Four Color #162
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFour Color #162 stands as the final Four Color tryout issue devoted to Felix the Cat before the character graduated to his own dedicated Dell series beginning in early 1948, making it a closing punctuation mark on Felix's long apprenticeship inside Dell's anthology format. The issue is also a quietly significant artifact of animation history: it represents one of the last comic book appearances drawn chiefly by Otto Messmer — the animator-cartoonist who originated Felix — working in the fluid 'rubber-hose' bigfoot style he had developed across more than two decades of animated shorts and newspaper strips. As one of only six Four Color issues (nos. 15, 46, 77, 119, 135, and 162) to give Felix headline billing between 1942 and 1947, it documents the steady reader appetite that convinced Dell the character could carry a standalone monthly. The indicia actually titles the book 'Felix the Cat, No. 162,' underlining how Dell treated these Four Color slots as dry runs for eventual ongoing series.
"Filling the Coop" is a delightfully whimsical 1947 tale from Otto Messmer, the legendary creator of Felix the Cat, who wrote, drew, inked, and lettered every page. When Felix is swept up in a sudden cyclone, he wakes to find himself the unexpected owner of a fully furnished house—only to be swarmed by relatives eager to claim their share of the space. A charming, surreal slice of early animation-inspired comic storytelling, this Four Color #162 entry showcases Messmer’s signature blend of absurdity and charm.
In "Weather Profit," an inventor's weather control machine becomes a tool for greed, as he manipulates the skies to demand payoffs from local businesses. When Felix takes the machine into his own paws, he turns the tables—delivering a series of increasingly bizarre and unwelcome weather surprises to teach the inventor a lesson.
Felix, struggling to find a place to live, is swept up in a sudden cyclone—only to emerge with a fully furnished house in its wake. Now, his relatives flood in, filling every room and turning his unexpected luck into a crowded mess.
In this 1947 classic from Four Color #162, Felix the Cat sets his sights on becoming an artist to win the heart of a girl he admires—only to find his palette unexpectedly shifting with his feelings. After munching on mysterious chameleon berries, he begins turning vibrant colors in real time, each hue a bold signal of his inner emotions.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 13 grades ▾
This exact issue on ebay
Raw / ungraded ▾ $68.99–$90 2 listings
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
By September 1947, when this issue went on sale, Otto Messmer had wound down the syndicated Felix the Cat Sunday newspaper strip (which ended in 1943) and was dividing his time between comic book work for Dell and animation assignments for the Douglas Leigh Organization's Times Square electric-sign displays. Working within that context, Messmer enlisted fellow animator Jim Tyer — already a veteran Terrytoons hand — to handle a substantial portion of the interior art: specifically, most of the drawing duties on the lead story 'Weather Profit.' The copyright on the issue was held by King Features Syndicate, which had distributed the original Felix newspaper strip since 1923, reflecting the licensing chain that ran from Pat Sullivan's estate through to Dell's Western Publishing production arm. The issue's 52 full-color pages at a ten-cent cover price was standard Dell Four Color formatting for the period.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published September 1947 by Dell Comics (produced through Western Publishing); indicia title is 'FELIX THE CAT, No. 162,' not simply 'Four Color.'
- Primary creator credit: Otto Messmer — the animator-cartoonist broadly credited as Felix's originator — wrote, drew, and lettered the bulk of the issue's stories.
- Animator Jim Tyer contributed the majority of the drawing for the lead story 'Weather Profit,' a collaboration first identified publicly by animation historian Mike Kazaleh and later documented in detail by Devon Baxter on CartoonResearch.com.
- The issue contains at least three Felix stories: 'Weather Profit' (Felix battles a weather-control extortionist), 'Public Relations' (a cyclone delivers Felix an instant furnished house), and 'Felix the Cat Shows His Colors' (Felix eats chameleon berries and turns colors to match his emotions).
- Copyright is held by King Features Syndicate, reflecting the licensing chain inherited from the Pat Sullivan studio that owned Felix since the character's 1919 screen debut.
- This is the sixth and final Four Color issue to feature Felix as the cover star (following nos. 15, 46, 77, 119, and 135); Felix received his own standalone Dell series beginning February–March 1948.
- The issue is part of Dell's Four Color Series II, a massive anthology numbering over 1,000 issues published between 1942 and 1962 that Dell used as a try-out vehicle for potential ongoing titles.
- Messmer's visual style in the Dell Felix comics — rooted in his silent-era rubber-hose animation work — has been cited by later scholars as an early prototype of the 'bigfoot' cartooning aesthetic that would become a staple of American humor comics.
Full credits
Key issues in Four Color
★
★
★
★
★
★
★Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.