Today in Comics History, February 4: Happy birthday, Nigel Bruce!

Born on this day in 1895: stage and screen actor Nigel Bruce of The Scarlet Pimpernel, She, Under Two Flags, Kidnapped, Lassie Come Home, The Two Mrs. Carrolls and more, but especially as the lovable and bumbling version of Doctor John H. Watson in each of the fourteen Fox and Universal Sherlock Holmes pictures starring Basil Rathbone!


from "Clodumbo" in MAD #156 (January 1973), script by Lou Silverstone, pencils and inks by Angelo Torres
Nigel Bruce appeared in Lassie Come Home with Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowell, and since I once met Roddy McDowell ar a convention, I'm only one Kevin Bacon away from Nigel! (And only three, via Hillbillys in a Haunted House, from Ferlin Husky!)


from "Elizabeth Taylor" in Famous Stars #5 (Ziff-Davis, Winter 1951), creators uncredited and unknown
Happy birthday, Nigel Bruce!


from Dressed to Kill (Universal, 1946), starring here Nigel Bruce and Topsy Glyn, written by Frank Gruber and Leonard Lee, directed by Roy William Neill