Rarity: Casey’s Capers by Vincent Faletti
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Vincent D. Faletti began cartooning while serving in the Armed Forces during World War 2. Returning home to Michigan he continued cartooning for the Saginaw News by creating the weekly Saga of Saginaw from 1946-47.
He continued as a freelance cartoonist contributing to The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, American Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, and others according to his obituary.
In 1956 Vincent began syndicating a two-panel pantomime comic strip. Casey’s Capers began on November 5, 1956 in The Los Gatos Times-Saratoga Observer.
It got no promotion though The Madrid Herald out of Nebraska noted that a once-local woman, Barbara Cotter, had been engaged by Faletti as a gag writer/idea woman.
The strip starred a Dennis the Menace simulacrum and his dog.
It was distributed by the unknown Skyline Features Syndicate. All I can find is that they did manage to publish a few one-shot magazines in – Lawrence Welk Album (1956), TV Western Roundup (1957), and Oo-La-La, A Collection of the Naughtiest Cartoon Post Cards Ever Imported from Gay Paree!! The first two can be found with a Google search, the last is a mystery (magazine?, digest?, book?).
1956 – 1957 is also the life span of Casey’s Capers. It ended August 24, 1957 as seen in The Whittier News.
(It ran, always undated, until December 5, 1957, in the five-times-a-week Times-Observer, seemingly using up their unused inventory.)
Neither Casey’s Capers nor Skyline Features Syndicate ever appeared in Editor & Publisher’s Syndicate Directory.
After 1957 it looks like Vincent got a day job (“He spent 20 years working as a leader in the Art Department of the Office of Civil Defense”) while supposedly still submitting cartoons to various magazines.
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