Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am giving Pictorama readers a brief break from postcards today. I feel like it has been a long time since I have posted a snapshot. It isn’t because I don’t look for them, but photos that wander into the Pictorama realm are a bit more rarified it seems. This one was found and quickly purchased on eBay recently as someone was smart and noted that a nice Felix lurks on the window shade.
The picture is undated however her clothing and this nice deckled edge on the print puts me in mind of the early fifties. (I recently saw an early deckle edge photo trimmer online. It appeared to be one for home use. I gather Kodak sold printing paper with the deckle edge for a couple of decades – both things interested me because I always thought it was only evident in commercially processed photos.)
It is a small photo, only two and a half by three and a half inches. This woman sits center stage is all dressed to the nines with a corsage on her shoulder, earrings, stockings and heels. However the setting is more seemingly casual with wooden folding chairs. There are plants on the window and a fence with trees beyond it. A bit more of the outside might be a clue to where she is (at best I just see some leafy treetops) although it is an event or a visit somewhere special clearly.
Of course I purchased it because of the somewhat off-model and presumably homemade Felix on the shade behind her. Felix stands hands (paws?) on hips, elbows out. He’s a very angular Felix, with an oversized head and a smile. His tail appears sort of mid-leg at an odd angle, although for cat-a-tude they seem to have gotten him right.
Felix’s image is surprisingly enduring. Consider that the height of his popularity was in the 1920’s to find folks still painting his image on some blinds somewhere in the world of the 1950’s is sort of an odd and interesting thought. Like his competition Mickey Mouse the grip of his image has held fast for many subsequent decades. Leaves me wondering what has been produced subsequently that will have legs as long, hard to beat the famous cat and mouse.
***
As you read this I will be off to New Jersey for a few days of winterizing chores for the house there. My dahlias are still blooming so I won’t be taking them in yet, but the heat filters will be changed and the irrigation system turned off. Pumpkins and mums are already out on the steps but I intend to enjoy my fall garden for a few days.(Tune into Instagram for dahlia update!) See you next week!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I have an unusual nugget of animation history today. It came to my attention on a search for Aesop’s Fable dolls which I have put out in the world. I asked for more photos because only a few pages of the inside were shown and I was afraid it was just the covers and a couple of pages. The seller quickly replied. In the end I offered a bit less than he was asking and he agreed. It was still a bit dear but something about it appealed and I went the extra mile to purchase it.
The instructions.
Try flipping the page by hitting the arrow!
In reality the book is more interesting even than it appeared at first. Every illustration has a second illustration under it and you are instructed to (gently, especially now) flip to the second page and you see “movement” between the two. It is rather ingenious and simple – a different type of flip book. (Flip the Pages…the Pictures Live.) The book is super worn and shows evidence of much use, flipping the pages. Every other page is several more short tales which are illustrated but do not flip.
It was published by Harcourt, Brace and Company of New York and we can see it was Book 2. A search on the internet shows that Book 1 was dedicated to Mother Goose which looks at least equally interesting. In the back we see that there was a Book 3 (which I now really want!) about the circus which seems to feature a very Koko the Clown looking character! Book 4 was called Once Upon a Time. These volumes are somewhat rarified and I can only find evidence of this one and Book 1 having been recently available for sale. There are eight pages in its entirety, counting the fold-out double pages as one.
One of my attempts to show you how flipping the page looks.
The artist/s do not appear to get credit for these so I am assuming that Charley Bowers is the artist and perhaps the writer as there are no other credits for the book. On the inside cover there is a 1923 copyright and W.F. Powers Co. On the cover we see that there is a Pat. Applied For.
Charles (Charley) Bowers started his animation career working on the silent Mutt and Jeff cartoons. By the early twenties he moved to Educational Films where he made slapstick comedies, some shorts featuring Rube Goldberg creations and a mix of animation, stop motion and live action short subjects. He is prodigious in his output through the twenties and does a stint with Walter Lanz in the thirties. At the end of his career he moves to Wayne, New Jersey and drew cartoons for the Jersey Journal. Sadly at the end of his life arthritis cripples him and he instructs his wife to execute drawing the cartoons under his instruction.
It is also noted in his bio that he was known for illustrating children’s books although the Wikipedia article mentions this for his post-film career and these were clearly made in the thick of it. He was largely forgotten until a Lobster Film dvd came out in 2004 and revived interest in him. It is still available however you will pay up. (It can be found on Amazon here or Flick Alley here. I would poke around eBay for a slightly better price.) As a result, not many videos are posted online, but one I offer is available here.
Not in the Pictorama collection.
Clearly a bit of a mechanical genius this is a tiny salute to Charles Bowers of early animation fame. This book is a remaining concrete tribute to his ingenuity.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This card, not surprisingly, hails from Great Britain. It was mailed on December15, 1923. It was mailed from Saffron, Walden at 9:30 AM to Miss Lucy Piggot, St. Wilfords, Mill Hill, Sudbury, Suffolk. I picked it up on eBay and had it sent to the house here in NJ.
It is a hand drawn and inked card and is a good Felix likeness for that early 20’s period – square and blocky. His pose is an X and one could even see a swastika in it although I don’t think that’s the case. Mystically it says, I’m Felix, Mascot to the “Sudbury Happy-go-Lucky’s” and the signature, I assume of the artist, R Good in a design. (For another Felix fake try another post from my collection here.)
Felix has a big bloop of a nose and a couple of fangy teeth. Kim thinks he is giving us the finger which is undeniably a reasonable assumption. I thin it is more likely an insipid sword. The other hand is a bit odd too and the least Felix element. He has a rounder tummy than I associate with Felix and perhaps a less perky tail – still something about him captures what I think was the Felix mood of the day. The Happy-go-Lucky’s must have been quite a group.
Back of card.
The message on the back does not enlighten us much. It says (to the best of my ability to transcribe): c/o Mr. Penning, 28 Church Street, Saffron, Walden SX. Dear Lucy, Many thanks for Ple. (?) I am glad I’m not there to “sit down”. have got that other song its not bad. I thought I saw someone at the window Monday. I was in the carriage with the bright lights. What do you think of my mascot not bad eh? Will you take care of him until I returnthen I will disclose to you y plan now I will disclose to you my plan now I must close. I hoping your cold is better. Well best of luck and love to all. Jack (I have mostly added some punctuation which Jack seemed to feel unnecessary.)
So more than a hundred years later this message is a bit cryptic if intriguing. Something to ponder on a sunny Sunday here in New Jersey.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Sometimes here at Pams’s Pictorama it’s just a Felix acquisition day and today is that day. The other day combing through listings I came across a duo of Felix in Australia. The condition was sort of medium and the price right and the next thing I knew this fellow was on his way to me.
I have a few other examples of this Felix and this fellow in particular may next find his way to New Jersey where there is a shortage of Felix-es at my house. (Although there is an abundance of kitties who have a lot of unsupervised hours so I am mindful of that as well. The younger inhabitants there like some high jumping too and I have an Oswald Rabbit I worry for occasionally. A post about him can be found here.)
Years ago I was at a huge vintage toy show in Atlantic City where a dealer had a whole basket of these (such bounty!) and he said that they were used as carnival prizes in England. They must have been very popular because many exist today but somehow they seem a bit too well made, and therefore expensive, for that. Still, it makes my brain whirl a little to think of being able to bring home such a toy from a fair – perhaps after having had my photo taken with Felix elsewhere earlier in the day. (Throwing in a photo below from my collection of folks posing with Felix for anyone who is a new comer here!)
Pam’s Pictorama.com collection.
Also a long time ago I took one of these for repairs at a toy hospital that used to exist on Lexington Avenue near Bloomingdales. I wrote about it here. It turned out to be very expensive but, at least for me, worth the brief entrée to that somewhat ancient and particular place before it quietly disappeared a few years later.
This fashion of Felix has mobile arms and legs. (Legs had come off on the one that had to be repaired. I do not recommend moving them much – I learned from the broken one that there is just a rusty metal rod holding him together.) This fellow has a good look until you realize that oddly almost all of his mohair has worn away. His tummy in particular is quite bare as is the spot under his snout. He has such wideset eyes – they always contribute to a goofy look. His tail, as is often a design feature, sets him up like a tripod for steady standing.
While his felt ears are intact, Felix has a few places where his fur is completely worn through, revealing small spots of the straw stuffing underneath. It is my understanding that these were assembled by hand in England in small factories. (Read a very interesting and popular post about this here. Such a factory was set up on the East End of London to employ indigent women.) All this to say that these end up have a very individual character and look to each one.
Tummy is oddly barren. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
I did express some concern about Felix making such a long journey from Australia to New York City with the small holes and stuffing in particular leaking through. I am afraid I offended the poor seller when I asked – it wasn’t meant to be a reflection on her packing ability – more just the reality of a certain amount of jostling he was bound to undergo. However, she pledged extra good packing and she came through so there was barely a smidge of stuffing loss in transit.
We will pack him carefully again as part of our exodus to New Jersey in a few weeks. Until then he is hanging out with his Felix brethren here in Deitch Studio.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I was on a bit of a role recently with press photos on eBay. (See last week’s Felix-y post here.) I had to barter over this one a bit but it seemed to fit nicely within my purview of photo interests. This came to me via a dealer in Livingston, Texas.
On the back it is identified as a photo by Underwood and Underwood a stock photo company located at 242 West 55th Street here in New York City. On a scrap of paper glued to the back, NOVEL ELECTRIC SIGNS FEATURED AT BRITISH SEASIDE RESORT. LONDON. –PHOTO SHOWS:“Mickey Mouse” and the “Dancing Kittens” in electric lights at Blackpool. There was something below it that was neatly ripped off.
The candy shown here with Felix was sometimes referred to as Blackpool Rock. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Blackpool beach resort has been the locale of numerous Pictorama posts as a rather specific Felix wooden cut out was available for photos and even one errant donkey. (A mere sampling of posts can be found here, here and here.) Blackpool as a seaside resort goes back to the 18th century. There is what they refer to as the Blackpool Tower and Pleasure Beach which appears to be an amusement pier, probably not unlike the small one in Long Branch, NJ I grew up with but maybe larger since it was referred to as the Golden Mile as well. It reached its zenith of popularity around the time of this photo and although tourism has fallen off still exists largely intact today.
Posing with Felix in Blackpool. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I’m not sure who the brain child was behind this off-model Mickey and tow dancing kitties in what appear to be lederhosen and bow ties. The cats have luxurious tails that curl around and are clad in black boots. Mickey, on the other hand, while sporting an outsized bow tie had oddly small feet in some sort of white shoes.
Unfortunately the tops of Mickey’s ears are lost to the black sky behind him – Kim suggested a bit of white paint to rectify that. I am a bit surprised it wasn’t painted on for publication. I do wonder about publicizing what was so clearly a homemade Mickey in newspapers. Did the long arm of Walt reach them?
Another Blackpool Felix photo. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
All three are decorated in round white bulbs. They drift in front of something made to look like a fence. I thought it was a real fence at first but it is dotted with lights too. Oddly enough the cat’s booted feet do not seem to have bulbs.
Information on the back of the photo.
There is a tiny sign affixed to the bottom which says, DANGER Do not touch. I can only imagine that now it would have to be much, much bigger. There are shadows along the back fence that look strangely like black cats to me. The bulbs in the white areas of the cats and Mickey’s face look lit up under careful examination – but the lights on their pants and bows do not appear to be. Perhaps they blinked – maybe half are on and half off?
Of course my imagination goes wild with the idea of a day and an evening at Blackpool – getting my photo taken with Felix on the beach first and then seeing this at night! I am probably delightedly eating cotton candy and other junk food in the interim. A perfect day at the British seashore resort.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s treat is a clear example of the curios you will come across if you consistently spend time down a given rabbit hole of collecting as I tend to. Definitely in the more interesting than good, this old press photo caught my eye recently and was on its way to me lickety split. It had found its way from the East coast to Los Angeles, but it is back home in the tri-state area again.
Its eBay listing,1936 Disney Mickey Mouse Costume Atlantic City Steel Pier Midgets Felix the Cat, was designed to catch my attention a few different ways. And really, put that way, who could resist it?
Deconstructing that amazing sentence a bit – Felix? Um, I hate to be a critic but I think they were very safe from copyright infringement on that one. It is somewhat more illuminated by the press information stored on the back. Glued to the back, in a very old fashioned type, is the following breaking news:
Back of the photo.
YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THAT CAT – That is about what Mickey Mouse was telling pretty Miss Betty Van Auken, New York visitor sunbathing on the Atlantic City Steel Pier. And Mickey’s girl friend Minnie Mouse listened, a little careful of Mickey around such beauty. Mickey and Minnie are members of the Steel Pier midget colony that helps to entertain guests on the ocean amusement structure. It has an index number, A16353 and it says, Ref. Dept. 7-28-36 N.E.A.
The Steel Pier seems to be the major amusement pier in Atlantic City and we will assume it has been ever thus. And while it seems sensible that this figure with Mickey was never meant to be Felix, it’s decidedly un-Minnie like as well, both mask and outfit. (And that suit looks hot for a July in Atlantic City too – she’d have been much happier in Minnie’s usual brief attire!) Mickey still looks a bit overdressed for July, but is in more traditional Mickey garb.
Comic book publication of Stuff of Dreams, #3, cover image.
It took a few times before the midget colony part sunk into my consciousness. Fascinating on its own, it also reminded me immediately of a story Kim did years ago, No Midgets in Midgetville which had roots in an actual town in northern NJ which is said to have originally been the winter home of a group of traveling circus midgets. (That story was published in his book, Alias the Cat which can be purchased on Amazon here or search eBay. Or you can find it in single comics under the name, Stuff of Dreams #3.)
Back cover of Stuff of Dreams #3.
We went and looked at the remains of the enclave of small (and occasionally tiny) houses as research for the story, an interesting morning jaunt with my ever patient father. In these days of tiny homes it is a bit hard to say how much truth was in the story, although some house did seem quite small. (The original story about it being Midgetville originated in the New York Times back in 2002 and can be found here although there are other references to the town online.) Regardless, the idea that circus performers (perhaps of all sizes) wintered there perhaps makes sense and it makes additional sense that perhaps some of those performers went no further than Atlantic City seaside for a summer gig.
Centerfold of Midgetville, Kim Deitch, Stuff of Dreams.
As for Miss Betty Van Auken of New York – it is hard to believe that even a veteran New Yorker showed up in Atlantic in a bathing suit, mincing along in high heels and lipstick for a day at the beach. At first I didn’t even bother googling her but it turns out that 1936 was her year. She has a Broadway role (Dodsworth) and film credits from that year, The Garden of Allah, Oasis Girl (uncredited), and a small part as a manicurist in Big Brown Eyes. The trail grows cold after that.
The weirdness of this duo continues to nag at me though. How odd to be on the seaside pier in roasting July heat, eating your cotton candy and have these two come gamboling up around you. The Stuff of Dreams indeed!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Pictorama readers may have sussed out that there are strata to each of my areas of collecting. Photo postcards of people posing with Felix rate very high but people posing on giant black cats are a bit more due to rarity, a stuffed Felix that I have not seen is extremely rarified and I haven’t purchased one in years.
Yet somehow an Aesop Fable doll that is sufficiently unusual and requires purchase these days is a whole other thing. I don’t think I have purchased a doll since I scored one in a box back in 2018. And today I have not one but two, purchased together, and seem to be of a piece. While my longstanding lust for these toys has been documented back to 2014 and the early days of this blog, the most recent acquisition before this was a bit of ephemera, a piece of related stationary, in 2019 and can be found in a post here. A purchase of these is unusual indeed.
Unlike the off-model madness that was Felix production at one point in Great Britain, the production of these dolls was limited to, I believe, one company and a brief period of time. Therefore the survivors are decidedly more finite. As someone who has been purchasing them, and the occasional related item, for a few decades now, I rarely have the opportunity to make a significant purchase. (To be clear however, I am still searching for some of the cast including Milton Mouse should he make an appearance among others.) Notably though, the other morning, a listing for these showed up in my inbox and as seems to often be the case, with utter disregard for the well being of my bank account (Kim made a contribution), something had to be done about it immediately.
Before I get to the heart of this today’s story allow me to backtrack a bit further for anyone who is just entering the fray and encountering these toys for the first time. These items were made based on Paul Terry’s Aesop’s Fable cartoons of the 1920’s and early ’30’s – a delightful never ending saga of cartoon cats, mice, bears and other animals in a world dominated by them and the occasional visage of a human, often the frustrated Farmer Al Falfa. In some ways they represent my ideal of silent cartoons.
A sample of the cartoons can be found below.
However, if the scant information the internet provides about the W.R. Woodard toy company of Los Angeles is true, the production years of the dolls seems to be limited to the years of ’29 and ’30 – the years of the company’s existence. (A post about the company and an original box of one of the toys which helped me research it can be found here.) These recently purchased additions seem to clearly beg to tell a story as well.
As far as I have been able to tell, there was always a certain amount of variation among these dolls. For example the Princes (cat) toy seems to bear several versions of skirt. Sometimes other outfit swaps are made and maybe a bit of variation even on features. I have an especially prized possession which is a variation on the Princess made for a theater raffle. A post devoted to her can be found here.
The same standard company stamp that is found on the standard toys.
These two recently purchased dolls, both bearing the same W.R. Woodard stamp on the bottom of their feet as some of my others (not all are stamped) and both still have fragments of their original tags – Don the Dog and Mike the Monkey, which appear to be the same as the rare ones I have seen on other toys. While their red trousers, held up by a single strap, are similar in design to some of my other toys. The differences seem to mount up from there.
These two toys are a bit smaller than what I will call the standard toys. (The raffle doll is also a tad smaller than the standard ones but not as small as these and other than a special design on her skirt; a marker testifying to her as a theatrical raffle prize but otherwise is made the same as the standard toys.) Rather than standing, these are in a permanently seated position. Instead of a sort of velveteen fabric for the heads, feet and clothing, they are entirely made of a sort of cotton fabric. As a result they look newer than their counterparts.
Mike the MonkeyDon the Dog
Meanwhile, the features are printed onto the faces rather than being stitched on. Their hands do not have defined fingers (the standard ones have fully defined five finger hands), and even their sewn on noses are more of a piece of the fabric, rather than the (admittedly vulnerable) more defined and stitched on noses of the other dolls. shown together below, the standard version of Don has the same square ears and similar but not identical facial design and he does not sport the same single button overall style trousers. Where the feet join the legs seems to also be produced differently too.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection. The variations on Don the Dog side-by-side.
In short, they appear to be a less expensive line of these dolls, either made contemporaneously or later than the others. Was it another promotional item which had to be less expensive? A last ditch effort to produce them for less? Or was it some later production under the company name and these designs – perhaps in conjunction with a revival of the cartoons? I don’t think we’ll likely get the answer any time soon if ever. In my decades of collecting these dolls (and looking at them – those I missed at auction!) I have never seen them but they have come now to live for a spell at Deitch Studio in the Pictorama collection.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I’ve had this interesting advertising book in my possession for a number of weeks and am just getting around to sharing it with you all. Obviously I purchased it for the Felix page, but I do find the whole publication of interest.
For starters I am impressed with the idea that these were sent out en masse to theaters to encourage bookings. For all of it’s heft and embossed-ness it doesn’t go into any detail about the packages you would be ordering for your theater. These were all short subjects, like Felix, so each page highlights a topic.
Frontispiece and introduction.
The opening page, with a photo and a letter from E. W. Hammond. While I cannot seem to trace his title over at Educational Films, I have run across him advertising Felix films previously. The link to two rollicking pages advertising Felix cartoons can be found here. In his letter at the front of this volume he refers to the proven success of these shorts. He writes, It is a group of pictures without an element of a gamble – backed by seven years of specialized experience – a product of proven value.
I am giving you a slide show to page through the entire holding at the end of the post but want to highlight a few. I will start with Felix, although he is found toward the back of the volume. These years were Felix in his heyday and 26 new one-reel cartoons were in the offing. He strums his banjo and eyes the girl cat, Kitty, peering out around a building. There is a frowning faced moon on the other side. Felix is perched on a bit of fence but I like the way the buildings curve in around behind him like they want to break loose and frolic. It is a jolly nighttime scene with stars in the sky and all the buildings lit up – occupants no doubt listening to Felix’s serenade for better or worse. A careful look shows that his snout, as it were, is the same pink as the buildings. Someone named E. Ritt claims illustration credit and that is someone other than who has executed the other images. Such popularity means patronage and profit…
These are the ones I am curious about.
Beyond Felix there are a few other highlights for me. 12 One-Reel Curiosities The Movie Side-show catches my eye. This one is also signed by E. Ritt and here his imagination has been let loose a bit. We have a tree with eyes watching a witch stir a caldron producing smoke which reveals owl eyes, and a three-headed cat eyes us! A spicy dish concocted from many oddities gathered from all corners of the world, and served with a dash of wit and humor. Oh man, I wonder how they delivered on this?
Dorothy was already in her 20’s here.
I like the page of Dorothy Devore comedies – she’s shown with this nice teddy bear. The artist of the spread seems to be someone else and they are identified as E.R.H. It states, A girl comedy start — a real star — is a rare asset. Well, I like that! This was toward the end of Dorothy’s working life. Wikipedia says she stopped making films in 1930.
And who is the girl on the sax?
There is a sort of centerspread which has Cameo Comedies on one side and 12 One-Reel Lyman H. Howe’s Hodge-Podge, a medley of clever ideas offering more variety to the foot than any other sing reel on the market. Across these two pages we see everything from a girl with her sax to camels, African-type natives and a coolie to whales and the Sphinx. I assume these were largely cartoons – a fact also confirmed by Wikipedia.
A smattering of cartoon images.
So quite a year, ’27-’28. A fraction of these films may still exist – luckily with a good survival rate on Felix. I’ll likely never really get to judge the one-reel curiosities, although you never know what will turn up.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s Felilx loving post is an unseasonal Thanksgiving tribute, but I couldn’t possibly wait that long to share it.
In addition to the neatly typed ORANGE NJ on the front of the photo, handwritten on the back it reads A Rubber Felix Thanksgiving Day East Orange, NJ. It is also stamped with what appears to be…CMA L. Simpson…17 Pleasant Ave. Montclair, NJ. It was glued onto something black at one point much of which remains here, likely a photo album, and the full address is obscured.
Back of the photo.
This is an overexposed and not especially good print so this establishment must have just processed and printed pictures for people.
Still, it clearly has its charms and I am glad to take the trip back in time to see the scene. In addition to this large Felix balloon, what I like best is the Felix headed and clad retinue around him, like Felix-y mice around the big cat! We can see four, my guess is there was at least one more who is out of the shot.
I thought at first that this could be the same balloon butclose inspection says no. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
It is sadly undated but a very close look reveals that many of the women are wearing distinctive cloche hats. Those were popular from the early 20’s to the early 30’s. Randomly I would guess this is the mid-to-late 20’s given Felix’s rise to popularity and the rest of the clothing I can discern. Someone smarter about cars could probably tell more about the date from the one or two in this shot.
Thanksgiving is already a wintery scene here and people are bundled up to watch this parade. A close look reveals that the crowd extends up the stairs of this unidentified but official looking building. (If there are any Montclair historians or residents who can identify this building give a shout.) You can’t see it without magnification but in reality most of the people across the street seem to already be looking at and pointing to something coming up next.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I have written before about my love of Thanksgiving Day balloons in the parade and how I always wanted to go see them as a child. As a young adult here in New York City I would often go to see them blown up and strapped down the night before although I have never made it to the parade. My father had the freezing detail of filming it and the night before in his days as a junior cameraman for ABC News and there was no enticement I could find to get him to take me.
I love that New Jersey had their own rival, early Thanksgiving parades complete with balloons and I have shared a few parade pics here from my collection. Felix was popular coast to coast and one of these photos which lives by our front door in NYC is from Portland. The posts for those photos can be found here and here.
So while today would have been more appropriate to have an Easter parade this weekend, I conjure up another long past if somewhat unseasonable holiday for you today.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: My fascination with these cards is at the root of starting this blog (as a summer project while recovering from foot surgery, confined to bed for weeks) as a way of organizing and recording my then nascent collection. It expanded to toys and eventually life, but the square one was folks with Felix in a parade of early 20th century photos.
If you consider reincarnation you might think that some time back, about 100 years ago, I decided to forego and opportunity to have my picture taken with Felix, or I was a small child and no one would listen to me, or it was taken and lost. I have found a tiny window onto my past passion and devote myself to the glorious fulfilling of it now.
Margate photo. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Romantic day dreams of Felix lost and found aside, I now own a pile of these photos – far more than I have room to display here in the apartment although I have started to think of what a series of them would look like in New Jersey and need to consider a spot without much sun which is more challenging there.
As postulated in my post last week about two somewhat different cards from the same negative, I now have a large enough collection to make some interesting (at least to me) connections between them. In that way I bring you today’s acquisition, a card recently purchased from England, the locus primary for these photos.
Today the breaking news is that this card, which was never sent, was taken in Margate, England, a summer resort town there. As you can see, it is the kissing cousin of another postcard in my collection, purchased back in 2022 and posted about at that time. That post can be read here. Ironically I evidently paid a lot for that card and this one was a bit of a steal. (It averages out I find and try to be philosophical about it.) Interesting to note that, like the one last week, the card above was unusual in that it came via a US dealer. It was identified with Margate on the back.
Magnificent Kim Deitch original valentine depicting Margate. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Margate! Where you could also have your photo taken on a giant black cat chair, was a swinging summer resort if having your photo taken on the beach was part of a good time. It lives in my imagination and Kim has brought it to life in these drawings he has done for me. Read about those here.
Kim Deitch original drawing, valentine from this year. Proudly in the Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
These two cards share the singular vision of this photographer who liked to blur his (or her) background, bringing just the Felix and child into focus. The children are also remarkably similar, but a careful look shows that it does not seem to be the same day and the negative numbers are far apart as well. Still, this cheerful little boy and the sad small girl could easily be related.
I have more, different Felix treats in store although Kim and I are heading out for a much belated birthday celebration for me which includes a postcard show I haven’t been to since before Covid so who knows what else might lurk there!
Pam's Pictorama 