The Other Guy at Terrytoons

To your right you see a lovely bit of incorrect information. Perhaps it’s understandable.

Felix the Cat was maybe the most famous cartoon character of the silent era. He was so popular imitation Felixes showed up at other studios. Walt Disney had Julius, while the Fables studio had Henry. Henry is the cat you see to your right with animator Frank Moser.

The Des Moines Register published the photo on March 31, 1928 along with the following blurb:

Frank Moser Sends Some Original Drawings for Exhibit.
From Des Moines hailed the father of Felix the Cat.
Felix is one of the most popular creations in comedy films today. And Felix is the brain child of Frank Moser, former Des Moines artist.
This afternoon just how Felix is managed on the celluloid will be explained by representatives of the Cumming School of Art. Mr. Moser has sent back original drawings of Felix and explanations of how Felix is given his lifelike qualities.
It takes 5,000 drawings of Felix to produce an ordinary comedy film.
Felix is the most important member of Mr. Moser's "Aesops Fables" films. But besides his animal cartoons, Mr. Moser does landscape painting and he has sent one dozen of these same paintings buck for the exhibit in the public library.

Frank Moser was an animation pioneer who was manoeuvered out of his share of the Terrytoons studio by Paul Terry in 1936. Terry went on to become a millionaire. Other than sit at home and paint, I don’t know what else Moser did until he died in 1964; the 1940 census states he was an animated cartoonist in the movie industry but doesn’t reveal for whom.

The local paper in Marysville, Kansas wrote about Moser a number of times after he had moved away to work in the animation industry in the silent era. The following is from April 10, 1952 and gives a nice biography, as well as a story about Walt Disney. I would guess Moser paid a visit on Bill Tytla and Art Babbitt; they may be the best-known former Terry artists at Disney (there were other New Yorkers there, such as Norm Ferguson).

Artist Re-Visits His Home
A visitor in Marysville this week was Frank Moser, artist and pioneer in the field of animated cartoons. A former resident and graduate of the high school here, Moser had not visited his home for 13 years.
He was born on a farm west of Oketo. His last visit home was in 1939. He has three brothers in Kansas. Brother Rudolph lives in Toneka. Fred is a resident of Blue Rapids and Charles Moser lives in Marysville.
Frank Moser's home has been in Hastings-on-Hudson, a suburb of New York City, for the past 40 years.
Moser graduated from Marysville high school in 1907. He was captain of the baseball team while in high school.
He recalls with considerable satisfaction that his squad defeated Frankfort twice.
He also played some football, but he adds, "not much."
After graduating from high school here, Moser went to study at the Albert Reed School of Art in Topeka. He later went to Des Moines, Iowa, where he attended the Cummings School of Art.
He went to work on The Des Moines Register and Leader, working with J. N. Darling, famous political cartoonist who always signed his works with the word "Ding" crawled across one corner.
Another Marysville man, Russell Cole, was also working in Des Moines at the time.

Russell moved on to a job in New York and Moser, after two years on the Des Moines paper, moved to New York.
He attended art school in New York and went to work on The New York Globe as cartoonist and illustrator. He worked on The Globe for about four years.
Moser is one of the pioneers in the field of animated cartoons in the motion pictures. During his career in the making of animated cartoons, he worked for Pathe, Paramount, Fox, International RKO, and several other motion picture studios.
Moser and Paul Terry established the cartoon known as Terry-Toons, now released by Fox, in 1929.
"We made it through the depression," Moser says. Together the partners made $18 in 1932.
Moser sold out to his partner in 1936. Today, he devotes his time to painting in oil colors and water colors. His wife is also a watercolor artist.
He is a member of the Salmagundi art club of New York, the American watercolor society, and the Hudson Valley art association.
Walt Disney is probably one of the best known producers of animated cartoons in Hollywood today. Moser's work preceded Disney's by 15 years.
"Disney was a natural theater man," Moser recalls, "and he was a natural gambler."
An incident told by Moser gives some illustration of Disney's character. In 1939, Moser made a trip to Hollywood, stopping in Marysville on the way.
In Hollywood, he met some of the men who were then working for Disney but who had formerly been employed by the Terry-Toon organization.
The Disney studio, they told Moser, appeared to be facing a financial crisis. They felt that Disney's free-spending production methods might force the company into bankruptcy.
In order to put a check-rein on Walt, they had to ask his brother, Roy, to take steps to halt the spending. Roy, in turn, went to the firm's banker (A. P. Giannini, Bank of America.)
Giannini called Walt Disney in to have a conference. Everyone expected the banker to give Disney a dressing-down.
"But to show you what kind fellow this Disney was," Moser says, "He went to see the banker and instead of a paddling, he came back with another million dollar loan."