Bucky Bug is a beetle who appears in

Disney comics Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. The first Disney comics were newspaper strips appearing from 1930 on, starting with ...

. He first appeared in the ''

Silly Symphony ''Silly Symphony'' is an American animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the ''Silly Symphonies'' were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces ...

'' Sunday

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

, and later appeared as a regular feature in the comic book ''

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories ''Walt Disney's Comics and Stories'', sometimes abbreviated ''WDC&S'', is an American Comics anthology, anthology comic book series featuring characters from The Walt Disney Company's films and shorts, including Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Mic ...

''.

Silly Symphony

Bucky Bug first appeared in the initial ''

'' strip, beginning January 10, 1932; he was the first character to debut in

. He was initially drawn by

Earl Duvall Owen Earl Duvall (; June 7, 1898 – December 21, 1950) was an American artist and animator best known for his work on Disney comic strips in the early 1930s and for a handful of animated short films he directed at Warner Bros. Cartoons. Car ...

, who subsequently left Disney and joined Warner Brothers where he created

Buddy (Looney Tunes) Buddy is an animated cartoon character in the ''Looney Tunes'' series by Leon Schlesinger Productions. He was the second star of the series, after Bosko. Looney Tunes Buddy has his origins in the chaos that followed after animators Hugh Harm ...

. Bucky only had one film appearance, in " Bugs in Love", released in October 1932. Bucky Bug also appeared in ''

''. Starting in issue #20 (May 1942), the comic began reprinting some of Bucky's original 1930s ''Silly Symphony'' strips. The reprints continued until issue #28 (Jan 1943), and were then replaced by ''

Little Hiawatha ''Little Hiawatha'' (also called ''Hiawatha'') is a 1937 animated cartoon produced by Walt Disney Productions, inspired by the poem ''The Song of Hiawatha'' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It does not appear to have historical correlation to legen ...

'' strips.

Stories

Bucky's ''Silly Symphony'' storylines were unnamed at the time; the action moved from one week to the next, with no explicit break between chapters. In reprints, however, a set of names has become the standard: * ''Bucky Makes His Name'' (January 10 to April 10, 1932) * ''The Quest for Fortune'' (April 17 to June 19) * ''Adventures in Junkville'' (June 26 to August 7) * ''Introducing Lucky Bucks'' (August 14) * ''Bugs in Love'' (August 21 to November 6) * ''War with the Flies'' (November 13, 1932 to April 16, 1933) * ''The Old Folks' New Home'' (April 23 to June 4, 1933) * ''In Mother Goose Land'' (June 11 to November 5) * ''Return to Junkville'' (November 12, 1933 to March 14, 1934) The Bucky strips ended with Bucky and June saying goodbye to the readers: : We're leaving this page, : And saying good-bye -- : But we will not : Ever forget ya! : We're settling down, : As all bugs should! : So long! We're glad : To have met ya! On March 11, 1934, the ''Silly Symphony'' strip moved to its next storyline, based on the short '' Birds of a Feather''.

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories

In 1943, the anthology comic book ''

'' began publishing original full-length comic book stories, and the first new 10-page Bucky story appeared in issue #39 (December 1943) -- "A Cure for Gout," by

Al Taliaferro Charles Alfred "Al" Taliaferro ( ; August 29, 1905 – February 3, 1969), was an American Disney comics artist who produced Disney comic strips for King Features Syndicate. Taliaferro is best known for his work on the ''Donald Duck'' comic strip ...

. Bucky's stories appeared monthly for the next six years, ending with issue #120 (September 1950). The stories were drawn by a number of artists, including

Carl Buettner Carl may refer to: *Carl, Georgia, city in USA *Carl, West Virginia, an unincorporated community *Carl (name), includes info about the name, variations of the name, and a list of people with the name *Carl², a TV series * "Carl", an episode of tel ...

, Vivie Risto, Ralph Heimdahl and

Tony Strobl Anthony Joseph Strobl ( ; May 12, 1915 – December 29, 1991) was an American comics artist and animator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Cleveland School of Art from 1933–37, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who actually g ...

. Bucky's supporting characters included June Bug (Bucky's girlfriend and later wife), Bo Bug (a hobo and Bucky's best friend), the Mayor (June's father), Grandpa Bootle Beetle (Bucky's adopted grandfather), and others. American Bucky stories almost always had the characters speaking in

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

. Bucky still makes frequent appearances in Dutch stories up to the present time. Bucky is the first Disney character to make his first appearance in a comic strip outside the Mickey Mouse Universe. He made a very brief cameo early in the 1988

Touchstone Pictures Touchstone Pictures, Inc. was an American film production label of Walt Disney Studios, founded and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Feature films released under the Touchstone label were produced and financed by Walt Disney Studios, and featu ...

Amblin Entertainment Amblin Entertainment, Inc., formerly named Amblin Productions and Steven Spielberg Productions, is an American film production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg, and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshal ...

film ''

Who Framed Roger Rabbit ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' is a 1988 American live-action/animated comedy mystery film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts, and loosely adapted by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman from Gary K. Wolf's 1 ...

''.

References

External links

*
Bucky Bug
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original on February 22, 2018. {{Silly Symphonies Fictional insects 1932 comics debuts Disney comics characters Comics about animals Humor comics Children's comics Adventure comics Comics adapted into animated films Comics characters introduced in 1932 Male characters in comics