It is really impossible to avoid stereotypes in reprinting old comics, so the first story of 1936 has Chinese men heavily influenced by the Sax Rohmer type of Oriental menace, such as Fu Manchu, a wise but evil Mandarin who was featured in thirteen of Sax Rohmer’s novels, many radio programs, motion pictures and comic strips! Messmer was doing his own comic take on that kind of character and the menacing atmosphere of San Francisco Chinatown. So if this type of tale bothers you, don’t read Felix for awhile. The goal for now is to complete reprinting the Felix strip for 1936.
Krazy is from 6-17 to 6-22-1940 this time. Mimi the Poodle is back in the strip as a schoolteacher. All the Coconino citizens want to be in her classroom, because they all love tall lady poodles. Almost the entire week’s strips hinge on the similarities between the English word “we”, and the French word, “oui”. I like the use of black in the 6-22, as Offissa Pupp sits on the dunce’s chair in the foreground.
Godfrey is almost the star of the “Patrick” strip this week, appearing in half the episodes from 3-21 to 3-26-1966. Elsa is still very star struck in the 3-21 from which Patrick is completely absent. You will note that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has added dialog balloons to Hancock’s strip, in order to make it easier to isolate the speech from the color backgrounds. Mal wasn’t really thinking about how his strip would look in color, and usually just lettered his dialog without the balloons. The Post-Dispatch was about the only newspaper to print it’s dailies in color in the 1950s and 60s. The Post doctored their other daily strips many times to make them more legible in color; I wonder how the cartoonists and syndicates felt about that?
Don’t forget: DON’T BUY BP! Kindly remember the ongoing needs of my good friend Greg Ford in New York City, who recently lost almost every material possession from the last 35 years in a devestating fire. Any donations to his apartment fire fund, no matter how small are gratefully accepted via Paypal at kausler@att.net. Or, you can write Greg directly at: Greg Ford, 115 West 30th St., Suite 1204, New York, N.Y. 10001.Â
Thanks for visiting Milt Gray’s new Viagri Ampleten website! He has received about 12 visitors from this blog and is happy to have the readers. His strip is building many new episodes so just click on the link “Milt Gray” to the right of this column. Don’t forget to leave feedback for him, he wants to get reaction to his project.
Greg Writes a Thank-You Note
To: AMAZING ANONYMOUS WELL-WISHERS
From: GREG FORD
Just digging out of the ashes after our apartment fire, Ronnie and I were traipsing around in zombie-like survivalist mode. Despite welcome assistance from people like musician Virg Dzurinko (who gifted us with temporary headquarters) and my background painter Kim Miskoe (who provided me and Ronnie with a semi-permanent place to stay – we’re still there, in fact!), our reactions following the unpleasant incident tended toward suspicion. That’s because our plight brought out the very worst instincts in the many bureaucrats and public officials we were suddenly forced to deal with.
Speaking for myself, at least, my self/others barometer fell way out of whack, and my expectations of sympathy from fellow-humans were practically nil.
Given my murky mood, imagine my shocked delight when my old friend Mark Kausler surprised us by mailing in a bunch of checks from anonymous donors, the fruits of an impromptu internet campaign covertly engineered by Mark (that must’ve been in late-May, early-June I suspect). Well, I was completely bowled over. I DIDN’T KNOW YOU CARED (to coin a phrase). Mysterious acts of kindness were definitely off my radar at the time, and I was truly touched by the personal messages either attached or verbally conveyed by Mark (the guy who evoked my old-time “Cartoonal Knowledge” animation programs at the Thalia struck a deeply emotional chord ‘cause those shows took place eons ago, for heavens sakes!).
What more can I say? Your generous care package not only helped us get over that week’s financial hump but, much more significantly, gave us a huge spiritual/psychological reboot! PUSS GETS THE REBOOT!
Now I can safely report that Mark’s THERE MUST BE SOME OTHER CAT is gonna be truly spectacular (hopefully in the same organic, patently unpretentious way as Mark’s animation), and that there’ll be lots of other surprises cooked up as well.
Again, thanks so very much to all concerned.
Greg Ford
       Thanks again from me, too for helping Greg and Ronnie. If you haven’t contributed yet, or want to contribute again, just Paypal any amount to me at kausler@att.net. Or, you can write to Greg at: Greg Ford, 115 West 30th St., Suite 1204, New York, N.Y. 10001. I have few readers, but what there is is chersh!
Felix this time, from 12-21 to 12-27-1936, has the off-season football players tackling and kicking hungry Felix around. Felix is permitted in the house for Christmas, but is completely missing from his strip in the 12-26. The Sunday page for 12-27 is Messmer in fine form with an inflatable fish gag.
Krazy this time is from 6-10 to 6-16-1936. Mrs. Kwakk-Wakk is completely puzzled as usual by the Krazy-Ignatz relationship. I like the Kat langwidge in the 6-12 as Krazy tries to get a fan to dance, “Impottabil”, he says in syllables.
Patrick is from 3-14 to 3-19-1966 this time. Patrick’s dad makes his first appearance in the strip on 3-16. It seems Patrick is equally adept at bending both his parents to his will. He also continues to beat up Godfrey and Elsa in the 3-18 and 3-19. I wonder how they can all remain friends?
If you click the link labelled “Milt Gray” to the right of this post, you will see that he has kept his promise, and provided another episode of his “Viagri Ampleten” comic strip. It will be updated again on Friday, July 30th as well. Head over there and enjoy the color and the cleavage! Make sure you send comments to Milt while you’re there, he is getting feedback on his story and characters for a future animated project.
Comic-Con Special!!
Hi Readers, I hope those of you who can attend are enjoying this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International. Cathy and I are showing our paintings at the Glendale Artist’s Studio Tour, which is going on July 24th, so we can’t be there this year. We miss the camaraderie we used to have with friends and fellow cartoonists at Comic-Cons past. The event has grown so huge, so corporate, that you can wander in the dealer’s room for days and not see anyone you know. What started as a few tables and about 100 people trading and selling back issues has now become a repellent mess. The big corporations make fun of the “geeks” they are trying to market their wares to in the Los Angeles Times and the Hollywood Reporter, but they couldn’t hope to make the billions in profits from Batman 20 or Spider-Man 42 without them. It wasn’t so long ago a fan could hang out at the El Cortez hotel swimming pool with Gene Colan or Hap Kliban, watch an impromptu puppet show given by Daws Butler, or snag an autograph on the fly from Charles Schulz. I miss my old pal Vincent Davis very much at this time of year especially, we used to hang out together on the dealer’s room floor, irritating all the dealers and fans as only Vince could. Bob Foster, Marc Schirmeister, Bob Sidebottom, the list goes on and on of friends I miss seeing. The old Comic-Con is gone forever, sorry you missed it. Have fun (if you can breathe) at the new Comic-Con International!
Felix this time is from 12-14 to 12-20-1936. Felix finds employment for the out-of-season football team as they run interference for a woman shopping at a department store and block for her husband as he dodges the bill collectors. The Sunday page has Messmer back on the art as Felix goes fishing with a kite, sort of like wind surfing.
Remember to click on the small strips to see them at reading size!
Krazy is from 6-3 to 6-8-1940 this time. Ignatz has trouble getting a loaf of bread past Offissa Pupp, Pupp thinks it’s a brick in disguise, you see. I love Krazy’s song lyrics in the 6-7 strip as he sings of the birds and the katnip bush. The 6-8 is classic Garge as Ignatz’s teapot literally has a “tempisk” inside of it.
Patrick continues to torture his mommy, Godfrey and Elsa in the strips from 3-7 to 3-12-1966. Elsa is quite the movie fan, she is crazy over Richard Burton (2 strips), Frankie Avalon, Troy Donahue and George Montgomery (?) or Maharis (?). For their bios, just consult Wikipedia or the IMDB.
As always, don’t buy BP or Arco! Take the train down to San Diego and use public trans to get around. They have wonderful trolleys and sedan chairs there. If you want to give to my dear friend Greg Ford’s fire fund: just Paypal to kausler@att.net, or to contact Greg directly, just write him at: Greg Ford, 115 West 30th St., Suite 1204, New York, N.Y. 10001. Please tell him I sent you. Just imagine how YOU would feel if all your comic books that you are paying hundreds of dollars for right NOW on that dealer’s room floor were destroyed right in your own home by a FIRE!! Put yourself in Greg’s place and send him just a few dollars from your comics budget, he’ll really appreciate your kindness. Until the next time, say hi to Shelter and Harbor Islands for me.
Dublin’ Oop!
December 31, 2010
Uncategorized
3 Comments
Mark
Erin Go Braugh! It’s a little early for St. Patrick’s day, but I’m Dublin’ Oop this week anyway, you’ll see what I mean further along. Steve Stanchfield’s magnum opus: Private Snafu: Golden Classics, is now available through Amazon.com or your favorite video retailer. I like it, but the first new animation I’ve done in quite a while is in there, so I’m prejudiced. The transfers are really first rate, almost all of them from 35mm, the few 16mm ones are almost as good as the 35mm stuff. It’s loaded with commentaries from John K., Mike Kazaleh, Eric Goldberg, Jerry Beck and Mark Mayerson! Mark rarely does commentaries, so get the disc just to hear his voice! I listened to all of them, and they seem pretty accurate for the most part, what can you say in three minutes? I can’t help wishing we could have had Bobe Cannon, Rod Scribner, Bob Clampett, Bob McKimson, Cal Dalton and Chuck Jones doing the commentaries, but they are looking on from another dimension. Eric Goldberg did the cover and supplied more than half the commentaries himself. He can spot Ken Harris’s animation almost every time, I can’t tell Ken’s stuff from Benny Washum. John K. didn’t spot Cal Dalton’s animation in “Booby Traps”, but he’s very accurate with the McKimson and Scribner scenes. Even the rarest “A Few Quick Facts” cartoons made it on to the disc. Steve struggled with the 35mm master materials in the National Archives for years to get the copies on this disc. He spent many hours and a lot of his own money to clean these up. The Snafus never looked better, so support the effort, buy two or three and store them away to give as gifts. Maybe donate one to your local library! Auction off your old “The Complete Private Snafu” VHS tapes on Ebay! (Just joshin’.)
Two weeks worth of your comic favorites are my New Year’s gift to you, readers. Here is Felix from 3-23 to 4-5-36. Felix brings home the diamond to Danny Dooit’s family, and the only thanks he gets are Father worrying about his income tax, the tough neighborhood dog wanting his “cut” and the snooty new English butler griping over Felix’s appetite. In the Sundays, Felix comes back to 1936 from the 6th century, and gets locked out of the Professor’s house again in the 4-5 episode.
Krazy is from 9-9 to 9-21-1940 this time. Herriman breaks the fourth wall a few times, in the 9-13, Krazy thanks Garge for the extra ink to disguise his black brick against a black sky. In the 9-14, Ignatz hides behind a fake background on a roller shade. In the 9-18, the Jail is just a set, and in the 9-19, Mrs. Kwakk-Wakk is confused about what is a set and what is real. The mysteries of Coconino continue next time.
The Patrick strips are from 6-13 to 6-24-1966, approximately. Not all the strips have the dates on them, but they are pretty close. Elsa is living her movie star fantasies, which makes Patrick so sick that he can’t slug her. Mal uses a very old joke in the 6-18 (?), “..with some it’s next to impossible.” Patrick lives very much in his own world, insulated by his selfishness, and Elsa, Suzy and Godfrey are each deluded in their own way, but usually serve as pawns for Patrick. Happy New Year, y’all. I’ll try to post more often in 2011, but that’s not a resolution! Remember to click on the thumbnails to enlarge the strips. Thanks for reading.