John Morin "Jack" Bradbury (December 27, 1914 - May 15, 2004) was an American animator and comic book artist. Bradbury began working for

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

at age 20 and was responsible for key scenes in films like ''Pinocchio'', ''Fantasia'' and ''Bambi''. After working briefly for Friz Freleng at

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

, he began working for

Western Publishing Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company, was a Racine, Wisconsin, firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Its Golden Books Family Entertainment division also produced children's books and ...

in 1947, illustrating

Little Golden Books Little Golden Books is a series of children's books, published since 1942. ''The Poky Little Puppy'', the eighth release in the series, is the top-selling children's book of all time in the United States.. Many other Little Golden Books have b ...

, other children's books, and comic books for the

Dell Comics Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1974. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium.Evanier, Mark" ...

and

Gold Key Comics Gold Key Comics was originally an imprint of American company Western Publishing, created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated this way from 1962 to 1984. Currently, Gold Key Comics is owned b ...

imprints along with the Disney Studio Program. Reportedly,

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

told Western that they didn't need his approval for any of Bradbury's work. Also, Bob Clampett specifically requested Bradbury to illustrate the comic book adaptation of his show ''

Time for Beany ''Time For Beany'' is an American children's television series, with puppets for characters, which was broadcast locally in Los Angeles starting on February 28, 1949 and nationally (by kinescope) by the improvised Paramount Television Network fro ...

''.

Career

According to the book ''Walt's People - Volume 3: Talking Disney with the Artists who Knew Him'' by Didier Ghez, which presents a full reprint of an interview with Jack conducted by Klaus Strzyz in 1978, he never considered himself a "very good duck man", preferring to draw stories with Mickey and Goofy. When Mr. Strzyz asked him about the quality of 1940s, 1950s and 1960s Disney comic stories in comparison with the 1970s ones, he answered that the then later ones were far better in terms of quality, the only exception being Barks' old ones. He also affirmed that he felt embarrassed when he saw some of his own early works. Although he didn't have a very good opinion about his own work with Donald and his family, Bradbury drew important and popular stories with them, like "Family Tree". And some of those ones presented noteworthy one-off characters as well, such as Blarney O'Duck (a cunning and obstinate sea captain), Cousin Daniel Duck (an old sheriff with rheumatism), Dick Duck (a self-important and terribly frank private detective), Myron O'Duck (a scoundrel who almost married Grandma Duck), and Aunt Myrtle (an absurdly strong but nice aunt of Daisy).Inducks - Page to the comic story ''A Relative Problem''
/ref> Eye problems forced Bradbury to cut back on his output after 1970, though he still continued to work on a few projects for Disney. He died in 2004 from

kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

Filmography

References

External links

*
Jack Bradbury
at the Lambiek Comiclopedia *
Comic Art of Jack BradburyForgotten Disney Legends: Jack Bradbury
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradbury, Jack Animators from Washington (state) 1914 births 2004 deaths Deaths from kidney failure Little Golden Books American comics artists Disney comics artists Walt Disney Animation Studios people Warner Bros. Cartoons people