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Felix Down Under: The Oily Bird Comic Strip
From kat to cat: it's time to bring one of my all-time favorite cartoon stars to this blog. Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat was one of the first animated characters who really acted—emoting to the...
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Ub Iwerks' Rep: From Flip to Flop
Why did Ub Iwerks leave Walt Disney's employ in January 1930? For leave he did, and fast; enticed by an offer that, according to Michael Barrier and John Kenworthy, Iwerks at first didn't realize was...
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Tho-MAS! Come Up and See Some Rarities Sometime (Hic!)
Researchers revel in the search for classic cartoons' original titles. Almost every major studio reissued its cartoons years after their creation; sometimes to theatres, other times to TV. And almost...
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Allwine Does Gottfredson: A Tribute
Wayne Allwine will be missed.I'm not the first to say so. In fact, my blog must be about the five-hundredth cartoon blog to spread the news, insofar as Disney's longtime Mickey Mouse voice artist...
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Making New Donald Duck Adventures: Tamers of Nonhuman Threats! (Part One)
I've spoken much on this blog about favorite creations of the past—but as a comics editor and writer, I've personally had the honor and privilege of working with some stellar creators in the present....
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Yes, Virginia—we'll miss you, Alice
I'm back today from more than a month's travels—some of which involved exciting research and animation-related discoveries. I'll be busy for a few days now wrapping up one project or another, but that...
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D23'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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October 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...
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An 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...
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Ninety 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...
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Ninety 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...
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Big 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...
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Work 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...
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On 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...
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Rare 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....
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Lucky 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...
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Fantastic 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...
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Mystical 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...
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Lost 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...
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I 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...
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2011: 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...
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Notswald: 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...
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Cele-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...
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Mouse, 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...
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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...
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