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The Cat Who Walked
( Otto Messmer )
IT WAS SERENDIPITY, for a young fan of comics and cartoons, to grow up
in the New York City area, as I did. I wrote sincere fan letters to cartoonists
out of the region, and usually received gracious responses; and some of those
letters resulted in invitations that, thanks to my indulgent parents, often led
to visits.
Among the long-distance replies to fan letters, I received letters
and signed artwork from the likes of Charles Schulz, Frank King, Gluyas
Williams, Bill Freyse, Lank Leonard, Crockett Johnson, and Jack Kent.
But closer to home, in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, and
Long Island, the streets and woods were full of cartoonists. Those who were not
available for the world to discover in phone books – O halcyon days – like
Rudolph Dirks, John Bray, and Gardner Rea, the cartoonists I did know as a
young guy, were happy to make invitations. Like a happy game of telephone, cartoonists
recommended me to friends and associates they knew.
Evidently I was just on the right side of Pestering to merit this
networking. Indeed I tried to be polite, and I unconsciously honed my
interviewing skills, wanting to do more than stare admiringly at my heroes and
assorted legends.
One day my initial mentor, Al Smith of Mutt and Jeff, told
me about a cartoonist who lived in nearby Fort Lee NJ, with his daughter. Maybe
I didn’t know his name, but surely I knew his work – Otto Messmer of Felix
the Cat.
Surely I did. I knew his work on the King Features strip, because
he eventually was allowed to sign it; but his longtime work in his amazing
style stretched back to the 1920s in my collection of old funny papers. And I
was aware of his pioneer work in animation.
I even had examples of cartoons he signed in the ‘teens, for the
New York World comic magazine Fun; and for Judge.
… which items I brought with me, you can be sure, when I visited
him. Otto was as a gracious as any of the cartoonists I met, and immediately
invited me to visit when I called and introduced myself. Fort Lee is at a
terminus of the George Washington Bridge (and has a fascinating history itself,
“America’s First Hollywood,” where many early movies such as The Perils of
Pauline serials were filmed, before the studios moved to Astoria, Queens;
and Long Island; and then California) and was close enough to me parents’ home
that frequent visits were comfortable. And comfortable visits were frequent.
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| Photo of Otto Messmer at the drawing board during one of my visits. |
Otto was kind, gentle, and modest – every one of the
characteristics to the nth degree. It was evident there was no “shadow
of turning” in him, no embellishments of what was a fabulous career. Most of
that career was spent in anonymity, signing Suillivan’s name, or none, to his
work for decades.
Except for some forgotten footnotes, rather momentous to the
histories of comics and cartoons, I have a passel of memories of a modest
genius, generous with his time and friendship. A retired cartoonist living in
his daughter’s house.
Behind the kindly smiles and his self-effacing memories, there sat
the man who created one of the century’s iconic animated heroes, favorite of
generations of children. He spun stories of whimsy, comic adventures, and plots
that were both vivid and hilarious in ways that could exist on the screen and
comic pages.
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Otto Messmer’s artwork – anonymous, as usual –
during the glory days of Felix.
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I THANK GOD for the Good Neighbor Policy among cartoonists during
my youth!
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