In 1906, Latonia, Kentucky-a smallish area of Northern Kentucky even now, just South of Cincinnati, Ohio-was apparently quite the hotbed of drinking and gambling and Sunday carousing! Here we have a trio of editorial cartoons from the local newspaper, the Kentucky Post. Although quite stylish and lovely and even signed, I’m afraid I don’t know who the artist was. Based on context, however, as well as the fact that he throws in a little book censorship, I believe the point of these is that, in his opinion, the bluenoses in power were overreacting juuuuuuuust a tad.

These were reprinted in NORTHERN KENTUCKY HERITAGE in 1994.

Exciting news, Felix fans! Right here in this very space we will be announcing a very exciting announcement in the days ahead. Exciting, isn’t it?

The cover of Felix the Cat #55 from Toby Press, as seen below, is a clue.

Here’s another hint: It’s a tie-in with the recent release of Felix the Cat: The Great Comic Book Tails which is available NOW on Amazon with a mere click of the mouse.

Watch this blog for details, coming soon!

And to celebrate everything Felix, please enjoy this song by the Warsaw Poland Bros. entitled “Felix The Cat” (what else?)

Click the link below to listen!

Felix the Cat - Warsaw Poland Bros

For our second week of comics published by college students — in honor of the Back-to-School Season — we present the circa 1850 sequential comic book, The College Experiences of Ichabod Academicus, by Yale University student William T. Peters.

Peters structured Ichabod Academicus into four chapters, covering his four years of college. This being our first presentation of Ichabod, the below is his Freshman Year. Ichabod’s format & layout is patterned after that of Swiss graphic novelist Rodolphe Töpffer, while Peter’s art style appears influenced by French cartoonists such as Cham (who got his start copying Töpffer comics) and Daumier. Enjoy!

Click on any picture, to open an enlarged version.

Chapter Two (Sophomore Year) of The College Experiences of Ichabod Academicus, will be presented next year at this time! Slightly sooner - next week — we’ll present some of Billy Ireland’s Teck cartoons, published while he was at OSU. Click on Sidney Wells’ “Life at College”, 1922-24 to view last week’s Back-to-School entry.

Doug Wheeler

CollegeComics

We start today with a typically surreal silver age Superboy story. In this one, with art by the feature’s longtime artist George Papp, young Clark acts out his jealousy issues of his alter ego with a life-sized puppet!

http://johnglenntaylor.blogspot.com/2010/08/schizophrenic-superboy.html

After I was lucky enough to appear opposite the original radio Henry Aldrich (Ezra Stone) in an episode re-creation in the early 1990′s (as Homer Brown), I started collecting the Henry Aldrich comics from Dell and found the work of Bill Williams to be delightful. Here, Stanley Stories detects the possible input of John Stanley in an Aldrich story!

http://stanleystories.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-think-this-is-stanleys-work-from.html

Back to DC for part one of a 1970′s Batgirl back-up story written by Frank Robbins and showcasing some slambang layouts by Gil Kane given a particularly polished finish by Murphy Anderson.

http://www.kingdomkane.com/2010/08/clue-seven-foot-tall.html

I’ve long had a soft spot for the Mad imitations of the 1950′s and here we have the first one I ever actually saw, Riot # 4 from Atlas (Marvel) featuring the art of Joe Maneely and Archie legend Dan DeCarlo.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2010/08/riot-4-1-of-3.html

Remember when Marvel and DC combined heroes to create the Amalgam Age of Comics? Well this enterprising blogger thought it wasn’t enough so he’s making his own combinations—and quite well, too!

http://amalgamage.blogspot.com/

Some of Mirthful Marie Severin’s best mirth was found in the pages of Marvel’s Not Brand Echh in the sixties. Here, for instance she handles the art on Gary Friedrich’s Mad-style version of the Hulk’s origin.

http://comicrazys.com/2010/08/27/the-origin-of-brucie-banter-…and-friend-not-brand-echh-3-1967-marie-severin/

Hey, the great Ten Cent Dreams blog is back after a months-long hiatus and starts out celebrating Jack Kirby’s Saturday birthday with some reprints from Simon and Kirby’s Boys’ Ranch.

http://tencentdreams.blogspot.com/2010/08/jack-kirbys-birthday-boys-ranch-2.html

Not only Chic Young’s Blondie but also Chic Young’s Dagwood had long runs in comic book form both reprinting newspaper strips and offering all-new stories ghosted in the classic style. Here’s a fun issue of Dagwood.

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2010/08/dagwood-comics-no-47-november-1954-and.html

One of my favorite all-time favorite Golden Age publishers was Quality, one which more than lived up to it’s name, and though I waiver I believe my favorite of their many high quality anthologies was Smash. Smash, now there was a name for a comic book.

And while Midnight was cover featured (and check out that cover; here professional Spirit imitator Midnight actually looks more like The Spirit than the Spirit often did at the hands of Eisner’s many WWII era ghosts) my favorite story in Smash #51 is this little gem featuring The Jester.

It’s a slight thing, I grant you, but it expertly plays out like a perfect little period B-movie.

You could make the argument that it has a fairly trivial take on the subject of suicide, but me, I prefer to think of it as a prime example of how back in their heyday all super-heroes were “street-level”. You could count on the local guy or gal in the domino mask to pause in their never-ending battle against the forces of evil to help out an average Joe with a problem or deliver a sack of toys to an orphanage on Christmas Eve.

Found some link-worthy items for a change-

We start with FOOM, the Marvel fan club magazine from the 1970′s. Here’s a full collection of the often nicely designed covers featuring Kirby, Steranko, Colan, Buscema and Smilin’ Stan Lee himself.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2010/08/foom-friends-of-old-marvel.html

Over at Hairy Green Eyeball II, they have a repost from Hairy Green Eyeball I that shows a collection of all of the Alfred E. Neuman-themed cards from the amazing Jack Davis in a Mad card game.

http://hairygreeneyeball2.blogspot.com/2010/08/jack-davis-mad-card-game.html

I’m on record as saying that Doug Moench’s Master of Kung-Fu was the best title published by Marvel in the mid to late seventies. Here’s an early issue drawn by Paul Gulacy and Dan Adkins.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2010/08/random-reads-fortune-of-death-by-moench.html

Finally, if you haven’t heard, Craig has a wonderful Felix the Cat book out! Here’s a Felix story to whet your appetite from the Big Blog of Kids’ Comics. Read it, then come back here and order Craig’s nifty book!

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2010/08/felix-cat-in-cat-weather-profit.html

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