Continuing my weekly postings of these rare Fleischer Studio promotional illustrations – this time from the May and June 1936 issues of in-house trade publication Paramount Sales News. As summer winds down and work comes back full-swing, it’ll be even tougher to do these little Fleischer posts, but I’ll do my best to come through!
This week, Bob Jaques reminded me in the comments of last week’s post that there’s been a definite change in the artist of these cartoons. It’s at least no longer exclusively (if at all) Hal Seeger’s work. Any educated (and I mean edjikated) guesses are appreciated. Also note: an early use of the term “fandom” in the 6/10 panel.
Please click each illustration below to enlarge image.
05-06-1936
05-13-1936
05-20-1936
05-27-1936
06-03-1936
06-10-1936
06-17-1936
06-24-1936
Here are a few samples of what cartoon shorts the Paramount salesmen were pushing to theaters at the time these promotional pieces appeared in print.
MORE PEP (released June 19th)
I WANNA BE A LIFE GUARD (released June 26th)
THAD KOMOROWSKI is a writer, journalist, film restorationist and author of the acclaimed (and recently revised) Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. He blogs at 
A nice use of the 3-D set-back system in the Popeye short (2:46 to 3:05) – a shame they couldn’t use it more! Some strangely grotesque moments in this one, though (as opposed to weirdly funny) – Popeye whistling through his eye socket, and that fish face close-up cut into the (equally strange) “I’m an octopus” sequence.