What About Thad?

I don’t like the artwork of Paul Murry (an artist associated with primarily the Mickey Mouse comic books). For me, it’s one of the nadirs of Disney comic books in general (along with Tony Strobl). His work just screams the inability to capture appeal, structure, or even a facial expression. The second I’d see his mushy style in one of the old Dells or Gladstones, I would always skip past it. That’s why it pains me to find out that the guy who usually drew things like this:

Was actually capable of things like this:

Sad, ain’t it?

.. or one of Jack Bradbury’s lovely Flippity & Flop stories, taken from Real Screen Comics #24 (1949). They were usually a little funnier than this, but you’ve gotta love the art, which is a pure cartoonist’s dream. It’s obvious one of the Warner guys, most likely Mike Maltese (who freelanced for ACG regularly during the 1940s) wrote this (see page four, panel three for all the evidence you need).

A feast for the eyes is online: Jack Bradbury’s son. Joel, has started a site devoted to the talented cartoonist’s work. Bradbury did thousands of pages of artwork for funny animal comic books, most of them absolutely beautiful, and many of them are collected in the comics section. Be prepared to spend a few hours looking over the literature of such superstars as Spencer Spook and Fremont Frog!