Today's "Mirth Separation" features FELIX THE CAT # 14 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: April-May, 1950)...
...And TOM AND JERRY # 220 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: August, 1964)
Both Felix and Tom are at the ready before a mousehole with a swatting broom, unaware that Skidoo the Mouse and Jerry and Tuffy (respectively) are hiding in the very instrument each cat wields as a weapon!
Further, each cover has a red background...
If you'd care to delve deeper (...and WHO among you would NOT?), you could also note the different esthetics on display in service to the exact same gag!
The well-worn broom wielded by Felix, and Skidoo's rough-hewn mousehole suggest the more hardscrabble times as the 1940s segued into the 1950s.
In contrast, Tom's "new broom" and Jerry and Tuffy's neat and esthetically-pleasing mousehole (...that is, if it's at all possible for a mousehole to be "esthetically-pleasing") - not to mention that the "Tom and Jerry wall and floor" look as if they've been FRESHLY PAINTED vs. Felix's shabbier background - suggest the softer and more prosperous 1960s!
And I get a little tickle from imagining Jerry and Tuffy and Skidoo as "mousehole neighbors"...
Finally, can't you just see Tom and Felix swatting each other, as the mice jump to safety?!
TOM AND JERRY cover is by Harvey Eisenberg. FELIX THE CAT cover is by Otto Messmer.
There you have TOM AND JERRY # 220 and FELIX THE CAT # 14, brooms, mouseholes, and suckered cats... SEPARATED AT MIRTH!
2 comments:
Both are good covers but I think I like the Felix one better, the only thing i don't like of that one it's those weird blue highlights in Felix's eyes, looks like he is about to cry, or maybe it's intentional and Felix really gets emotional when chasing mice, I don't know.
Perhaps, like my wife, he’s allergic to cats! That *would* be tragic for poor Felix!
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