Pam’s Pictorama Post: The sands of time have been running through that hourglass quickly again and we find ourselves at Valentine’s Day for our much beloved and long anticipated Kim Deitch Valentine reveal! For those of you who are newly initiated, Pam’s Pictorama has two major reveals annually – our holiday card which we collaborate on and the Valentine which is 100% Kim Deitch special for me!

As someone whose birthday falls right before Valentine’s Day (it was this past Wednesday and more about a very extraordinary birthday gift in another post), back in our first or second year together I asked Kim for a drawing for my very own. The earlier efforts were a bit more simple, but the project grew like topsy in subsequent years and now it is an elaborate full-on several week drawing extravaganza, and each year really does seem to top the year before. As the ultimate Kim Deitch fan (yes, it is me!) there really couldn’t be anything more exciting or a greater honor. A handful made their way to an exhibit in France years ago and it is my greatest pleasure to be depicted so lovingly in these – always surrounded by my passions of cats and vintage toys!

People always ask if it is a surprise and I have to remind them that Deitch Studio, while grand in many ways, is still one room so not much goes on here that we don’t both know about. Still, each year his vision for it and how he realizes it is always entirely different. I share some other years below.

This year I am pleased as punch to be Amazing Pam and the Queen of My Heart! I wear my spiffy little ermine trimmed outfit – sort of a cross between a jacket and top you’d actually see me in and a regal regalia, even fur trimmed. (Obviously no ermines were hurt in the making of this card. Kim is threatening to retire this outfit in drawings.) The inspiration for the two cats on either side of me is the wonderful off-model Felix on a scooter toy which lives at the foot of our bed, shown below.

This fake Felix was made by Chien toys. The Chien toy empire was founded by Julius Chien in New York in 1903. He got his start making the Cracker Jack toys and found his way into inexpensive tin toys, mechanical and often character toys. The business peaked in the 1930’s and ’40s and in later decades (sadly) broke off into housewares. He probably also had the license on the actual Felix so I wonder how this impressive Not-Felix came to be and why. There market was flooded with them as shown in part below.

My version is a bit incomplete, dented on one side and I don’t believe I have ever written about him before. There is indeed an official Felix version like mine, and also the ones (a version above) that always goes incredibly high at auction with him chasing mice. I am very fond of an Italian version (below) which comes up rarely and I have tried to get but never snagged. However, I started using it as my avatar on Zoom during Covid and still do. We’ve always liked this knock-off version however, with his spiffy little jacket, polka dot vest (who doesn’t love a polka dot vest?), toothy grin, glasses and big old schnoz of a nose. While they must have used the same cut out mold as the Felix they have entirely reimagined him, arguably for the better on this occasion. He has sat at the foot of our bed for a very long time and is in my mind sort of an unofficial mascot here so I love that he is memorialized as such.

While my faux Felix is actually quite flat, Kim has given him some frontal dimension imagined on one side of me. Meanwhile, with Cookie and Blackie in special places of black cat pride, I am in this card (and for the first time in a Valentine) acknowledged as the Guardian of 7 Cats. (I just typed 8 by accident – maybe a sign? Did I mention a close call with kittens on my birthday? Some at work, looking for homes – close call.) The Jersey Five are illustrated and named below starting with Beau (another black cat) followed by Stormy, Gus, Peaches (the meanest cat ever – read about her here) and Milty – our senior citizen cat. (You can read about him here.)

This drawing is largely just wild color and fun design that draws you in – like it can hardly contain itself! It is Kim at his best in that way I think and I am so pleased to have been the inspiration for it.