"Bugs Bunny" comic strip

[cbrubaker]

I scanned bunch of "Bugs Bunny" comic strips from the 1970s for you to read:

http://dfe.goldenagecartoons.com/bugsbunny/

[ChillyDown]

Heh! What a strange bunch of comics. The artwork isn't very good, and the gags aren't very true to the characters or situations. It seems like in every other strip, Bugs and Slyvester are working some job together. Then, Bugs and Elmer seem to live in the same house sometimes, and at other times Porky is Bugs' "kid" to take care of!

Also, why does Bugs have his Brooklyn accent and Elmer his lisp, but Porky doesn't stutter?

Plus, the artist seems to be stuck on Bugs, Slyvester, Porky and Petunia (and Bugs' "boss"). Where are Daffy, Tweety, Road Runner, etc.?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you took the time to share these with us. I always love looking at rare nostalgiac comic strips. (And it looks like you preserved the original newspaper prints -- nice!) But I do like the fact that DC's current Looney Tunes comics are much truer to the original material.

[Jon Cooke]

Then, Bugs and Elmer seem to live in the same house sometimes, and at other times Porky is Bugs' "kid" to take care of!

The kid Bugs is taking care of in those strips is actually Porky's nephew, Cicero Pig.

I thought it was Porky at first, too. Since Cicero usually wears a Donald Duck-type sailor suit in the comic books.

[J. B. Warner]

Forget all the modern incarnations of the characters - the Looney Tunes have never been anywhere near as unfunny as they are in these comics.

[cbrubaker]

(And it looks like you preserved the original newspaper prints -- nice!)
It helps that these strips were printed on superior paper stock.

Menomonee Falls Guardian, despite having the newspaper sounding name, was actually a comic strip publication that reprinted syndicated comics. It had stuff like "Beetle Bailey," "Popeye," "Broom-Hilda" (that comic had REALLY good art back then), "Sally Bananas" (by New Yorker cartoonist Charles Barsotti), "Gordo" and "Conchy."

They also had articles about comics on the space on the left side. However, if there were no columns, they ran NEA comics as fillers, and "Bugs Bunny" was one of the filler comics. (other comics that ran as fillers were "Eek & Meek," "Funny Business," "Winthrop," and "The Born Loser")

[Thad]

The old-time 'comic universe' wasn't the "All Star Party" used frequently today. Bugs hung around in a town with Porky, Petunia, Elmer, Sylvester, and Beaky Buzzard. Rarely there were other characters until the 70s.

This isn't Ralph Heimdahl's best work, but he was an absolutely great artist in his prime (late 1940s, 1950s).

[Leviathan]

Bugs hung around in a town with Porky, Petunia, Elmer, Sylvester, and Beaky Buzzard. Rarely there were other characters until the 70s.

I'd imagine that broke the heart of a lot of :daffy: fans

[Thad]

I'd imagine that broke the heart of a lot of :daffy: fans

I don't think they considered Daffy a valuable asset until some time in the early 50s, or 1951 exactly, when the ELMER FUDD & DAFFY feature started appearing in the LT&MM books. Previously he seldom appeared, and even sometimes spoke like a black guy.

[David Gerstein]

I don't think they considered Daffy a valuable asset until some time in the early 50s, or 1951 exactly, when the ELMER FUDD & DAFFY feature started appearing in the LT&MM books. Previously he seldom appeared, and even sometimes spoke like a black guy.I think Daffy may have been a victim of what I like to call "Von Drake Syndrome."
This is where a relatively major funny animal character—usually part of a larger team of characters—is misunderstood or simply disliked by a comics editorial team, with the end result being that the character ends up inexplicably absent from the comics.
"Von Drake Syndrome" is named, of course, for Ludwig Von Drake, who is absent from both the Egmont and Dutch Disney comics. In various places and at various times, the syndrome has also affected Fethry, Horace Horsecollar, Sylvester Shyster, Moby Duck, Brer Rabbit, and Eega Beeva among others.
In the Warners comics, Daffy wasn't the only "Von Drake": Pepe Le Pew was a victim later on—evidently, the editors didn't care for his womanizing, as it is absent from most stories in which he appears, and he's only ever in a few. Marvin was also a "Von Drake": I've never actually seen a golden age comic in which he appears.
Other studios had their own "Von Drakes" in their respective comics. In the MGM comics, Droopy appeared in regular one-pagers, but it was an astonishingly poor showing for their second most popular character. And in the Lantz comics, I've only ever seen one Beary Family story. Ever.

[Dafffy Duck]

The old-time 'comic universe' wasn't the "All Star Party" used frequently today. Bugs hung around in a town with Porky, Petunia, Elmer, Sylvester, and Beaky Buzzard. Rarely there were other characters until the 70s.


No way were Petunia or Beaky Buzzard ever more liked than Daffy. Were they?

[The Spectre]

Lookit all the VIOLENTLY ORDINARY REJOINDERS! *flip-takes out of scene*

Previously he seldom appeared, and even sometimes spoke like a black guy.

*laughs hysterically* Looks like there's some grain of truth after all in the claims that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" included race-relations jokes about Donald and Daffy...

[Jack]

I thought that they were good comics - not nearly as a good as the old comic books, but still quite lovely. One thing that I do really like about the old comics is that they lack the self-conciousness that can be seen in the more recent comic books. This to me makes even the more out-of-character stories still feel fairly natural.

[ChillyDown]

The kid Bugs is taking care of in those strips is actually Porky's nephew, Cicero Pig.

I thought it was Porky at first, too. Since Cicero usually wears a Donald Duck-type sailor suit in the comic books.

Ahh! Yeah, that makes more sense, thanks. I was confused by the same thing. :ham:

[ChillyDown]

Forget all the modern incarnations of the characters - the Looney Tunes have never been anywhere near as unfunny as they are in these comics.

Heh! Yeah, these are pretty bad, but I can give you one worse than that.

I used to own a book of "Road Runner" comic strips (I don't think they were ever published in a newspaper). Both :coyote: AND :beepbeep: spoke in every strip! The characters were also way off model -- Road Runner had eyebrows!!

I also had a :woody: book by the same publishers that were just as bad.

[ChillyDown]

Menomonee Falls Guardian, despite having the newspaper sounding name, was actually a comic strip publication that reprinted syndicated comics. It had stuff like "Beetle Bailey," "Popeye," "Broom-Hilda" (that comic had REALLY good art back then), "Sally Bananas" (by New Yorker cartoonist Charles Barsotti), "Gordo" and "Conchy."

They also had articles about comics on the space on the left side. However, if there were no columns, they ran NEA comics as fillers, and "Bugs Bunny" was one of the filler comics. (other comics that ran as fillers were "Eek & Meek," "Funny Business," "Winthrop," and "The Born Loser")

Oh, that's very cool! Does that magazine still run? If not, how long did it run and where/when did it end?

[ChillyDown]

This isn't Ralph Heimdahl's best work, but he was an absolutely great artist in his prime (late 1940s, 1950s).

Yeah, I got the impression that the artist himself was good; he was just given a really bad model sheet that he was forced to work off of.

[ChillyDown]

I think Daffy may have been a victim of what I like to call "Von Drake Syndrome."
This is where a relatively major funny animal character—usually part of a larger team of characters—is misunderstood or simply disliked by a comics editorial team, with the end result being that the character ends up inexplicably absent from the comics.

I agree with your basic reasoning, though I think that Von Drake was an obscure enough character (even then) that his presence wouldn't be missed much.

Why the publishers of these comics thought it was a good idea to leave out Daffy--arguably as visible as a character as Donald--while favoring Petunia, Cicero and Buzzy Buzzard, is completely inexplicable to me. Analogy-wise, it would be like if the foreign Disney publishers ignored Donald and featured only Mickey, Von Drake, Horace Horsecollar, and just Huey! :donald:

[HannaBarberaFan]

Heh! Yeah, these are pretty bad, but I can give you one worse than that.

I used to own a book of "Road Runner" comic strips (I don't think they were ever published in a newspaper). Both :coyote: AND :beepbeep: spoke in every strip! The characters were also way off model -- Road Runner had eyebrows!!



Not only that, but :beepbeep: spoke in rhyme .. AND had a "name"....his name was, you guessed it, BEEP BEEP -- **AND** he had three sons - all littrle rhyming "clones", if you will....:rolleyes:

What was up with that bit, anyway? Where was the Mama? Was :beepbeep: a divorcee? A widower? WHAT??:confused:

This IS, mind you, a SERIOUS query...

[Thad]

What was up with that bit anyway? Where was the Mama? Was :beepbeep: a divorcee? A widower? WHAT??:confused:

This IS, mind you, a SERIOUS query...


Wile E. ate Matilda. :coyote:

[Comicfan]

The thing about those strips is that they didn't have to be Looney Tunes characters. Consider the strip with Bugs' taxi picking up Sylvester. The strip could be re-written with Wally Walrus and Woody Woodpecker, or Donald Duck and Goofy, or two utterly generic characters with little or no difference.
(And does Sylvester have a hard time keeping a job or what? Half the time he's working with Bugs, and half the time he's a bum on the street.)

[Comicfan]

Heh! Yeah, these are pretty bad, but I can give you one worse than that.

I used to own a book of "Road Runner" comic strips (I don't think they were ever published in a newspaper). Both :coyote: AND :beepbeep: spoke in every strip! The characters were also way off model -- Road Runner had eyebrows!!

I also had a :woody: book by the same publishers that were just as bad.

There was also kind of a spin-off series called "Daffy Duck and the Road Runner", where both of the title characters appeared together in every story. If nothing else, it showed that there can be more clumsy Daffy team ups than the infamous Daffy/Speedy shorts.

[HannaBarberaFan]

Wile E. ate Matilda. :coyote:

That's an AUSSIE FOLK SONG, innit, mate?

OOP! I was thinkin' of "WALTZING MATILDA"!

SERIOUSLY, though, I can hardly believe that ALL THAT **ACTUALLY RECEIVED THE PERSONAL APPROVAL OF CHUCK JONES!**:eek:

[Thad]

(And does Sylvester have a hard time keeping a job or what? Half the time he's working with Bugs, and half the time he's a bum on the street.)

Sylvester is indeed often seen as a bum in the old comics.

[Matt the Y]

Sylvester is indeed often seen as a bum in the old comics.

Well, he tends to be seen as a bum in a lot of the classic cartoons as well. Three of his cartoons begin with him searching trash cans for food ("Life With Feathers", "Kit for Cat", and "Tweety's S.O.S.") and "Kit for Cat" definitiely portrays him as a typical down-on-his-luck homeless alley cat needing shelter (Elmer Fudd's house) and determined to rid himself of any opposition (the homeless orange kitten). He also seems to be a bit in "lower living conditions" in "Bell Hoppy" and, of course, "Claws in the Lease" (a horrible cartoon but still a good example) in which he and his son take to living in a junkyard until Junior finds a new home for them to live in... the problem being that Sylvester himself isn't welcome in it!

[Dafffy Duck]

"Claws in the Lease" (a horrible cartoon but still a good example)

I actually thought that that was one of the better later cartoons.

[ChillyDown]

Not only that, but :beepbeep: spoke in rhyme .. AND had a "name"....his name was, you guessed it, BEEP BEEP -- **AND** he had three sons - all littrle rhyming "clones", if you will....:rolleyes:



LOL! I think you may even have a different book than the one I had. I don't remember anything like that.

What did your book look like? Mine had the Road Runner on a pogo stick bouncing on the head of Wile E. Coyote.

[ChillyDown]

The thing about those strips is that they didn't have to be Looney Tunes characters. Consider the strip with Bugs' taxi picking up Sylvester. The strip could be re-written with Wally Walrus and Woody Woodpecker, or Donald Duck and Goofy, or two utterly generic characters with little or no difference.

You're right on the money. These could all be "Blondie" strips--in fact, they would probably make more sense as "Blondie" strips!

[ChillyDown]

Well, he tends to be seen as a bum in a lot of the classic cartoons as well.

Yeah, but in all of those cases he was a simple alley cat. In each of the examples in the comics, he's a lazy member of the workforce or a homeless "person"!

[rodney]

LOL! I think you may even have a different book than the one I had. I don't remember anything like that.

What did your book look like? Mine had the Road Runner on a pogo stick bouncing on the head of Wile E. Coyote.

There was a regularly published comic book in the 70's and early 80's called "Beep Beep the Roadrunner" that you're probably describing. There were over 100 issues if I'm remembering correctly.

The 50's Looney Tunes comic books were quite good.

[absolutpaul]

I remember having a small "Beep Beep" the Road Runner book as a child. It had little pictures of Wile E/RR animation in the corner of each page that moved when you flipped the pages.

[Der Captain]

Well, they're not THAT bad, considering that Warner character comics never measured up to the animated cartoons. I remember seeing that strip as a kid whenever I visited my grandmother in Illinois. In later years different artists took over and it looked much worse. Here the artwork is at least decent.

It's interesting that in animation, Disney cartoons were often aimed at kids with fairy tale stories, while the Warner cartoons were aimed more at adults. When it came to comic books, however, it was just the opposite.

[cbrubaker]

Oh, that's very cool! Does that magazine still run? If not, how long did it run and where/when did it end?
Menomonee Falls Guardian was being published from 1973 to 1976. There were 146 issues all together.

[Thad]

Bugs Bunny was more versatile in the comics in the Bob Clampett vein, only less obnoxious. There's some beautiful stuff in the mid-40s by Tom McKimson (Clampett's layout man).

Pepe Le Pew is also a street bum in many of the comics.

[Jack]

Some of the comic strip/book relationships developed when the characters were still fairly young. It seems that rather than revise the comics to conform to the evolving cartoons, they simply maintained the continuity they had established (presumably because it proved popular among comic book readers).

Personally, I think this alternate universe was very successful in the heyday of Dell Comics in the 40's and 50's because the stories were strong, the personalities were consistant, and the art was often times beautiful. Some of the stories are wonderful because they do not slavishly immitate the cartoons. It's only when you see the more tired and blandly-drawn 60's/70's/80's efforts that one wonders why the artists did not mimic the animated shorts.

[HannaBarberaFan]

LOL! I think you may even have a different book than the one I had. I don't remember anything like that.

What did your book look like? Mine had the Road Runner on a pogo stick bouncing on the head of Wile E. Coyote.

Ah, might you be referring to the LITTLE GOLDEN BOOKS or similar product that had hardback adaptations of renowned characters of screen, telly, and prior hit juvenile literature?

Of which *I* speak happens to be the **WHITMAN GOLD KEY** periodicals....

[Barb Herholzer]

That's an AUSSIE FOLK SONG, innit, mate?

OOP! I was thinkin' of "WALTZING MATILDA"!

SERIOUSLY, though, I can hardly believe that ALL THAT **ACTUALLY RECEIVED THE PERSONAL APPROVAL OF CHUCK JONES!**:eek:
No, no. Jones had nothing to do with those comics. He created the characters, but they belonged to Warner Brothers, not Jones.

Anyway, I do like the way Sylvester was drawn in those comics, but he's about the only one.

[Comicfan]

Bugs Bunny was more versatile in the comics in the Bob Clampett vein, only less obnoxious. There's some beautiful stuff in the mid-40s by Tom McKimson (Clampett's layout man).

Pepe Le Pew is also a street bum in many of the comics.

Y'know, I always figured Pepe would live in a garishly decorated one-bedroom apartment, with strobe lights and leather furniture. In other words, much like the Continental, his greasy human equivalent from Saturday Night Live

[Jack]

I've heard that Mike Maltese liked the ryhming Road Runner comics.

[Alf]

In fact, Maltese DID work on the scripts of the Road Runner comic books (in addition to his job at Warners, he also was a writer for Dell/Western).

[cbrubaker]

Just a note. I decided to go through my Menomonee Falls Guardian collection and scanned LOTS of comics -

http://forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?p=78829

[ChillyDown]

Ah, might you be referring to the LITTLE GOLDEN BOOKS or similar product that had hardback adaptations of renowned characters of screen, telly, and prior hit juvenile literature?

Of which *I* speak happens to be the **WHITMAN GOLD KEY** periodicals....

It wasn't a Little Golden Book, because those are just one story. It wasn't a comic book either, like the Whitman Gold Key. It was a *book of comic strips.*

I should look it up on eBay and see if I can find a photo for you...

BTW, does anyone remember the little LT comic digests that used to be given away with Kids' Meals at certain fast-food chains? There was a comic giveaway at Cal's Roast Beef (a Midwest chain) that featured Road Runner, Coyote, and (I think) Slyvester and Tweety. I tried to get that one every time, but they always had some other prize instead!