Today, we pay tribute to the great artist and animator of Felix The Cat, Otto Messmer. While producer Pat Sullivan took all the credit for the creative escapades of the famous feline in his 1920's heydey, Messmer was the driving creative force behind the character.
Turns out August 16 is both the day entertainer Elvis Presley died of opiates, fame, celebrity and deep-fried food in 1977 and the day one of the most amazingly talented and original of all comic artists and animators, Otto Messmer, was born, in 1892 (in West Hoboken, New Jersey - now Union City, NJ).
Have a hunch that readers of this blog are enthusiastic fans of Mr. Messmer's consistently imaginative and inventive work, from comics to animated cartoons to the legendary neon lights on Times Square.
Mark Kausler's Catblog has, happily, been posting Messmer's striking and dynamic comics (frames from which can also be seen in the entry for Otto Messmer in Lambiek Comiclopedia) and Mark also provided key research for Jerry Beck's terrific article Animating on Times Square: Douglas Leigh and Otto Messmer, which delved into Messmer's work apart from comics and animated cartoons.
And, speaking of animated cartoons, here are several of this blog's all-time favorite Felix The Cat adventures. . .
Dont know if it is possible to purchase a Blu-ray or DVD of John Canemaker's outstanding documentary about Otto Messmer - sure hope that is the case. Here's an extended excerpt from it - and thanks, Mr. Canemaker, for this and the superlative book Felix: The Twisted Tale Of The World's Most Famous Cat.
After drawing and supervising the Felix The Cat comic strip (which he would do until 1954) and working on Times Square, Otto Messmer returned to animation in the mid-1940's at Famous Studios, where he and Bill Turner collaborated on stories for the Popeye, Little Lulu, Noveltoons and Casper series. Several, most notably the Popeye cartoon ROCKET TO MARS, are among the best Famous ever produced in its checkered history.
Still, one associates Otto Messmer's animation with the minimalist but intergalactic and indefatigable 1920's version of Felix.
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