INTERVIEW: BRUCE CANWELL ON IDW’S WALT DISNEY’S SILLY SYMPHONIES VOL. 1

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Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies Vol. 1

Bruce Canwell is the partner Editor at The library of American Comics (LOAC), whose books are published by IDW. Their collections include The total Dick Tracy, Rip Kirby, Flash Gordon as well as Jungle Jim, as well as lots of others. Canwell composed the text for the award-winning Alex Toth: brilliant series in addition to introductions for lots of LOAC volumes. Now, LOAC is continuing their Disney line, which began with Walt Disney’s Donald Duck, with Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies Vol. 1! Canwell just recently told Westfield’s Roger Ash a lot more about this interesting upcoming collection. (You can click on the comic strips to enlarge them.)

Westfield Comics: Is Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies Sunday strips, dailies, or a mix of both?

Bruce Canwell: The great news for interested visitors is that Silly Symphonies was a Sunday strip, meant as a buddy of sorts to the Mickey mouse Sunday page. That indicates this book as well as the other three volumes in the series will function full, Disneyriffic color. as well as my utilize of “Disneyriffic” isn’t just hyperbole or a creative turn of phrase — we’re utilizing black-and-white proofs supplied to us directly from the company’s archives, as well as we’re coloring them utilizing as our guide Walt Disney’s personal data copies of the strip, which were bound into books. On top of it all, our book will be a full twelve inches large instead of the normal eleven inches, since these early Sundays are additional wide, as well as we want to screen this work to full effect. I believe it’s risk-free to state Silly Symphonies have never looked much better than they will in our series!

Color proof of an early Bucky Bug strip from March 6, 1932, the week before Bucky gets his name! The color proof is from Walt Disney’s bound volumes that are being utilized as guides to recreate the color on the black as well as white scans.

Westfield Comics: While lots of visitors may not understand much about Silly Symphonies today, there are two huge events that occurred in the strip that they may have heard about. The very first is it featured the very first Disney character produced for comics, Bucky Bug. What can you tell us about Bucky?

Canwell: While Bucky Bug is likely not the most popular character whose initials are “B.B.” (Bugs Bunny most likely has that insurance claim to fame, though Charlton as well as DC boosters may suggest for Blue Beetle), Bucky’s very first appearance pre-dates Bugs by a full six years!

Bucky was created particularly to headline the Silly Symphonies comic strip, when it debuted on January 10, 1932. As you noted, Roger, that makes Bucky the very first character the Disney shop created particularly for utilize in printed comics rather than in animated cartoons. He not only appeared in newspaper pages, he commonly appeared in comic books, very first in the Walt Disney’s Comics & stories of the 1940s, then in the gigantic 1950s Silly Symphonies comic books from Dell. Bucky was even depicted on the cover of problem # 5 (that’s Bucky, riding in the pumpkin carriage being driven by Jiminy Cricket).

Dell’s Silly Symphonies #5

Bucky lives in Junkville, hangs with his friend Old guy Bo, woos as well as ultimately marries the apple of his eye, June (June Bug, that is!), as well as his very first comics utilize captions as well as word balloons written in rhyme. Hey, two years later The three Stooges begin their motion picture occupation in “Women Haters,” a short film that has all its dialogue provided in rhyme! The idea wasn’t as unusual at the time as it seems today.

The rhyming aside, I believe those who respond to the original, adventurous Mickey mouse will see a similar brand of pluck, determination, as well as humor in Bucky Bug. Bucky debuted less than four years after Mickey, so his exploits are extremely much in that traditional “early Disney” vein.

Westfield Comics: The second milestone for Silly Symphonies is that it featured the very first comic strip appearance of Donald Duck. What can you tell us about that?

Canwell: This is a best location to backtrack as well as spend a minute or so speaking about the Silly Symphonies animation that precedes the comic strip.

Most people understand Mickey mouse appeared in 1928’s “Steamboat Willie” animated short subject. fewer understand that “Steamboat WIllie” was likewise one of the very first cartoons to offer sound. It was such a hit that Carl W. Stalling — Disney’s music director, who later jumped ship as well as gained a degree of fame at Warner Bros. — suggested trying a animation that showcased noise by building the action around a musical score. That was “The Skeleton Dance,” released in 1929 — it was likewise the very first Silly Symphony.

How prominent was the animated Silly Symphonies? Warner Bros. jumped in with similar series, which are the original Looney Tunes as well as Merrie Melodies; by 1934 MGM was creating a series called delighted Harmonies. So Silly Symphonies were clearly a huge Deal.

Their success was in part thanks to the skill of Disney’s innovative team, in part because of the studio’s pioneering utilize of sound, as well as in part because of Walt’s 1932 offer with Technicolor that provided Disney a significant advantage over their competitors. In fact, the Academy award for Animated Shorts was very first provided in 1932 — to a Silly Symphonies cartoon, “Flowers as well as Trees.” The Symphonies then won the award annually from 1933 with 1937, as well as once again in 1939. So Silly Symphonies weren’t just a huge Deal, they were a H*U*G*E Deal!

I understand — ideal now you’re saying, “OK, okay — what does this have to make with Donald Duck, awreddy?” Here’s the scoop: in 1934 Silly Symphonies released a short called, “The smart bit Hen.” Its star is, in fact, a smart bit hen, however the character who stole the show is a sailor-suited white duck who is, of course, Donald.

“The smart bit Hen” for October 7, 1934. This story is Donald’s premiere in newspaper strips.

Also in 1934, the decision was made to phase out Bucky Bug from the Silly Symphonies comic strip as well as begin adapting Symphonies cartoons like 1931’s “Birds of a Feather.” one of these adaptations was “The smart bit Hen,” which makes Silly Symphonies the house of Donald’s very first comic strip appearance.

But wait — there’s a bit bit more! By 1936, Disney artist Al Taliaferro succeeded in convincing his manager that Donald’s skyrocketing popularity required him to star in a comic strip of his own. before Disney okayed that idea, he enabled Taliaferro to function Donald in a fourteen-month stretch of Silly Symphonies. In October of 1937, near the end of Donald’s Symphonies run, Taliaferro introduces Huey, Dewey, as well as Louie, who were such a hit within the studio that the animation story department swiftly transplanted the three nephews from the comics page into the cartoons.

We won’t be able to reprint Donald’s starring run in the strip up until our second Silly Symphonies volume, however in this very first book you will see his comic strip debut in the adaptation of “The smart bit Hen” — which, by the way, unavoidably though wrongly gets referred to as “The bit Red Hen” by those of us on whom the golden books made an indelible impression!

Westfield Comics: aside from those two events, what else can visitors look ahead to in the strips collected in this volume?

Canwell: Our very first Silly Symphonies consists of a batch of short-film adaptations, including the previously mentioned “Birds of a Feather” as well as “The Robber Kitten.” These days, lots of of the original cartoons are offered for checking out on YouTube, so I discover it’s a great deal of fun to checked out the comics, enjoy the cartoons, as well as compare as well as contrast the two. It’s truly a fun education in the bedrock that developed the Disney empire.

Westfield Comics: A number of traditional Disney creators serviced this series. who are the people whose work we’ll see here?

Canwell: We’ve already discussed Al Taliaferro, who is one of comics’s underappreciated treasures — he has such a bouncy, energetic line! It’s a excellent enjoyment that we’re providing contemporary visitors an chance to see his dazzling stuff, very first in the pages of our Donald Duck series, as well as now right here in Silly Symphonies, where he was included from the outset, very first as an inker as well as then as penciller for Bucky Bug as well as a number of animation adaptations.

Merrill DeMaris — who’s most likely a lot of familiar as one of the primary writers of Disney’s Snow White as well as The seven Dwarfs animated function film — is likewise represented in this book, together with Ted Osborne, who served as writer for lots of Silly Symphonies comics, teaming with Taliaferro. Osborne is maybe much better understood for his efforts with Floyd Gottfredson, composing the Mickey mouse dailies that Floyd illustrated, however he works as effortlessly with Taliaferro as he did with Gottfredson.

Rounding out the skill pool is Earl Duvall. He dealt with Taliaferro in penciling the very first five Bucky Bug strips, which Taliaferro inked. Duvall inked Gottfredson’s Mickey newspaper strips at the begin of that run, as well as he likewise composed Bucky’s Silly Symphonies Sundays after Taliaferro took overall manage of the creative reins.

The exact same names keep appearing, don’t they? Taliaferro — Gottfredson — Duvall — Osborne. together with the previously-released Mickeys, our Silly Symphonies books will assist round out as well as represent this early period of Disney’s comics history.

Color proof of the very first “Mickey mouse Movies” feature. June 24, 1934.

Westfield Comics: library of American Comics collections always haveterrific extras. What will visitors discover in this volume?

Canwell: though I’m not composing it, we’ll have an Introductory essay by a acknowledged “Disneyologist” that will entertain as well as inform, which is one of the goals of all our text features. We’ll have a range of rarely-seen artwork to run in conjunction with the article, as well as it’s particularly fun to be including the big Mickey mouse motion pictures “topper” panels that appeared in conjunction with Silly Symphonies during 1934-35. When these originally appeared, the theory was that youngsters might clip these out of the newspaper, paste it onto cardboard, push a pencil with the center, provide it a spin, as well as see “flip book-style” animation. I presume nobody wishes to clip these out of our book, however those who’d like to see what the animations look like can see this blog, where they spin into eternity! notice that included in the Mickey mouse motion pictures is one dedicated to The smart bit Hen herself, plus co-star Peter Pig as well as two starring Donald Duck. These are excellent fun!

Westfield Comics: any type of closing comments?

Canwell: We have great deals of great stuff on tap for 2016, Roger. The next release in our Li’l Abner series, volume 8, serves up a popular story about the amazing bit Kigmys, as well as I’ll be composing an post that uses some interesting info about the feud between Abner‘s creator, Al Capp, as well as Ham Fisher, who composed as well as drew Joe Palooka. excellent comics as well as a excellent historical information makes for a quite nifty package, I like to think!

Krazy Kat

New for next year, we likewise have two entrances in our fundamentals series that I’m tremendously ecstatic about. I’m a excellent admirer of George Herriman, as well as I was virtually jumping up as well as down when we green-lighted the one as well as only Krazy Kat as the subject of our eighth LOAC fundamentals release. This will likewise be volume one of a King features fundamentals sub-imprint we’re running to celebrate the begin of King’s second century. This book will showcase the 1934 Kat dailies, one per page, as well as offer a fresh look at the magic that is the Kat, the Mouse, the Bull Pupp, as well as a seemingly-endless supply of doorniks. The introduction to this book is already written, by Herriman scholar Michael Tisserand, as well as it’s a genuine winner.

After Krazy, our fundamentals series is going to offer a taste of a strip long talked about, however seldom reprinted: Tim Tyler’s Luck! This strip began in 1928 as well as ran almost seventy years, the brainchild of Lyman Young, the older sibling of Chic, who gained a moderate degree of fame creating a comic strip you may have heard of, called Blondie. like Chic, Lyman utilized a string of assistants on Tim Tyler’s Luck, as well as we’ll be running a beefy continuity that spotlights work by probably the most popular of those assistants, the young Alex Raymond!

Tim Tyler’s luck from the end of Raymond’s tenure

Raymond had assisted trendy young on Blondie for a time, then shifted to helping Lyman in the spring of 1932; by the begin of 1933 he’s drawing a lot of of the figures in the strip. This will be the very first time a prolonged section of Raymond’s stint on Tim Tyler’s luck has been reprinted, making it the best chance for fans to enjoy exactly how illustrator Matt Clark’s influence begins to permeates Raymond’s art as he establishes characters who would serve as the visual prototypes for Flash Gordon as well as Dale Arden, among others. considering that we already reprinted Raymond’s Blondie, it only made sense for us to reprint his major contributions to Tim Tyler’s Luck, as well!

There are other things percolating, as well, however I’ve yakked long sufficient as it is. Roger, I believe the very best thing I can do ideal now, in behalf of everybody at The library of American Comics, is to desire you as well as all your clients a delighted Christmas (or whatever holiday they select to observe) as well as the very best of new Year’s! We hope to see you all in 2016 …

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Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies Vol. 1