Otto Messmer

Unjustly neglected American cartoonist, important as the creator of Felix the Cat, the first fully developed and popular animal character in the history of the American animated film. Drawer of over 150 adventures of the enterprising and flirtatious Jazz Age emblem, Messmer's work was highly popular throughout the silent 1920s. Unfortunately, Messmer's contribution was all but eclipsed by the entrepreneurial presence of producer-animator Pat Sullivan, after whose death from alcoholism in 1933 the extremely self-effacing animator was left without any rights to the screen character he had been instrumental in developing. Although at various times Messmer worked for Paramount and the Douglas Leigh Corporation and even continued to draw Felix in cartoon strip form for journal publication, it was not until the 70s that retrospectives revealed a notable talent hidden by the vagaries of the history of film rights and production.