Out of the Vaults: From Binko to Bluto
Omigosh... a Gerstein blogpost! They've been rarer than hen's teeth for quite awhile, and some of you know why—I've spent the last year stretched between quite a lot of publishing projects. But...
View ArticleMouse, Interrupted
Once upon a time—way back in the 1930s—Columbia Pictures and United Artists released Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoons to theatres. But Columbia and United Artists had nothing to do with the...
View ArticleCele-bray-ting Historic Silents
If my friends were asked to name my favorite cartoon stars, various high-pitched, black-furred animals might come to mind. But I'm also fascinated by a group of earlier, cruder, yet still endearing...
View ArticleNotswald: A Ramapith Public Service
How did you try to impress your childhood friends?My best buddy in third grade was a cartoon fan, like me. We drooled over unaffordable cartoon collectibles that sat, just out of reach, at somber local...
View Article2011: One Last Look Back
Happy New Year, everyone. I thought I'd take a (belated) look back at a fond acquaintance whom we lost a couple of months ago.With his incredible output, writer and researcher Earl Kress made a...
View ArticleI Taut I Taw New Posts Coming
"You bet you sthaw new posthts coming!" Er—thanks, Sylvester. As my close friends are well aware, I've been up to my eyeballs in work lately—but that's not to say it hasn't been a lot of fun. I've been...
View ArticleLost Laugh-O-Grams Found—And Shown
"Alice isn't Alice." Those three words recently marked the start of an exciting series of discoveries for me and others. But what could they mean?Like a lot of cartoon researchers, I've long been...
View ArticleMystical Felix Monday: There's More?
Hey, who said it was over? At the time our Fantastic Felix Friday celebration finished up last week, an e-mail snafu had unknowingly kept me from receiving Don Oriolo's replies for two extra Felix the...
View ArticleFantastic Felix Friday: Behind the Scenes
Rowr! It's been awhile since Felix the Cat prowled Ramapith's ivy-covered halls. But the feisty feline always comes back. This week I'm honored to help promote him in a new project for which I was a...
View ArticleFantastic Felix Friday! Watch this space...
Big, big doings here on Ramapith later today; fans of Otto Messmer, Joe Oriolo, and Jim Tyer have been warned (and that goes for fans of Inky, Winky, and highly suspect magic carpets and bags, too).In...
View ArticleLucky New Oswald Finds
As one of my favorite research topics, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is also the subject that my longtime friends expect me to blog about most. So I generally try to keep it to a minimum—because who wants to...
View ArticleRare Fleischer Talkartoon Found (A Shameless Plug)
Every major cartoon studio has rare and lost films to its name. Nitrate deteriorates; 16mm gets vinegar syndrome. "Duplicate" prints are cast away without careful inspection of the "master" element....
View ArticleOn With the Show (Thanks, Toby)
With the dog days of summer having passed Chihuahua and moved on to Rottweiler, my work schedule is getting a little less hectic—and some comics projects due out in the winter are finally being put to...
View ArticleWork Is Heck
But the Ramapith blog isn't gone for good. There's lots to come—after I meet just a couple more deadlines. Patience, readers. Prudence, too. And Purviance, if you're lucky.(Flip the Frog drawing from...
View ArticleBig Ramapith From the North
Another big blog entry coming soon, I promise; but I'd be remiss not to draw your attention to this update of my earlier Halloween post. Following on the challenge I gave you there, I've now got some...
View ArticleNinety Years—Nine Lives
As late as the 1930s, J. R. Bray's Colonel Heeza Liar was remembered as "the Mickey Mouse of his day," but the first true cartoon superstar was Felix the Cat. I've covered this character's great appeal...
View ArticleNinety Years—Nine Lives (Preview)
November 9, 1919-November 9, 2009.Incredible, ain't it?Just a placeholder so I don't miss the actual anniversary (though I'm already a few minutes late by Eastern time). More soon.All original blog...
View ArticleAn Oswald Trick (Or Treat)
Little time to blog today; big Halloween doings. But I couldn't let the holiday pass without a special Ramapith commemoration.When Walt Disney's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit staff moved on in 1928, that...
View ArticleOctober Original Titles
Wak! It's been forever since I've updated around here. Sadly, I'm still under the gun with one project or another. But the least I can do is return briefly to a topic everyone's been asking for: the...
View ArticleD23's Love Bug Will Bite You
And now a quick word from our "sponsor"—well, Disney's D23 website isn't actually responsible for anything on this blog. But I love the way they explore Disney lore, and have had the fun of writing a...
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