Charles Brubaker quotes ‘100 Years of Newspaper Comics’ as saying that the strip ran from 1942 to 1993. This is the earliest Sunday colour comic I can find, from September 19, 1943. Click on it to enlarge.
J.D. Weil reveals by this point, Roger Armstrong supplied the artwork while Carl Buettner wrote the strip.
Other than Leon’s “signature,” maybe the most notable thing is the older design of Bugs, quite natural considering when it was drawn.
The comics, to me, have a different feel than the shorts, and not just because of the media. The situations weren’t the same. Bugs always seemed to be running some kind of shop, Sylvester kept calling people “Guv’ner” and characters like Cicero and Petunia Pig made appearances long after they disappeared from animation.
Still, some of the strips are amusing and worth taking a look at, even if only as an animation history sidebar.
GREAT BLOG!
ReplyDeleteAmazing what you’ll find just by clicking on the links at “Yowp”! Oh, wait… You ARE Yowp! Clever dog! Why didn’t you ever catch that bloomin’ fox, or duck, or pint-size bad guy, or whatever!
I never knew that Bugs Bunny strip went back that far. I knew it from the late sixties, when it was as you described, and was drawn by Ralph Heimdahl. It sure looks like the earliest issues of the Dell LOONEY TUNES AND MERRIE MELODIES comic book. Armstrong and Buettner worked on that too. And Leon’s signature was there as well!
So, lessee… Jetsons, Avery, Woody, and Bugs! “These are a few of my fa-vor-ite things!”, so I’ll be back!