Jack Mendelsohn worked in comic books and animation. His Sunday
syndicated strip, "Jackys Diary," ran 1959-61. Written and drawn as if
by a five-year-old, and bylined "Jacky Mendelsohn, age 32½,"
the joke
at its heart evidently flew over the heads of readers and newspaper
editors who thought it
was
by a five-year-old.
When I went to index Dell's early-Sixties
Felix
the Cat for myself, I figured
I'd differentiate the artists by "Felix artist 1," "Felix artist 2,"
and so on. One I gave a more descriptive identification:
"Mendelsohn-like," since the simplicity somehow reminded me of the
deliberately childlike style he affected on "Jacky's Diary."
But as I was looking at the stories' art, I realized that I recognized
the writing on a run of three issues that included the
"Mendelsohn-like" artist's work. I'd seen it on the earlier
Supermouse
at Pines and the later
Tippy
Teen at Tower, which I knew from
the
Who's Who
that Jack Mendelsohn had worked on. Bails and Ware also place him at
Dell at the time. His
website mentions the Dell issue of
Miss
Peach that he wrote and drew in
a spot-on imitation of Mell Lazarus's style. As I found after "discovering" these Felix stories, the
Who's
Who has him writing the syndicated strip in 1948-52, and his site mentions Felix as one of his comic book credits.
Eventually I tied together
the art styles between
Jacky's
Dairy and
Felix,
I
think; note the
cobblestones as well as the background buildings in the street scenes.
I find that
deliberately primitive art style on only two Felix stories,
but it seems to me that other artists could have been working over
Mendelsohn's layouts on other stories he wrote here; I think I see one
of those artists on a later issue or two. I can't tell if he wrote any
of the one-pagers in #2-4. These three are the only
issues out of the twelve-issue run that he wrote; I'm still trying to
see if I can ID
anyone else on the
strip at Dell.
Felix
the Cat
written by Jack Mendelsohn
| Jan-Mar/63 |
2 |
Beaux
and Arrows |
a: Mendelsohn |
|
|
You
Must've Been a Beautiful Baby |
a: Mendelsohn |
|
|
High
Finance |
|
| Apr-Jun/
|
3 |
Fair
Weather Enemies |
|
|
|
You
Auto Be in Pictures |
|
|
|
Good
Neighbor Policy |
|
|
|
Frozen
Assets |
|
| Jul-Sep/
|
4 |
The
Vicious Cycle |
|
|
|
Tale
of a Fish |
|
|
|
A
Sample Assignment |
|
|
|
There
Auto Be a Law |
|
Felix
the Cat backups
written by Mendelsohn
| Jan-Mar/63 |
2 |
Early
to Bed [ROCK AND ROLLO] |
|
| Apr-Jun/
|
3 |
Spring
Fever [PUSSYFOOT] |
|
| Jul-Sep/
|
4 |
A
Moving Story [ROCK AND ROLLO] |
|
