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Here's a new clothing line for investment bankers and studio execs who want to pretend they like cartoons.

Clarence is headed back to the 1920s.

This fall DreamWorks is collaborating with the trendy LA fashion label Joyrich on a Richie Rich collection.

DreamWorks Animation has bought the rights to the 95-year-old feline cartoon icon Felix the Cat. The studio acquired the character by paying an undisclosed sum to Don Oriolo, whose father Joe helped revive Felix in the 1950s and later assumed ownership of the character.

Science and silent animation finally come together in this T-shirt design by Ryder Doty currently up for votes at Threadless.

(via Super Punch)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | One comment | Post tags: Felix the Cat, Ryder Doty, Threadless

Here’s a little treat I’d never seen before – and I don’t see it listed in any of the filmographies: a rare ten minute Felix the Cat sponsored short for General Electric. It was preserved by the Schenectady Museum who had it in their General Electric Archive. The film itself is quite good – the story concerns Felix’s midnight drive, to his wedding, in a car without proper GE headlights – and the print is in excellent shape. Animated by Otto Messmer (from 1925, or maybe 1927), The Cat and The Kit:

(Thanks, Scott T. Rivers)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Felix the Cat

Check out this really cool Felix the Cat female tee-shirt line from Korean apparel maker Spao. Be sure to see the designs on all four pages and take 30 seconds to enjoy this nifty promo clip…

UPDATE: @YamMag points out that the girls in the promo clip are performers in the group Girls’ Generation (aka SNSD).

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Felix the Cat, South Korea

…The Felix Girls!

(Thanks, Devlin Thompson via Grottu)

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Felix the Cat

It’s rare when they are showing cartoons at L.A.’s CineFamily/Silent Movie Theatre without me, but that’s what’s planned on Wednesday December 1st. Animator Tom Sito will host a program of Pioneering Silent Animation at 8pm, featuring rare 35mm prints restored by the George Eastman House. Koko the Clown, Oswald the Rabbit, Mutt and Jeff and [...]

Craig Yoe’s latest book is a beautiful love letter to the comic book legacy of Otto Messmer/Joe Oriolo’s Felix The Cat. As usual, Yoe has produced an art book that is unto itself a thing of art, a 226 page celebration of Felix’s four-color career. Previously John Canemaker covered the animated films and David Gerstein collected selected Sunday newspaper strips. Here, Yoe focuses on the Dell/Toby/Harvey periodicals created by animators Messmer, Oriolo and Jim Tyer. The book itself is lavishly produced (which is standard for Yoe’s publications) starting with the classy black and white cover – a clever contrast to rainbow-hued Messmer end papers and content to come. It begins with a 35-page introductory text, liberally illustrated with original Messmer/Oriolo art, rare photographs and odd-ball historical material (my favorite is a 1925 Photoplay magazine spread featuring a Ziegfeld Girl teaching Felix the latest dance craze, The Black Bottom). And then the real fun begins: twelve choice Felix stories, originally created between 1946 and 1954.

The Felix comic stories were always quite “trippy” (to use the 60s expression), usually starting off normally then drifting into worlds of giants, oversized talking vegetables, robots, magic carpets and trips into space. The artwork is always imaginative and very cartoony. This is a wonderful tribute to a cartoon super-star’s most neglected – but still significant – work. As far as I’m concerned, Yoe’s Felix The Cat: The Great Comic Book Tails is another must-have.