Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I seem to be on a roll with this avenue of kitty photo postcards. This one just turned up on eBay and I snatched it up. Once again, a kitten is drifting along in a night sky, among some stars and clouds, tucked into a tiny basket. Someone has strung up a nice little umbrella instead of a balloon this time. (Other posts sporting our feline floating friends can be found here and very recently here.)

I like this night sky background best of all – a very artistic depiction. At the bottom it says All Amongst the Little Stars. Noted that this is a line from a British music-hall tune called Up in a Balloon. It goes, in part:

Up in a balloon, boys, up in a balloon,
All among the little stars, sailing round the moon;
Up in a balloon, boys, up in a balloon,
Every one is sure to say, it’s jolly in a balloon.

Our AI friends (assuming they are friends) tell us that it was written and composed by G.W. Hunt and famously performed by singers like George Leybourne, the song became a widespread hit after its release in the late 1860s. (Full lyrics and a chance to hear a more contemporary take on the song can be found here.)

Unfortunately, the stamp was removed from this card and no postmark remains, however I have found an entry that sites the publication of these cards as in 1903. That entry includes Many happy returns on the front and therefore I guess was promoted as a birthday card. They were sold as a pack of six and thus far I have seen the birthday variation, this one and a similar version that does not have the white space to write in at the bottom. They say there was a French produced version as well, noted as being in blue, and I would like to see those.

One of the reasons so much information is available about the card is because it was produced by our early 20th century cat card friends at the renown British Raphael Tuck and Co. I have gone into raptures over their series of Felix holiday cards, among others. (A few of those posts can be found here and here.) Unlike their rather deluxe later editions, this card is a bit austere in its choice of paper (thin) and is of course black and white. Those gold tipped and colored images were still a decade or so in their future as a company. On the back, in tiny type, there is a note that this series is Studies by Charles EID. Not sure how that works in conjunction with Landor as noted below.

At the top it declares, Landor’s Cat Studies (copyright) and brief research reveals that E. Landor (aka Reginald Wellbye) was a cat photographer of note in the late 19th and early 20th century in Britain. He was based in Ealing and was responsible for many of the Tuck photo cat cards in the early years.

It is said he frequently photographed well-known cats of the day, noting those such as Silver Lotus and St. Veronica, the daughters of a famous breeding cat named The Squire, as per one entry. (Shades of the nascent development of cat breeding and the evolution of them as pets in Great Britain as noted in the bio of Louis Wain I did a post about here.) However, I dearly love a note revealed in further investigation that his wife was a cat breeder and those named above were actually their cats – Silver Longhairs. Mrs. Wellby was a seminal figuer in the early cat breeding efforts of the Victorian day. They were clearly a dynamic duo.

Evidently Landor’s great technical achievement was successfully photographing seven kittens in a row. A task he described as nearly impossible because the kittens would constantly try to play with each other’s tails. Somehow it seems to me that it was probably only one small part of the trouble one would have – nor is there any mention of how he ultimately achieved success. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to record that. We’ll hope it was just yummy special treats.

The sender of my card has written at the bottom, Wishing you a very, very. On the back she writes, Happy Xmas & plenty of fun & hoping to see you at a time not far distant – is the sincere wish of Auntie Isabella. It was addressed to Master Hopley at an address that is hard to read for she has blotted and rewritten a bit, but appears to be Crossloom Villa, Mollington ur, Chartes.

This card was one that continued to reveal more interesting bits as I went further down the rabbit hole so I hope you enjoyed the trip with me this morning. Kim and I are off shortly to a signing at the L’Alliance Comics Fest for him to sign at the Fantagraphics table there with advance copies of How I Make Comics and a new softcover edition of Reincarnation Stories. Hope to see some of you there today or tomorrow! Pictorama review of Kim’s new book How I Make Comics on board soon.