Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies 1932-1935: Starring Bucky Bug and Donald Duck

by Ted Osborne, Al Taliaferro (Artist), Earl Duvall (Artist), Merrill De Maris

Overview

The wild adventures of the first Disney star created just for comics—and Donald Duck’s hilarious funny-page debut!

1932 saw the launch of Disney’s second-ever original comic strip, the full-color weekly Silly Symphonies, and with it came the debut of Bucky Bug, a daring, rhyming, mischievous squirt whose escapades took him from brutal birds of prey to the terrifying trenches of the Great Flyburg War! With his brave lady friend June and bumpkin pal Bo, Bucky even travels to a mixed-up Mother Goose Land… where a not-so-merry Old King Cole has mayhem on his mind!

Now in this latest stand alone Disney reprint collection, readers can follow all of Bucky’s adventures and the Symphonies Sunday sagas that followed, which also includes Donald Duck’s debut as the barnyard’s spoilt brat in “The Wise Little Hen”… and further tales of golden age Silly Symphony cartoon stars: egotistical Max Hare, slow-but-sure Toby Tortoise, and that awful bandit Dirty Bill (who “never took a bath, and he never will!”).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683967019
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	04/11/2023
Series:	Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	634,047
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 12.00(h) x 2.90(d)

About the Author

Al Taliaferro (1905-1969), born in Montrose, Colorado, “knew [he] was going to be a cartoonist” from childhood. Hired at the Walt Disney Company in January 1931, Taliaferro inked the Mickey Mouse daily comic strip before graduating to full art duty on the Silly Symphony Sunday feature. There Taliaferro would unite with Donald Duck, the star with whom he would forever be associated—and for whom Taliaferro personally created the inimitable Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Earl Duvall (1898-1969) was an animator and story man who worked with Disney in the early sound era. As the original writer and artist of the Silly Symphonies Sunday comic strip, Duvall created Bucky Bug, the first Disney star character to make his debut in comics rather than animation. In later years, Duvall also worked for the Leon Schlesinger animation studio (Looney Tunes).

Ted Osborne (1900-1968), born in Oklahoma, moved to California for work as an in-house writer with Los Angeles radio station KHJ. When, in late 1931, the station collaborated with Disney on a Mickey Mouse radio special, Osborne made the jump to Disney employ, where he became a celebrated comic strip writer, writing the Silly Symphonies strip for artist Al Taliaferro and scripting Mickey Mouse for plotter/artist Floyd Gottfredson. In later years, Osborne left Disney and managed a photographic studio.

Merrill De Maris (1898-1948) was born in New Jersey and started work with Disney in 1933. De Maris divided his time between scripting the Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse comic strips and working as an animation story man. In the late 1930s, De Maris began a five-year run as the main Mickey scripter for plotter/penciler Floyd Gottfredson, creating such classics as “The Bar-None Ranch” (1938) and “Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot” (1939). In later years, De Maris left Disney to become a professional gardener.