Four Color No. 162, September 1947 is all Otto Messmer, creator of Felix the Cat; who provides art, story, and lettering for “Weather Profit.”
The voluptuous work of Otto Messmer serves as a prototype for bigfoot cartooning (a style now often called “cartoony”). Messmer was a rubber hose animator from the early days of cartoons who struck gold with Felix the Cat, produced for the Pat Sullivan Studios. Hugely influential, Messmer went on to draw the popular Felix comic strips and produced Felix comics for Dell (Western Publishing) throughout the 1940s and 50s. Looking at his pages is like opening the lid on a box of beautiful, round candies. How much do you adore the brushwork?Want more classic Messmer? Sure you do (and so do I!). Please see sidebar under The Big Blog Bookshelf!Addendum: Animator and comic book artist, Mike Kazaleh, has identified pages 7-16 as the work Jim Tyer. Isn't page 13 sooo like a Terrytoon cartoon? Thanks, Mike!
Another pretty Dell single color, inside cover. Pure two-toned pleasure.
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10 comments:
"Voluptuous" is a perfect word to describe his work. It looks soft and squishy and fat. Felix was always a favorite when I was little, but for some reason it was VEEERY difficult for me to every find any of his stuff.
KW: I like "soft, squishy and fat" equally well! Messmer IS hard to find. It took a bit of work to get this comic.
I enjoyed it..very pleasurable But the ending was a bit weak ..But at least it was silly...the invention in the bin..
Liked the black humour of the red and black one reminded me of Popeye type gag..
Peter: Thanks for dropping by! I hear you regarding ending, but the kids' love, I bet. The mad inventor's moral turn-a-round might be a bit abrupt for us grown-up kids.
Very cool! I'd only ever seen his 20's-30's sundays prior to this.
Love that weird hand on page 10!
David: I like Messmer's stuff from the lat 40s and 50s the best. That hand is so great (in fact, the hands throughout are worthy of study!).
BTW: I am loving your new avatar.
Haha, the one-pager was great! I was as surprised as the chicken at that ending!
Karswell: Me too. Suprised and relieved!
Ah, beautiful, beautiful stuff!
So good to have my modem replaced and drink up all your great comics Mykal!
Jeff: Thank heavens the battle royale between Cable the Crusher vs. DSL the Destroyer is resolved!
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