Panel from one of L. Church's kitten comics, printed in the Dutch children's magazine Olijk en Vrolijk, 1938.
L. Church was an early-20th-century British comic artist working extensively for nursery comics of the 1920s and 1930s. Several of his stories, which use the text comic format with narration printed underneath the images, feature cute little kittens.
Picture stories
Nothing is known about the life and further background of L. Church. During the 1920s, his art appeared in many of the British nursery story papers of the Amalgamated Press. He specialized in comical features with anthropomorphic kittens, created in a style similar to Louis Wain.
Among his recurring picture story features were 'Pussy Tales' (1920) in Chick's Own (AP), 'Flip, Flap and Flop' (1920) in The Children's Fairy, 'Blackie, Tabby and Pops' (1921) in Bubbles, 'Those Nautie Kittycats' (1922) in Playtime, 'Tibby, Tabby and Tubby' (1927) in Comic Life, and 'Comical Kittens' (1927) in Tiny Tots. In the late 1930s, at least one of these features appeared under the title 'Het Vrolijke Trio' in the Dutch children's magazine Olijk en Vrolijk.
Dutch version of one of L. Church's features, published in Olijk en Vrolijk (1938).