eBay: Emblems

[Col Bruggy]

Originally Posted by edwest2

The Cat and Umbrella appears to be the American (his origin is in dispute) cartoon character Felix the Cat. This character was created in 1919 and appeared in some animated short cartoons, and later in a newspaper comic strip in the 1920s.




Ed

Felix the Cat was the created by Australian cartoonist Pat Sullivan in 1917. In 1923 King Features Syndicate approached Sullivan with an offer to adapt the character into a comic strip. Sullivan himself, died in February 1933, his work was reputedly taken up by his relatives, one of whom was also named Pat. The story gets a bit murky from there onwards. Felix the Cat made its debut in as a Sunday page on August 14, 1923, and as a daily strip on May 9, 1927.

The editor (Maurice Horn), states that "Felix has been better known and appreciated in Europe than in the United States." FTC was the first sound cartoon, and also the first televised cartoon (by NBC in 1930!).

Felix is said to have been inspired by Rudyard Kipling's "cat who walks by himself." The little black feline is one of the great creations of comic art: his loneliness, his sense of alienation and his obstinate fight against fate, the elements, hunger, cold and an uncaring and callous humankind, mark him as an early hero of the absurd in animal guise.

See:
The World Encyclopedia of Comics.
Horn,Maurice (ed.)
New York:Avon Books,1977.

Col.