Number 1381: Cat and mouse

Comics helped me learn to read before I went to school. I don’t remember reading these two stories specifically, but they’re the kinds of comics my mom would help me with, picking out words and learning sentences. That was two-edged, though...by the time I got to school and was handed a copy of a Dick and Jane reader, compared to my comic books it was pallid and uninteresting.

These two stories are exactly the sort of thing I loved, with funny drawings and rocketships and a sense of wonder at what was going on in those colorful panels. Since I have never lost touch with that kid I was (the “inner child”) I still love this sort of thing. Or, it could be I’m going through my second childhood. Or seventh...or tenth.

From Felix the Cat #16 (1950); art and story by Otto Messmer:

From Coo Coo Comics #45 (1949), art by Milton Stein:

More Milt Stein and more Felix. Click on the pictures:

More about →

Number 1062


Felix steps out


Felix steps out into adventure. The stories starring the famous cat flow almost like a stream-of-consciousness. Otto Messmer, who did these Felix comics, had a way of telling a simple story that appealed to children. In "Rainbow's End" Felix walks out of his house with one dollar in his piggy bank to buy food, and then enters a world of nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters, with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Messmer told a very breezy tale. He did it over and over...and over and over and over...you get the picture. Felix stories didn't change much over the years.

Something I remember about reading these stories as a young child was feeling a sense of wonder. I loved stories that had pots of gold (or Uncle Scrooge's money bin), because they could trigger fantasies of wealth. Wow, what I could do with a pot of gold! I could buy all the comic books on the spinner rack and not just two with my paltry 25¢ allowance.

From Felix the Cat #1, 1948:












Craig Yoe's fantastic collection, Felix the Cat: The Great Comic Book Tails, with many other beautifully drawn Felix adventures like this from Dell Comics, is still available from YoeBooks! All of Craig's books get my highest recommendation.

"If you're looking to spend some Christmas dough, you can't go wrong with Yoe!"

More about →

Number 883


Comics march on!


March Of Comics* was the title of a series of Dell giveaway comics which ran for 488 issues. This is MOC #36, which reprints a Felix the Cat Sunday funnies continuity. It was a full-size comic with half the number of pages of regular newsstand comic books. According to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide it was 1949 when this issue was published, not 1934, like it says in the indicia. That was the year the story was originally published in newspapers.

Last September in Pappy's #809 I showed a story from Felix the Cat comics #1, 1948. If you look at both stories you'll see some differences in the art. I believe Otto Messmer was drawing the earlier comic strips as he did the later comic books, but had different assistants at the earlier date.























*In the interest of accuracy, the indicia says the title is officially Boys' and Girls' March of Comics.

More about →