Why is Felix the Cat so happy? You’d be happy too if there was a new hardcover book collecting your magical, whimsical, comical adventures!

Just by clicking the picture above you can go to Amazon and order your very own copy!

Meanwhile, enjoy this song called “Felix The Cat” by Dodge’s Sundodgers. Of course, Al Dodge was a member of the Cheap Suit Serenaders with R. Crumb, so there’s a double comics connection! To buy their CDs click here.

Simply click the link below to hear this toe-tappin’ toon tune.

Felix the Cat – Dodge’s Sundodgers

Well, for many of you out there, the Back-to-School Season has, or soon will, arrive. In honor of this (and of my girlfriend’s daughter heading off this weekend for her Freshman Year at NYU!), I’ll be subjecting all of you to extracts from college student-published comics, today and the next three Mondays!

First up, published at Ohio State University (home of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum ), are the early-1920s cartoons of Sidney Wells. While at college, Wells published a book of his cartoons every year, for three years running. All three books were over-sized oblong-shaped, mimicking the format of early 20th century Hearst era comic strip reprint books (what the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide labels “Platinum Age”). Below, from 1922, is the cover of Wells’ Life at Ohio State.

Click on any picture, to open an enlarged version.

Below, the foreword from the last of Sidney Wells’ three books. Wells mentions having contributed to Ohio State’s humor magazine, the Sun Dial (in which, I would imagine, the cartoons in his book perhaps originally appeared?). A few years after Wells left, Milton Caniff would attend Ohio State, and also contribute to the Sun Dial. According to the Foreword, Wells was working on a 1925 edition of Life at College, but, I’ve yet to find evidence that such an edition was published. 

In fact, it’s likely nothing was lost to us by the lack of a 1925 edition, as the truth is that the interiors of all three of his titles, contain the exact same set of cartoons! Only the title and cover changed! (They are good cartoons, though.) Below, the cover from his 1923 edition, Life at Ohio Wesleyan.

Below left, a loose flyer/insert that came with the 1924 edition of Life at College — the cover for which is shown below right. (Note, apart from variation in the title, this is the same cover art used for the 1922 Life at Ohio State.)

Following, a few cartoon extracts from Sidney Wells’ book(s). Below, farm boy freshman heads off to college, returning three months later a sophisticate…

Conflicting correspondences, to home, and to girlfriend…

Cross Section of a Fraternity House During Rush Season. Again, click on any picture to make it larger.

To close out, we’re shown the college graduate having obtained his diploma, stepping out into the world — and onto the unemployment line! (Unfortunately, our situation again, today.)  

Next Monday, the Freshman Year from a circa 1850 American comic book. In the meantime, if you missed Craig’s posting of it this past March, check out the 1925 University of California Yearbook, containing cartoons from a number of top-ranking cartoonists!

Doug Wheeler

CollegeComics

We start today with the great cartoonist Henry Boltinoff, whose work went unheralded, mostly as filler, in National Comics for more than twenty years! Here’s a selection of his Warden Willis one and two pagers.

http://www.dcindexes.com/boltinoff/strips.php?feature=warden

Speaking of cartoonists, here’s a 1966 selection from Charles Rodriguez, described as a black humorist here but nowhere near as dark as his humor became a decade later when he was working at the National Lampoon.

http://learning2share.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-cartoons-by-charles-rodrigues.html

Our pal Jerry Beck has been saluting Archie’s fondly remembered Cosmo, the Merry Martian by Bob White lately over on Facebook. Someone even suggested Craig compile a book collection! Anyway, our other pal, Pappy, has compiled  a few himself this morning with some background material.

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2010/08/number-794-comical-comics-week-cosmo.html

Finally today, a brief but nicely illustrated tribute to the Good Dutch Duck Artist, Daan Jippes, a cartoonist whose work I discovered when Gladstone began offering his strips in English for the first time in the 1980’s.

http://cloud-109.blogspot.com/2010/08/daan-jippes-carl-barks-passes-on-baton.html

The Quarter Bin is a wonderful, if seemingly long ago abandoned, site with some overthought articles on comics continuity. Just exactly the kind of thing aging fanboys love. I could spend hours here!

http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/niven/142/index.html

When I was a kid Sundays meant Dick Tracy! Here’s a wonderful “Who’s Who” retrospective of the hawk-nosed detective featuring scores of supporting characters as well as many representatives from his legendary Rogues Gallery.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2010/08/chester-gould-1900-1985-dick-tracy-is.html

“Hey, laaaaaady!” Somehow National/DC’s Adventures of Jerry Lewis managed to survive for nearly two decades, long past the point where its “star” was considered still to be funny. Toward the end there were superhero team-ups to up sales. Here’s a look at Superman’s turn.

http://www.thefifthbranch.com/gorilladaze/?p=1208

The Magic Whistle unearths a heavily illustrated 1971 Esquire piece on the history and future development of the comic strip medium from Harvey Kurtzman who was, of course, himself a major influence on said history.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2010/08/takin-lid-off-id.html

Born 130 years ago on August 22, 1880, George Herriman is known today as one of the most imaginative cartoonists of the 20th century. But early in his career, The Bookman magazine published an article that quoted him arguing that cartoonists are impervious to inspiration, preferring instead to serve the "inartistic majority." Herriman’s quote contains the visionary landscapes, incongruous juxtapositions and curious contradictions that would later become stylistic hallmarks of Krazy Kat.

George Herriman

From American Caricature and Comic Art, Part II by La Touche Hancock
The Bookman, November 1902

Art combined with poetry is the characteristic of George Herriman. Were his drawings not so well known one would think he had mistaken his vocation. Listen!

"Inspiration! Who ever heard of a comic artist being inspired? Take him out into a field where the green grasses, swept by caressing zephyrs, bend and nod in rapt delight, dodging the nibble of the frisky, hungry lamb as it gambols hither and thither, and see if he (the artist, not the lamb) can see in this any blissful clutch, grasping heart, mind and soul in a grip of steely delight. No! He’ll draw a lamb all right – a lamb so distorted that the green nodding field will rise in disgust to smite him.

"What does he know of the inspiration to be obtained from blue, azure, turquoise skies with fleecy clouds riding on and on, whither no one knows. Now take the clouds and skies of which I speak, blend them with the green grass and gambolling lambs, and a few trees, a few red-roofed barns, little hamlets in the distance, a lake, a creek, a rustic bridge, a nestling home amid clinging vines, and lots and lots of other things so dear to an artist’s heart, place them in full view of the inspired one and see the light of imagination fire him. They never will. His mind and soul have lost that delicate sense of the poetic and artistic, which one would naturally think were indigenous and he will turn away with a sigh, sit down at his desk and continue to worry out idioticies for the edification of an inartistic majority!"

As Herriman entered his 56th year, the Tiger Tea series was in its fourth month. Today’s episode features the strip that was published on Herriman’s birthday in 1936:

Krazy Kat – "Home, James" by George Herriman

The Nashville Tennessean, August 22, 1936

The Tiger Tea series was George Herriman’s longest-running Krazy Kat saga. Over the course of a year, the residents of Coconino County wrestled with the comical repercussions of a mysterious tea with hallucinogenic powers. As far as I know, this series has never been reprinted in its entirety.

Nearly 100 large reproductions of Tiger Tea daily strips are available in George Herriman’s Krazy + Ignatz in "Tiger Tea," a beautifully designed collection by Yoe Books. It’s available through Amazon.com and fine bookstores everywhere.

in an effort to make more of these classics available, this Unauthorized Semi-Authorized Addendum presents some of the comic strips from the Tiger Tea series that didn’t make it into the printed collection. Click here to see more posts in this series.

David Donihue, GreatCaricatures.com

Today’s episode:

Krazy Kat – "Home, James" by George Herriman

The Nashville Tennessean, August 21, 1936

The Tiger Tea series was George Herriman’s longest-running Krazy Kat saga. Over the course of a year, the residents of Coconino County wrestled with the comical repercussions of a mysterious tea with hallucinogenic powers. As far as I know, this series has never been reprinted in its entirety.

Nearly 100 large reproductions of Tiger Tea daily strips are available in George Herriman’s Krazy + Ignatz in "Tiger Tea," a beautifully designed collection by Yoe Books. It’s available through Amazon.com and fine bookstores everywhere.

in an effort to make more of these classics available, this Unauthorized Semi-Authorized Addendum presents some of the comic strips from the Tiger Tea series that didn’t make it into the printed collection. Click here to see more posts in this series.

David Donihue, GreatCaricatures.com

Note to Krazy Kompletists: Yesterday’s episode featured the Tiger Tea strip from August 18th, 1936. Today’s episode is the strip from August 20th, 1936. The August 19th cartoon is included in George Herriman’s Krazy + Ignatz in “Tiger Tea“ (BUY THE BOOK! It’s a great collection and the best deal in Coconino  County! More info below!).

Today’s episode:

The Tiger Tea series was George Herriman’s longest-running Krazy Kat saga. Over the course of a year, the residents of Coconino County wrestled with the comical repercussions of a mysterious tea with hallucinogenic powers. As far as I know, this series has never been reprinted in its entirety.

Nearly 100 large reproductions of Tiger Tea daily strips are available in George Herriman’s Krazy + Ignatz in “Tiger Tea,” a beautifully designed collection by Yoe Books. It’s available through Amazon.com and fine bookstores everywhere.

in an effort to make more of these classics available, this Unauthorized Semi-Authorized Addendum presents some of the comic strips from the Tiger Tea series that didn’t make it into the printed collection. Click here to see more posts in this series.

David Donihue, GreatCaricatures.com

Thanks to guest appearances by the Justice Society of America in DC Comics by the age of eight I was technically aware of the Golden Age of comics but really didn’t ‘get it’ until my brother, God rest his soul, started ordering things through the mail like Alan Light’s Flashback series of B&W reprints and especially the first volume of Steranko’s History of Comics.  When that arrived I remember being absolutely astounded by the concept that before my birth there had been thousands upon thousands of comic books – and since they were rare and expensive collector’s items chances were I’d never get to read most of them.

I accepted the pain then spent the next forty years of my life buying all the comic books I could, geeking out over every new edition of Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, pouring over every page, ogling the tiny cover reproductions and wishing that it was a catalog I could order from.  And when modern comic book publishers finally started printing collections of some of these comics I bought as many of them as I could.  Yet, I’ve never self-identified as a comic book “collector”.

I mean, sure, I always kept what I bought and there have definitely been some comics I treasured more than others but I mostly I just wanted to read them, plus, especially the older I got, I could never get too attached to them because no matter how much I loved them the day would come (usually every seven years like clockwork for some reason) when my income wouldn’t meet my expenses and I’d trot my treasure down to the comic shop (the pawn shop for nerds).  There I’d exchange them for a fraction of what they were worth, let alone what I’d paid for them after which I’m promptly go out, buy more comics and the cycle would begin anew.

Then my Grandmother died.  While coming to grips with the knowledge no one in this life would ever love me half as much as she did I was made executor of her estate.  She had worked hard all her life, and as someone who had emigrated from Europe and survived the Great Depression was frugal by nature.  She scrimped and saved in ways that seem impossible to me even as I struggle through the Great Recession and always took meticulous care of the few ‘nice’ things she owned.  But in the end all that care, industry and effort was only worth a couple of hundred dollars on the open market.

This was when I came to a couple of conclusion; first, material things are essentially worthless.  Now, I’m no Commie, I like stuff as much as the next guy, and if there is one thing I learned in twenty years of comic book retailing is no system ever designed by the mind of man has ever come up with a way of stopping people from wanting to own things.  The fact that people can download movies, music, TV shows, comics, etc. for free and still want to buy the actually article should be proof enough of that that.

Second, time was passing and if I was ever going to read all of those comic books I had better get a move on. Coincidentally enough, this was when I discovered digital comic books.  They had a lot of advantages over print comics, besides being free.  Reading comics on a computer proved to be a lot easier on my deteriorating eyes, I no longer had to dig through dozens of long boxes looking for a specific issue and now my entire collection was literally at my fingertips.  Plus they take up almost no space and barring a virus or electro-magnetic pulse they’re impervious to harm.  But probably most importantly come hard times I would never be tempted to try and sell them because they were effectively worthless, to anyone other than me anyway.

I’ve always been able to make a distinction between comic books and their contents; comics being the medium, comic books are just the current delivery system.  I really do love comics, I just flat out refuse to fetishize them (though I do see the appeal; I’m not made of wood).  Some people have trouble accepting this but the comic book is going to be replaced by the digital download the same way the comic book replaced the pulp magazine which replaced the dime novel.

It’s going to happen; it’s just a matter of when.  Not today and not tomorrow but someday and soon; me I’m giving the comic book as we know it another twenty years.  I’m sure someone will still be publishing them; the way some people publish facsimile editions of old pulp magazines for a small niche market.  And if I seem sanguine at the prospect it’s probably because someone has been predicting their eminent demise since at least 1972.  Plus, I’m fifty-one; I imagine if I’m still here in twenty years I’ll have bigger problems.

My downloading habit began innocently enough a couple years ago; all I wanted was to read the comic books I had read about when I was a kid.  I admit it was pretty superhero centric at first but then I started to include all genres, and then started downloading Silver and Bronze Age comics, comic strips, British boys weekly ‘story papers’ and translated European albums.

First I filled up my computer’s hard drive then burned roughly half a hundred DVD-R discs then for Christmas someone was foolish enough to give me an external hard drive and now I have very nearly 14,000 comic books – with more coming in every day.  I suppose you could explain away my obsession as the remnants of the ADHD I had as a kid or as just a plain old fashioned mid-life crisis.

But I’m much prefer to see my efforts as a kind of Old Man and the Sea larger than life and death kind of a deal, an epic struggle between a man of a certain age armed only with a high speed internet connection and entirely too much free time vs. seventy years worth of comics.  The same say I’d prefer to think the problem with me isn’t that I read too many comic books when I was a kid, it’s that I didn’t read enough of them.  So, clearly, I’m an old hand at self delusion.

In the process of doing all of this I’ve learned some things; unfortunately they’re things about comics, but one thing that keeps me doing all this so far past the point of diminishing returns is I keep discovering comic books that even  I, a semi-professional know-it-all on the subject, didn’t know existed. I used to be afraid eventually I would run of comics, but now I know there will always be more.

And, not to get too pretentious, I plan Read the rest of this entry »

Neal Adams is back drawing Batman these days. If you don’t know why that’s a big deal, here’s a primer showcasing quite  afew covers Neal drew featuring the Caped Crusader back in the day.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2010/08/neal-adams-handful-of-batman-covers.html

Here’s The Sorceress of Zoom, an unusual anti-heroine from the early 1940’s who traveled around on a cloud with her own city! She was drawn and possibly written by the prolific Don Rico.

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2010/08/sorceress-of-zoom-weird-comics-1941.html

Blondie and Dagwood were comic book staples for many years at several different companies. Here’s a fun collection of covers from Dagwood’s own title, each reflecting one of Dagwood’s sandwich-fueled dreams.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2010/08/dagwood-dreams.html

Finally today, a nifty and unsolicited preview and review of Craig’s just released book spotlighting the inventive comic book stories of Felix the Cat! Check it out and then order yours elsewhere on this page!

http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-book-otto-messmers-felix-cat-1950s.html