Post-Post Holiday Post
“Til’ the mistletoe comes down, ’til the evergreen turns brown, once again, there’s Christmas in my heart..” as the old song goes. Here’s a great post-holiday treat, my old pal James (Tim) Walker sent me this original watercolor painting inspired by “It’s ‘The Cat””! Tim has Parkinson’s disease, as anyone who follows his website: www.jamestimwalker.com , knows. He published a book a couple years back called “Drawings From The Left”, which showcased artwork Tim has done with his left hand after the Parkinson’s made his right hand too feeble to hold a pencil. Now, the medical science has advanced to the point that Tim can make a transition back to drawing with his right hand again. The painting above was done with that hand, if he keeps this up Tim will become another Alex Lovy! I love the boldness of this watercolor, the white abstract shapes that stand in for stars, and the crazy, antic pose of Itza. The banana-yellow moon and the ultramarine blue background are eye-catching colors. Tim’s health battles haven’t dimmed his bold approach to color and design. I hope you will enjoy this new painting and visit him on the web!
 My friend and retired post office delivery man Juan Alfonso, did this little pencil sketch for me featuring one of his cute little bear characters. She’s putting the topmost ornament on her tree. Juan is a fixture in furry fandom, he’s drawn many comics for fanzines. I don’t know if he’s done much on the Internet, but you can always Ixquick him. Juan lives in Miami, Florida. He sent me an old Willie Whopper pencil box for Christmas along with this drawing. If you go to Jerry Beck’s Cartoon Research blog, you can find a picture of it there. The Whopper pencil box features scenes from “Davy Jones’s Locker” one of the CineColor Whoppers.
 In Felix from 7-23 to 7-29-1934, Felix is enslaved by the crook into helping him with his burglaries. In the 7-25, it’s a little chilling to hear how dispassionate the crook and the cop are about drowning their cats. The attitude toward felines has definitely softened since Felix’s heyday. In the Sunday, 7-29, Felix is stranded on the abandoned ship and finds that he has company: a crowd of hungry wild animals! Felix is forced to toss them the ship’s food supply to appease them. Maybe next time the animals will be ready for a Felix feast!
 In Myrtle from 4-26 to 5-2-1948, Dudley Fisher pulls a lot of his switcheroo gags. My favorite is the 4-27, as Myrtle’s parents try to figure out which one is the most intelligent while Myrtle hangs out in the backyard with Bingo. I like the 4-30 as well: Sampson’s pop foils Freddie’s boast that he can out run him in a race, by stealing his bathrobe! This is what I mean by a switcheroo, it’s unexpected that Sampson’s pop would resort to bathrobe robbery to thwart a potential defeat. The Sunday page is beautifully organized, as Slug’s car breaks down and the whole town’s talking about it, including the gas pumps!
 Krazy from 8-3 to 8-8-1942 trots out Krazy’s Kat Langwitch by the doleful dropfull. I love the 8-3 as Krazy speculates about what a gingerbread man was as a “Yoot”, and the “Wail”, “Jail”, “Bail” string of words in the 8-4.
 Harvey Eisenberg dazzles again in these Yogi Bear third page Sundays from February, 1965. I love the guest appearance by the forgotten TV star, Quick Draw McGraw, and the carousel gag.
In the next week or so, Yowp at www.yowpyowp.blogspot.com will be putting up these same Yogi pages in the half-page size in black and white, from Canadian newspapers. So keep checking in with the old dog, he never disappoints (he’s a pointer, not a disappointer). C U Soon.
Post Holiday Post
 Wishing you a Merry Un-Christmas and Chanukah! I’ve been spending a lot of time sending out our annual Holiday Card and writing a message on each one. This year the card was based on an actual ornament, which we thought was a very cartoony and quietly subversive one. This is one of the few cards we’ve done that has actual color printing on it, usually I hand-color them. We stalwarts who print and send our Holiday Cards through the mail are a dying breed. More and more greetings are sent out by Email these days. I really appreciate the effort behind an artist-produced Holiday greeting, printed on paper. I especially like the cards that are sent by cartoonists and friends in the “business”. Here are a few of my favorites:
 Here’s my friend Graham Webb’s card. Graham is a tireless researcher on animation history, he’s published two editions of The Encyclopedia of Animated Shorts, and now he’s working on an Encyclopedia of Live Action Shorts of the Twentieth Century. He likes to draw caricatures and turn them into cartoons, this year he’s drawn “Ghost Buster (Keaton)” and says “Have a Spook-Free Christmas”. He could also have called it “Sta-Puffed Buster”.
 June Foray’s card this year showcases her versifying and her dogs! She is a wonderful friend, both personally and for the animated film. She’s been doing voices for radio and cartoons since the 1940s and still continues to do them. My favorite voice she’s done? Midnight the Cat in “The Buster Brown Show” on radio, written by Hobart Donavan. The Annie awards were her idea. She’s recovering from a fall right now, so I wish her a quick recovery.
Here’s Roy and Dann Thomas’s card. Roy, of course, being a long-time writer of comics, mostly Marvel. He’s quite the historian and collector of comic books as well. Roy and Dann (his wife) live on a farm and love to take care of animals. They found the owl on their card lying face-down in the courtyard, and nursed him back to health. Then he was released back into the wild. The light green tinted card is from Marc Schirmeister, a veteran cartoonist and story artist, he almost always draws his own card each year, sent out as a postcard. Santa’s pack seems to look like a giant ass in this one! There’s also a little labor union humor here.
 Here’s Tom and Pat Sito’s card, showing us how Roger and Jessica Rabbit have fun! Tom Sito is a world-class student of world and animation history, a director (Osmosis Jones), animator (Roger Rabbit) and story artist. He is teaching at USC and hoping to be a tenured professor there one day.
Here’s good friends Willie and Rosemary Ito’s card. It shows the legendary layout man’s Disney Productions ID card from 1954, when he was working on inbetweens for “Lady and the Tramp” under the World’s Greatest Assistant Animator: Iwao Takamoto. Willie sent me some Magilla Gorilla layouts he did when I was a kid, and bowled me over with his generosity. He now does wonderful children’s books like “Hello Maggi”, about the life of a child confined at the Manzanar camp during World War 2. Willie has a wonderful collection of Mickey Mouse memorabilia, so now he’s “Steamboat” Willie!
   Leslie Iwerks is another good friend who is the grand-daughter of Ub Iwerks, ( I was lucky enough to meet him in 1968), who remains one of my greatest cartoon heroes and influences. Leslie is a wonderful documentary film-maker, she’s done one on her Grandpa, “The Hand Behind The Mouse”, one on Pixar (“The Pixar Story”) and a great piece called “Recycled Life” on the people who live on the trash dump near Guatemala, Mexico. She’s currently working on a doc. about the Imagineers at Disney.
 I’ve included my friend Bob Jaques’s and Kelly Armstrong’s card, even though he did not draw it, because I think the idea’s funny (and Bob could easily have drawn it). Bob is a long-time animator and animation director, best known for his contributions to “The Ren and Stimpy Show” and the modern update of “Baby Huey” alongside many others. He has a terrific blog on Popeye animators: http://popeyeanimators.blogspot.com , go over there right now and read his post on the Fleischer Popeye cartoon “Onion Pacific”.
Felix, from 7-16 to 7-22-34, continues the Scarecrow Bandit adventure. The Bandit escaped jail last time, and continues to elude the cops and the bulldog. He abducts Felix and manages to pin his subsequent crimes on the hapless cat. Scarecrow can’t get away with this forever! In the Sunday, Felix is stuck on a deserted ship, as the crew leaves for shore with their new-found riches, provided for them by the lonely cat.
 In Myrtle this time, from 4-19 to 4-25-48, Dudley Fisher features mischievous Myrtle mixing up her mater and pater as always. I like the 4-21 as Myrtle is too busy taking a bath to take a gift of an ice cream cone, so Sampson shoves it in the mailbox! The 4-22 is a favorite also, as Freddie tries to lure Bingo to his bath by making a noise like a rabbit, then consulting with a real bunny (“Let’s hear you say something!”) to find out what a rabbit sounds like. We also found the Sunday page this time, as Freddie poses for a picture.
 Krazy, from 7-27 to 8-1-42, explores the half-way point between lines on paper and solid objects in the strips this time. A dog artist draws Ignatz in his cell so realistically that it puzzles the “mice” himself. Offissa Pupp’s badge and buttons appear and disappear as the lines they are drawn with wash away. Ignatz draws a realistic brick on a wooden fence, but another Law Dog censors it. In the 8-1, there are no bricks at all, due to the War materials shortage, and the three featured players take a nap under a tree.
 The Yogi Bear Sunday pages are here from January, 1965, the third-page versions. Yowp, at http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/ will be posting these pages at half-page size in black and white very soon, so keep an eye out for those. Remember to click the thumbnails to see the comics at full screen display. Harvey Eisenberg still has the feel of momentum and action in his drawings in these pages that he must have had in his layouts in the golden days of the MGM cartoon studio. The pose of Yogi throwing the snowball in the 1-3, has that Tom and Jerry quality to it, as does the sled dog being cracked with the whip in the 1-10. The stampede of animals (with the moose silhouette) in the 1-17, and the Ranger sailing on the ice in his ice boat in the 1-31, passed by Yogi with an outboard motor strapped to his back, also have the lively animation layout quality.
Here’s hoping that all my readers will enjoy New Year’s Eve, and that we will all quaff a root beer for Auld Lang’s Syne. See you next year!
CTN Expo!
CTN Expo (11-21 and 11-22-2014) Randall Kaplan explains his proposed feature length macabre cartoon, “Boxhead” to a prospective supporter. That’s a sculpture of Boxhead on Randall’s right. Randall is the son of animation director Yvette Kaplan, and he’s quite a visionary. Years ago, some friends and I pipe dreamed about a “horror” animated feature and sort of laughed off the idea as not having a chance of a hot tamale in Iceland of being sold in the mindset of the then-current animation market. Now time has rolled along and there finally might be enough of a market for a true “scare” or “horror” animated feature to take theaters by storm. Randall has a lot of guts to want to make a feature on his own, all hand-drawn; he will need some help. I told him that David Lynch (director of “Eraserhead”) might really be impressed with the project. If anyone reading this can get in touch with Mr. Lynch, please let me know. It was fun sharing a table for a couple of days with Randall, we had some good talk. Itza and I wish him the best. By the way, Randall animates houseflies really well! If you see his presentation trailer for “Boxhead” you’ll see what I mean.
My half of the Cartoon Research table at CTN Expo. I had many cels from “It’s ‘The Cat'” and “Some Other Cat” for sale and managed to sell three. The faithful Toshiba miniature DVD player completes the “point of purchase” display. I didn’t have much notice that Jerry Beck would have space for me at the Expo, so didn’t bring any “new” cel set-ups, but I still have a few of the older ones. You can buy them too, just click over to the “It’s ‘The Cat'” website: www.itsthecat.com .
The Expo was the usual crowded madness, only more so. There are so many young women and men with good portfolios (most on Ipad display), and I’m afraid most of them are not in the least prepared for the often uncreative and high-pressure environment that the profession can be. To keep your vision and believe in it with all the negativity that can be directed at you, can be quite an exercise in tenacity. If you are not stubborn and have too many self-doubts, you may as well seek other outlets. Remember it’s easier for a big corporation to green light yet another Marvel superhero, Batman or Bugs Bunny resuscitation, than to take a chance on a young filmmaker’s new dream. I noticed that many young people draw in a Glen Keane/Cal Arts character style, maybe too many. I didn’t see a whole lot of graphic originality at the Expo, so Randall’s project really stood out to me as a lodestone that might just pull some risk-takers into it’s orbit.
Felix (7-9 to 7-15-34) just can’t get no respect. After giving the reward for the capture of the Scarecrow bandit to the Yiminy family, Felix finds that they have gone “high-hat”. They don’t want him in the house damaging the “snappy” furnishings (“snappy” was a popular slang word of the 1930s), the pasture has become a golf course, and the horse, cow and goat don’t like their gentrified barn. To top it off, the Scarecrow bandit breaks jail and uses Felix’s tail for a fake jail bar (see the 7-14). In the Sunday, Felix continues his fish ride away from the Antarctic, and winds up under the sea. Felix must be part cat-fish, as he is able to breathe underwater. He finds a treasure chest and becomes a hero to the crew of a passing ship as they pull him out of the sea, chest and all.
Myrtle (4-12 to 4-18-1948) is her irrepressible self in the strips this time. She’s punished for making faces in the 4-14 by standing 20 minutes in the corner. In the 4-16, she has a bet on with her Dad that she can’t sit still for ten minutes without giving the impression that she’s sick, and in the 4-15, Myrtle gets scolded for talking curtly to Hyacinth the cat! The Sunday page is included, Freddie’s driveway gets no respect from his neighbors, Sampson or Bingo the dog.
Krazy (7-20 to 7-25-1942) is influenced by WW II’s rationing of essential materials this week, notably, iron, clay and brass. Offissa Pupp’s jail is missing it’s bars, locks and hinges because they are iron and collected for the scrap drive. Ignatz’s bricks are gone, because clay had to be conserved as a rationed substance, and even Pupp’s badge and buttons are in danger of being collected, since they are made of brass. But in the strip for 7-25, an artist cheers up Ignatz by painting a very realistic brick on a wooden fence. “Mickey Angelo couldn’t have done better”, sez the artist. The gentle and hopeful artist might have been George Herriman, himself.
Yogi Bear (December 1964), with the strip for 12-6 missing. Maybe we didn’t get the paper that day, ’twas a long time ago. In the 12-13, I love the panel where Yogi gets his tennis racket/snowshoe idea suggested by Boo-Boo.  A miniature Yogi hits his head with a mallet (Panel 5)! The Christmas tree gag in the 12-20 is kind of heartwarming, as Yogi donates his ill-gotten shrubs to the boy scouts (I’ll bet Bill Hanna liked that). I love Yogi’s super-tolerant expression in the 4th panel as Mister Ranger chews him out. Harvey Eisenberg was great at drawing story-telling faces. The 12-27 is a wintertime butt joke, as Yogi’s fur gets worn off in two strategic spots.
I heard today that a good friend of puppets and animation, Bob Baker, has passed away. Bob ran the Bob Baker Marionette Theater in downtown L.A. for many years, putting on some imaginative shows, like his version of “The Nutcracker”. I first met Bob when I was part of an animation peer group at the TV Academy. If I had known then that Bob was one of George Pal’s stop-motion animators on the Puppetoons, I would have asked him more questions! Later on, I got to hear more of his stories as we chatted on the phone every year at Christmas after he got my card. Bob was also a big fan and supporter of Itza Cat; I sent him screeners of the two shorts, and he thought they were funny. When I worked at Renegade Animation, the whole studio went to see the Marionette Theater’s holiday show, followed by Balian Ice Cream in cups! (Balian ice cream is a Los Angeles institution.) Bob told me an interesting story about the making of a Puppetoon called “Jasper’s Booby Traps”, which called for miniature props that used real food loaded with Puppetoon dynamite. There were miniature (and some full size) steaks, pies, pork chops and a Technicolor maraschino cherry. Bob was in charge of all the props, and he left them out in the studio overnight to prepare for an early morning shoot the next day. When the animators and cameramen showed up, all the food had been consumed by the studio rats while the building was closed. It caused quite a delay in production! Bob, you will be sadly missed.
Post-Halloween Post
 I think the years are passing by with incredible rapidity, so let’s slow down just a little before we crash into Thanksgiving and remember Halloween! Cathy and I had fun on Halloween, and I’m not over it yet, so here’s a photo of our pumpkin and a pair of skeleton bikers. The pumpkin is a tribute to “The Scream”, the painting and the movie, and the bikers were among the street decorations on Alegria Street in Sierra Madre, Ca. I love how the wheels and the motors of the motorcycles are made entirely of carved pumpkins. The folks who put these up go all out every Halloween and even grow their own giant pumpkins in the back yard for carving. They put up a dragon on their front walk which was composed entirely of carved pumpkins tied together to form the long, segmented body. You can see why I’m still back there on Oct. 31st!
 It looks like Felix has finally escaped from Antarctica in the Sunday from 7-8-1934. The explorers put him out of the igloo for the night, but the nights are six months long in Antarctica, so Felix flags down a big fish and gets a ride out on the Arctic ocean. In the dailies from 7-2 to 7-7-1934, Mr. Yiminy gets a big reward for Felix’s capture of the scarecrow bandit, and ties up an IRS man when he shows up to collect the taxes on it. Mr. Yiminy is showing his country gentleman side, now that he can afford it. How much longer will Felix keep his new home, before the Yiminys decide that he isn’t “chic” enough for them with their newfound one-percent status?
 In Myrtle, from 4-5 to 4-11-1948, Dudley Fisher entertains us with the newly discovered prowess of Bingo, Myrtle’s dog, as a baseball pitcher. In the 4-8, Bingo learns to fetch and brings Papa the garbage, in the 4-9 and 4-10, the talented Dog is actually able to toss a ball with his front right leg just like a human. I like the 4-10, as Myrtle’s folks try to take all the credit for Bingo’s pitching, but all Bingo gets out of it is a sore leg! The Sunday page is here, too, with a wonderful Fisher 3/4 downshot of the Right Around Home gang finishing the repairs on their fishing boat.
 In Krazy from 7-13 to 7-18-1942, there isn’t much continuity. I like the 7-14 strip, composed of one word of dialog, “Hepp”, started by Kat and picked up by Pupp, ending with a disgruntled “Mice”. Hepp-Hepp was an oft-repeated swing era phrase, used in a popular song called the “Jumping Jive”, maybe Garge was reflecting it’s influence here. In the 7-15, there is a nice little exchange between Krazy and an “Ommy” worm, reflecting the military timeliness of 1942. There is a choice bit of Kat Langwitch in the third panel as Krazy says “Figgood Nitz sake, how did you get in the ommy?”, to which the worm replies “Nee”, meaning he was born into the “Ommy”. In this daily we also can see the little stage set footlight decorations that Garge favored, evolving into the edge of a pond. The cross-hatching in the first panel with Krazy emerging from it’s midst, conveys an ethereal existence for the Kat, he materializes out of ink lines! See you again very soon!
Your Comics Page 10-31-2014
 
 In Felix 6-25 to 7-1-1934, the story of the scarecrow bandit continues, Felix and his Yiminy Farm animal buddies capture the crook to the amazement of Pa Yiminy. In the Sunday, Felix continues his Arctic adventures. His usual dilemma is trying to stay warm; at first he plugs up the igloo chimney, then finds that being juggled on the end of a sea lion’s nose is very warming. Remember to click on the smaller strips, to see them full size.
 In Krazy, 7-6 to 7-11-1942, Garge does a whole week of animal puns. My favorite, Krazy’s “Kat Langwitch” in the 7-6. He clarifies that an “allium cepa” is the “Siam Tiffic name for an onion”. There are two, count ’em, two “Gnu” gags, the 7-11 one inviting the reader to provide the answer to a riddle.
 In Myrtle, 3-29 to 4-3-1948, there is a week of general hub-bub around Myrtle’s home town. My favorite is the 4-3, as Myrtle’s dog Bingo is convinced that his lady love Lillian is waving to him from her window, when she’s really just drying her nail polish! The 3-29 is a close second, as Myrtle blows her Mom’s cover and waits for some non-existent cookies.
 Here’s Yogi Bear from November, 1964. The 11-29 isn’t very PC by current standards, but the Indian designs are cute, and I like Yogi’s attitudes as he slips and trys to gain traction on the ice. A close runner-up is the 11-22 final panel as Yogi goes into spasms of pain from being hit on the shin by a rug-beater. In the 11-15, Yogi swipes a chapter from Stepin Fetchit’s gag book, as the “laziest bear in the world”, he blends jumping beans in his pancake batter so that they flip themselves. You can see the top tier of these Sunday pages on Yowp’s blog very soon. Go to www.yowpyowp.blogspot.com  and check out his comments as the great Harvey Eisenberg continues to inspire you with world-class cartooning.
I haven’t been blogging much lately. I’ve been doing household maintenance stuff, painting and sanding the back steps and fixing some windows in the downstairs shop that have not seen a coat of paint in more than 22 years! I hope you all have a real great Halloween and don’t eat too much high fructose corn syrup-laced treats. Also, keep away from that “liquid candy”, namely booze. Or as we say in Halloween speak, BOOOOOze. I’ll be seeing you soon.
Your Comics Page 9-30-2014
 Last day of the month, and I haven’t posted in quite a while. Since this is the Catblog, here’s a little pen sketch I made from a cat calendar. I love to sketch cat faces, and Arsage has such beautiful eyes, and I like how she’s threaded her body through the rungs of the chair she’s sitting in. Of course working from life would be even more fun, but you work with the models you have on hand.
 Felix this time from 6-18 to 6-24-1934, continues to search for the stolen money that the scarecrow bandit left on the Yiminy farm. The week is spent on farm and animal gags until Henrietta scratches up the loot in her hen pen. The Sunday continues the saga of Felix in Antarctica. He spoils the explorers’s photograph of the South Pole by sitting on it, then he brings back the capsule they tried to plant on the pole. When Felix is good, he’s very, very good, but…..
 Myrtle is from 3-22 to 3-28-1948 this time. My favorite daily is the 3-26. Myrtle tries to smooth over things for her Dad, who keeps forgetting his wife’s birthday: “Cheer up! (she tells her mom) He only forgets it once a year!” In the Sunday “Right Around Home” page, from 3-28, Dudley Fisher reveals a Lewis Carroll side and works a mathematical problem into the comic. If you can’t figure out the number of coins in $1.14, don’t despair, I’ve included the solution from The Lima News for you. This will sharpen your knowledge of algebra!
 In Krazy this time, 6-29 to 7-4-1942, Krazy is a hypnotist, then a flea carrier. She can hypnotize almost anyone, even herself, but her attempt on Mrs. Kwakk-Wakk has an unexpected result. I love Krazy’s expression in the third panel of the 7-3, as her flea passenger bites her. The flea resembles some of Garge’s drawings of Archy in his illustrations for Don Marquis’ “Archy and Mehitabel”.
 In the Yogi Sunday pages for October, 1964, we find a Mr. Magoo type nearsighted joke, a rare Cindy bear appearance, and some very funny Ranger Smith poses as Yogi’s ego is deflated by a balloon, and is inflated by a mirror. Watch Yowp’s http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/ blog for his upcoming analysis of these fine Sunday pages by Harvey Eisenberg. Sorry this post was so long in coming, it takes time to put all these comics together. A robot comment about “Mangy on the Fence” criticized the title of the piece as being unexciting. The robots keep trying to get me to up my readership by getting in to scandal sheet Kardashian type territory. Sorry robots, we mainly deal in gentle fantasy here, that’s a bit out of fashion in a world with wars that last more than a decade, with the climate falling apart all around us. But this blog should give my readers a vacation from all that negativity. I’ll see you again soon.
Mangy on the Wall
 Remember the theme song of Walt Disney’s “So Dear To My Heart”? You’re looking at a cat right now that I think of whenever I hear that song. Her name was Mangy. She lived at my wife Cathy’s little house in Sierra Madre, Ca. Cathy rescued her from starvation and a bad case of mange on her back. Mangy became a very loyal domestic cat after that and lived with Cathy for the rest of her life. Cathy immortalized her in several stories in her “Mad Raccoons” series of comics in the 1980s and 1990s. You can see all of Mangy’s comics on this blog’s archives, just search for them. I just recently got a copy of this photo of the REAL Mangy, and thought I’d share it with my Catblog readers. She was an incredibly sweet little black cat, but when I paid her more attention than she required, she let me have it with her front paw. She never had her claws out, and Cathy once drew a caricature of her with a boxing glove on her paw. This post is in memory of her.
One of my three readers, Thad Komorowski, has a friend who figured out at least part of the “Where was Ducky?” mystery first presented a couple of posts ago. The office Ducky is standing in, might be a French embassy, because the portrait on the wall is of Pierre Mendès France, French Prime Minister 1954-5. Maybe it’s a publicity session promoting the Jane Russell movie: THE FRENCH LINE, if so, the next question is where’s Howard Hughes? Again, a lifetime subscription to the Catblog for the reader who correctly solves the mystery.
 Krazy is from 6-22 to 6-27-42. Herriman uses a few old sayings such as “A cat may look at a king” and “Every dog has his day” as the basis of the 6-23, 6-24 and 6-27-42 strips. My favorite is the 6-22, which has a pun woven into Krazy’s “Kat Langwitch”. “Cat’s Paw, no doubt..”
 Myrtle is from 3-15 to 3-20-1948. My favorite gags this time are the 3-15 with Hyacinth the cat playing with the goldfish, and the 3-17 in which Myrtle sits on a wall and eats Bingo’s dog food. Why? Bingo ate her ice cream cone. When my brother and I were little, we sometimes ate our dog’s biscuits. They didn’t taste too bad, but were pretty tough and gritty. It’s surprising what a kid will eat when he’s hungry.
 Felix is from 6-11 to 6-17-1934. The dailies continue the story of the “Gentleman of Seizure” as he calls himself. He sheds the scarecrow outfit from last time and dons a stolen cop’s uniform. Mr. Yiminy and his family are so gullible that the phony cop fools them into “Protecting” all their jewelry and Mr. Yiminy’s crop money. Felix isn’t in his own strip much this week, but manages to return all the stolen goods in the 6-16. We’ll see how long the Yiminys are beholden to Felix this time. In the Sunday, the pole explorers aren’t loyal to Felix at all, but lock him out of their igloo and airplane. What follows feels a lot like an animated cartoon, as Messmer uses progressive panels to show a sled dog rolling in a snow ball and gaining enough volume for Felix to get a new igloo home. Don’t you think it’s fun having a place on the web where you can read the classic Felix, Krazy Kat and Myrtle strips for free? Make sure you keep the Internet a place that has equal access for all, write to the FCC and demand they declare the Internet a public utility! Do it today!
A visit from Tuxy!
 Here’s a photo of an infrequent, but very welcomed visitor to our vicinity, Tuxy the Cat! Tuxy’s owners call him “Jet”, and live about three blocks from here, downhill. I call him “Tuxy” because I made his acquaintance a long time before I discovered where his real home was, and I needed a name to call him by. Every once in awhile, a couple of times a year, their cat appears in our front or back yards and wants some attention. He loves to be petted and I give him some organic cat snacks. He likes to come inside for awhile and explore. The photo above was snapped during his most recent sojourn around the living room. If you look closely, you’ll see a faint image of Tuxy’s head as it starts to turn to stage right, so I caught him in motion. He’s got such an appealing face, black and white markings and a rather short tail. I just love having him around. Sometimes he shows up at the back door at night and enters the computer room. He jumps up in my lap and stays for a few minutes while I type or read. After he becomes bored with our house he faces the door and I let him out so that he can re-join his folks. They take excellent care of him, his coat is always brushed and he’s well-fed, although not too fat. If he were my cat, I would not let him roam the neighborhood, too many coyotes and cars around here. When a long time goes by and I don’t see him, I’m fearful that he’s worn his Tux into cat heaven, but he always re-appears. Long live Tuxy!
 Here’s Krazy from 6-15 to 6-20-1942. The second World War was starting to show up in Coconino by this time. In the 6-19 and 6-20, an “Army” worm shows up after a “Naval” orange and a “Navy” bean, and Ignatz dons a Civil War cap and tries to interrogate Krazy, who remains obdurate. Krazy does not take the War very seriously in the strip, it’s just something to use for gags and props. I love the last panel in the 6-16, as Krazy picks up a brick to throw at a wise-cracking dog, “Ignatz duds it, wy not me–“.
 Myrtle from 3-8 to to 3-13-1948 is full of Dudley Fisher’s unique turns in logic. My favorite strip features Hyacinth the cat scaring a very nervous Sampson out of his ice cream cone (the 3-9). Cats really do like to lick melted ice cream off a sidewalk or a dish. The 3-11 has Fisher’s comedy timing, as Freddie gives Sampson a lecture on economy and credit, then borrows a dollar from the boy. Fisher reveals Freddie’s taking ways in the last panel: “Your Pop borrowed it!”
 Here’s Felix from 6-4 to 6-10-1934, continuing his time with the Yiminy family on their farm. The family continues to be suspicious of Felix as more eggs and milk disappear from the place. All this thievery is really the work of a crook who hides in Yiminy’s field disguised as a scarecrow. What a great way to hide out in plain sight! Felix continues his Arctic adventures as he cleverly eludes the sled dogs. What would Yukon King do in a case like this?
 Here are the Yogi Bear Sundays from September, 1964, art by Harvey Eisenberg. These are of course, the third page versions. Yowp, at www.yowpyowp.blogspot.com, will no doubt be presenting the half-page versions of these comics at his blog in black and white. Keep checking over there to see the strips and his commentary. Yowp has one of the best cartoon blogs around, he even mentioned Carmen “Max” Maxwell in his latest post, so put him in your favorites. I like the 9-13 (click to enlarge), which has a rare view of Yogi without his pork pie hat, and a very stylized leprechaun, and the 9-27, which has a really old vaudeville punch line, probably used by the Marx Bros. in their skit “Fun in Hi Skule” back in the 1910s.
Too bad nobody filled me in on where Ducky Nash was in the photo I ran last post. Thad, one of my three readers, seems to think it might be an RKO Radio function feting an actress, but it’s only a guess. RKO Radio Pictures, of course, was Walt Disney’s distributor in the 1940s and early 1950s.
Where Was Ducky?
In imitation of Mike Barrier’s infrequent series over at his blog: www.michaelbarrier.com; he calls “Where Was Walt?”, I’m starting a one-part series called “Where Was Ducky?” This is a mystery photo with which my brother gifted me, that shows Clarence “Ducky” Nash with his Donald Duck ventriloquist dummy (Ducky was NOT a ventriloquist), at what is evidently a signing ceremony for the lady sitting at the desk. Was she an actress? My brother thinks she might be Jane Russell, but she doesn’t look like Miss Russell to me. Who are the rather grim faced bunch of gentlemen in the picture with the actress (?) and Ducky? Why is there a crucifixion wall hanging behind them, and who is the man in the framed portrait on the right side of the photograph? I think it must date to the 1949 to 1955 period, because that’s the later edition of the Duck Dummy. If any of my readers can tell me anything about this photo, you’ll get a free subscription to this blog! (Oh, you say you already get that? We’ll give you the Stan Lee no-prize instead.)
In Krazy, 6-8 to 6-13-1942 this time, we have many delicious examples of Kat-Langwitch. “Kettle” in the 6-8, “Wekkum-Klinna” in the 6-10 and in the 6-13, Krazy’s accent is mistaken by a bullfrog in the pond as he mistakes “Fog” for “Frog”. Krazy even throws a cobble-rock at the Frog in the third panel, a slapstick turn in which the Kat rarely “inwulges”.
Myrtle is from 3-1 to 3-6-1948 this time. This being the Catblog, I will point out one of Hyacinth the cat’s rare appearances in the 3-3. In a typical Cat behavior, Hyacinth cozies up to Myrtle to get in on fresh milk. The 3-5 is very funny, as Myrtle’s Mom tries to lure errant husband Freddie back home from bowling with a lemon cream pie she hasn’t even made yet!
I predicted last time that Yimmy Yiminy would be Felix’s protector since the Yiminy family adopted him in the last batch of Felix the Cat dailies. In the strips from 5-28 to 6-2-1934, Otto’s proclivity for getting Felix in to tight jams continues and Felix is accused of stealing ducks and milk from the Minnesota farm. Here’s another prediction, Yimmy will find a way to clear Felix’s name very soon. In the Sunday, from 6-3-1934, Felix continues to be lost in the Antarctic blizzard and Danny Dooit and his kid brother want to save him with snow shovels.
I’ll be posting some new cat photos next time to cheer you, until then this is your faithful Catblogger, purrr-suing the mews!
Your Comics Page 7-24-2014
Scout is scouring the shelves in the komics kitchen to find this post’s oldies for you.
Scout turns up Krazy from 6-1 to 6-6-1942. Garge starts a promising story line in the 6-1 about Ignatz wishing he was twins, and Krazy “witching” she was “twims” in the 6-2. Rather than draw two sets of Kats and Mices, the twin Ignatzes are just suggested in the 6-3, not actually shown. The real winner for this week is the 6-5, told entirely in pantomime as Offissa watches the unseen brick hurtling over his head and puts Ignatz in his jail cell in the last panel. This strip assumes such comfortable familiarity with the tropes of the Krazy Kat characters, that explanation isn’t necessary.
Myrtle this time is from 2-23 to 2-28-1948. The 2-24 is very funny, with Myrtle slopping up her Mom’s kitchen to show her a leaky garbage can, and the 2-28 highlights Bingo’s sacrifice as he takes Myrtle’s punishment. Freddie’s choice of words, “..you’ve got to learn to mind!” seems to apply to dogs more than little girls, anyway.
Felix is now the responsibility of Olaf Yiminy and Yimmy Yiminy, in the strips from 5-21 to 5-27-1934. Mr. Dooit ships Felix to Olaf while he takes the family on vacation, and poor Felix has to deliver himself to Mr. Yiminy’s house to save him the 5 bucks delivery fee. This endears Felix to the very cheap Mr. Yiminy. Of course his son Yimmy is going to be Felix’s great defender. In the Sunday page, Felix is snubbed by the sled dogs, and then he’s forced to pull the sled with every dog riding it. It’s lucky that Felix is at the South Pole or he’d really sweat from pulling that heavy load.
The Yogi Sundays from August 1964 are here! Yowp whose blog is located at: www.yowpyowp.blogspot.com is the unofficial champeen Hanna-Barbera historian, and claims that he can no longer supply the half-page Yogi Sunday comics from his Canadian newspaper archive sources. So here are the third-page versions that I clipped from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch back then. The 8-2 and 8-16 strips are still on the “Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear” promotional band wagon. Yowp was especially interested in the 8-16, as Yogi’s namesake, Yogi Berra, the baseball man is shown in caricature. The key artist on these is Harvey Eisenberg, I don’t know if he did Mr. Berra’s caricature or not. (By the way, Don, if you want me to send you scans of any of these pages for your own blog, you have only to ask.)
I don’t know how to block robot comments on this blog, so she’s wide open for the one-size-doesn’t-fit-all letters we get by the ton. Most of them say, “Your blog is very well-written, I learned a lot from it”, or “what a wonderful article” or “I’ll bookmark your site and visit often”. If only these comments came from real people and not from gmail or insurance companies or other instant mail generators. Robots, if you want your comments to be seen by my readers, you’re barking up the wrong cat! Bug off, or I’ll send you to the moon, with my magic spoon!
Your Comics Page 7-8-2014
Scout welcomes you into the inner sanctum of her Comics Room for a new batch of old stuff!
KK is from 5-25 to 5-30-1942 this time. You’ll note that all the gags except the 5-30 are potted plant jokes. Sort of Organic Krazy. The Kat Langwidge in the 5-27 stumped me for a bit, but I figured it out: “A Wiolet, same size as it were less wigg..” , that’s “last week” in the Kat tongue. The 5-25 was derived from the San Antonio Light of the same date, so much for the completeness of the King Features Archives.
Myrtle is from 2-16 to 2-22-1948 this time out. There are a lot of animal gags this time, featuring Hyacinth the cat, Junior the dog and Ebuceci the exotic Alaskan dog. Being that this is the Catblog, pay special attention to the 2-17, as Myrtle begs Hyacinth to catch just “One Little Mouse”, to cover her cookie thievery. We also have the Sunday page from 2-22, with Dudley Fisher’s patented downshot type layouts. These should be Uncle George’s favorite strips (that’s really an inside joke)!
Felix’s luck runs hot and cold as usual in the strips from 5-14 to 5-20-1934. Felix escapes the gas chamber at the Dog Pound, and gets back in the good graces of the Dooit family. It seems that the bulldogs he freed from the Pound were the property of a wealthy dog breeder and he rewards Mr. Dooit with a big check for Felix’s brave deed. However, Mr. Dooit decides to take the family to Europe with Felix’s check, and boxes Felix up to send him to Uncle Olaf for safe keeping. We’ll see what kind of cat care Felix gets from Olaf next time. In the Sunday, Felix gets into a chase with a fierce sled dog in Antarctica and gets a prop plane flying by mixing it up in the propeller with the aggravated canine. The pilots at last make Felix their mascot. I wonder how long will Felix’s good fortune last in the frozen wastes?
CU Soon!
Scout welcomes you to sit down at her table and read another blog post with more of your favorite comics!
Here’s Krazy from 5-18 to 5-23-1942. It’s mousecellaneous gags this week, some featuring Ignatz and some Offissa Pupp. In the 5-21 and 5-23, Herriman uses his Coconino Stage idea for knothole gags in the floor. Can anyone tell me what Ignatz is poking Offissa Pupp in the face with in the 5-21? I guess it could be a billy club, but Ignatz usually uses bricks! The 5-23 Saturday strip was culled from the San Antonio Light of that date. It’s interesting that the King Features Syndicate archive has so many holes in it, and that the strips they use on their Comics Kingdom website rarely go back earlier than 1936. It’s also interesting that some times they claim not to have a strip in the archive, say an old Barney Google, only to find that the reason they claim they don’t have a particular strip, is because it contains an appearance by a comical black porter, or has an ethnic gag in it that they don’t feel comfortable in reprinting. Here’s another example of a big business, in this case the Hearst Corporation, making profit from comic strips and characters that in many cases are 80 to 100 years old, and yet not held responsible for maintaining a complete archive of their features and strips! I suppose that means that KFS relies on collectors and library sources and collections of old newspapers for the truly vintage material. It seems strange to me that they could be reprinting the early Segar material, like “The Five-Fifteen” or Thimble Theatre before Popeye, but because they don’t have that material, they resort to recent strips like “Quincy” or “Boner’s Ark” and try to convince us that they are old classics. I am a devoted reader of Comics Kingdom, but as an archive, it’s pretty chewed up.
Here’s Myrtle, 2-9 to 2-14-1948. This week, it’s pure fantasy as Dudley Fisher presents Supersonic Cecil, the baby bird that breaks the sound barrier! Alice and Archie, the two sparrows who are running characters in “Right Around Home”, hatch out their offspring, Cecil, who demonstrates remarkable flying ability for a youngster. Cecil flies so fast that he breaks Sampson’s watch a couple of times. In the 2-14, Cecil comes in for a landing and uses a wheel from Sampson’s broken watch as landing gear. 
Felix, from 5-7 to 5-13-1934, again eludes some crazy looking Messmer bulldogs, by providing them with a giant dinosaur femur to eat. The dogs are rounded up by the pound, but Felix steals a key from the dogcatcher and frees them all, saving them from the gas chamber. In the Sunday, Felix continues his adventures with the two aviators in Antarctica and makes a soft mattress for himself out of walrus whiskers. 
Yogi Bear Sundays are from July, 1964, clipped from the St. Louis Post Dispatch back then. Yogi continues his Hollywood adventures in support of his debut feature film: “Hey There It’s Yogi Bear”. In the 7-5, we see a caricature of Zsa-Zsa Gabor, (real name: Gabor Sari, Miss Hungary of 1936) who evidently was a close neighbor of Joe Barbera in the Studio City neighborhood where he lived. The cartooning by Harvey Eisenberg is quite strong in the 7-26. I love Yogi’s disdainful attitude in the fifth panel, and Mr. Casholder’s attitudes in panels 4 and 7 are delightfully over the top. Layouts this strong would have been welcome in the Yogi Bear TV cartoons of the period, but often the background drawings were better than the character attitudes in those episodes. Cels For Sale!!
 In response to at least two requests, we’re making six cel set-ups available from our 2013 production, “Some Other Cat”. These are some of the last of their kind, original, hand inked and hand painted cels created by some of the best in the business, notably our “Igor”, who inked nearly every cel with Itza Cat in it, and that’s quite a few. Just click on the thumbnails above to see them full-screen. The backgrounds are photo-reproduced, and each set-up comes with a DVDr of “Some Other Cat”. Three of the set-ups come with the original animation drawings mounted on the back: the silhouettes on the shade, Pearly’s hand about to grab Itza and Itza with the big heart over his head at Pearly’s mailbox. These one-of-a-kind art pieces are $100.00 apiece, or $80.00 apiece if you’re taking two or more. They make great gifts, and you’ll be helping to support a rare independent animated short that actually employed traditional ink and paint artists! If you’d like to take one of these cats home with you, just leave a comment below, or write to kausler@att.net, and we’ll make all the arrangements.
 The Krazys are from 5-11 to 5-16-1942. In the first panel of the 5-12, Ignatz mentions many African animals by their correct names (smart mouse!) such as the Eland (Savannah Antelope) and the Okapi (zebra giraffe). I love the abstraction of the last panel, as Krazy hops over a lot of geometric hedges as Ignatz and K. discuss the “Mountains of the Moom”. The last three strips for the week show Ignatz’s brick ingenuity using geothermal, hydro-fall and a “nesting” brick disguise in the 5-16. Next post I will discuss and criticize King Features Syndicate’s rather loose attitude toward their archives, which they exploit on the website “Comics Kingdom”.
 In the Myrtle dailies from 2-2 to 2-7-1948, Ebuceci the Alaskan dog has a prehensile tail that can hold bones when it has a glove attached to it. Of course Bingo is very jealous, for when he tries to hold a bone with a glove attached to his tail, he’s just “all thumbs”. In one of Dudley Fisher’s rare flubs at visual humor, the 2-7 is a little inept. It appears that Myrtle is trying to paint the fish bowl black so that the family’s pet goldfish can’t see her stealing cookies. In the third panel, I can’t make out exactly what Myrtle is doing, is she using a fountain pen, or a brush, is that an inkwell she’s dipping her pen into, or just a flat dish? If you readers can explain this one, please comment. Just click the thumbnail image above, to see it larger.
 Felix continues his running battle with bulldogs in the dailies from 4-30 to 5-5-1934, and in the Sunday from 5-6-34, encounters walrus at the South Pole (is that possible?). Mr. Dooit tries to fend off the bulldog that’s been chasing Felix these last few weeks in the 4-30, then the owner of the Kennely Kennels shows up to pick up the miscreant dog, but leaves another one in it’s place. Messmer is just about as good at creating funny cartoon dogs as he as with felines. Just look at the crowds of canines in the 5-4 and 5-5. There is something quietly humorous about Otto’s dialog balloon placement sometimes, witness his little “bow” balloon in the last panel of the 5-4. In the Sunday, the Funny Films topper has a little lady who reminds me of the heroine of the silent cartoon: “Felix Busts A Bubble”. There is a sequence in that film in which Otto animates a whole range of emotions on the little brunette’s face as she acts for the camera. The faces in the Funny Films topper, resemble the brunette’s, even though this one’s a blond. Felix continues his travels beyond the Zodiac, as he lands at the South Pole as the Mascot of the two aviators introduced a couple of Sundays ago. I love Otto’s funny walrus who show up in the last panel of the 5-6 Sunday. I hope you enjoy these wonderful comics, let me hear from you.
Scout Baby-Sits
 Everyone in Ericka’s family is taking turns babysitting newborn Charlotte, including Scout! This photo is a little dark, but if you look carefully, you’ll see Charlotte’s face in the shadow of her carrier. As we saw in our last episode, there isn’t much difference between a baby carrier and a cat carrier, so we’ll forgive Scout if she gets confused.
Felix’s misadventures (4-23 to 4-29-1934) with the crazy bulldog continue as he gets chased through a circus tent and takes refuge in Mr. Dooit’s refrigerator. Felix remains offstage in cold storage as the bulldog chases Hilda the maid and Mr. Dooit in the last two daily strips (4-27 and 4-28). he’ll probably be a block of ice next time. In the Sunday, Felix continues his fall from the moon begun last post, and becomes the mascot of a couple of airplane pilots. You see, Felix’s fall was broken by their rudder and the cat’s weight on the back end of the plane enabled it to clear a dangerous mountain range. So Otto segues from fantasy to “reality” in Felix’s world. By the way, the hand shadow episode of “Funny Films” above, reminds me of the hand shadows created by the baby in the cartoon “Sure-Locked Homes”, from 1928.
 Myrtle (1-26 to 1-31-1948) spends a week doing barber shop gags. It seems Freddie (Myrtle’s Dad) needs a haircut. I love the bucket gag in the 1-26 and the 1-31 has a nice little inside reference as the Barber tells Freddie, “I wouldn’t do this for you, only I want my picture in the comics!” Charming drawings and imaginative gags, that’s Dudley Fisher.
 In Krazy, (5-4 to 5-9-1942) it’s revealed in the 5-4 that Offissa Pupp is a Soprano, after Krazy’s “Berra-tone”, and Ignatz’s tenor. The balance of the strips are about brick-throwing, Ignatz foils Pupp’s Katzenjammer style use of glue on the brick with a pair of old, no-account gloves on his spindly hands. If you look at the foregrounds of the 5-5 and 5-9, you will notice floorboards and rugs in the Coconino desert. My theory is that’s what George Herriman thought his comic strip panels to be; little stage sets where the characters could hurl heavy objects at each other and trade bon mots in Kat Langwitch.
The Yogi Bear Sunday pages are from June, 1964 this time. I got access to another newspaper which carried the half-page version of the comic. I had to do a little computer paste-up work to make a facsimile half-page out of the 6-7. It was a tall, narrow strip in the newspaper I clipped it from. 3 out of the 4 pages are gags about the newly released Yogi Feature Cartoon, “Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear!” The 6-21 is the only third page strip, (click on thumbnail to enlarge) and equates the music of The Beatles with skunks. All the artwork, including the logo designs, are by Harvey Eisenberg. I often wondered why the art in the TV shows and cartoons was never as pleasing as the Sunday comic page. It was a case of too many cartoonists spoiling the Bear, Mr. Eisenberg had the Sunday page mostly to himself in 1964, and few artists drew the Hanna-Barbera characters as well as Harvey.
Two of my seven readers, Thad and Charles, wrote in to ask about cels for sale from our cartoon: “Some Other Cat”. They are all for sale, except for the original backgrounds which Greg Ford is keeping. Each cel comes with a reproduction background, original pencil drawing where available, and a DVDr of the cartoon. The package sells for $80.00 to $100.00, depending on the whim of we who sell the artwork. I’ll try to get some thumbnail images of the cels available now on the blog page very soon.
Your Comics Page 2-25-2015
February 26, 2015
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Mark
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 Krazy is from 8-10 to 8-15-1942 this time. There is a particularly juicy bit of “Kat Langwitch” in the 8-12 as KK asks a question about a piece of furniture called a “High-Boy”: “Podzezzis a prodijjis yemplitude of high, dun’t it?” Translation: “Possesses a prodigious amplitude of high, don’t it?” I also admire the sly sight gag that Garge uses in the 8-14 as Offissa Pupp chases Ignatz around a very thick tree and clubs him off “camera” range. Krazy’s reaction to the unseen “korpse” of the Mice is a Kat Klassic.