My, what BIG EARS you have, Trusty!
...All the better to shade and blockade you with, Scamp!
And, Trusty the..., um, trusty bloodhound does exactly that on the covers of DELL FOUR COLOR #777 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: March, 1957) and SCAMP # 14 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: June, 1960).
TRUSTY GIVETH...
...AND TRUSTY TAKETH AWAY!
Poor Scamp has no end of troubles with his food bowl, as seen HERE!
Maybe he should just DINE OUT instead...
Ah, that's more like it! ...Cover of SCAMP #12 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: December, 1959 / January, 1960).
10 comments:
Al Hubbard did such amazing work with this character. His inking brushwork is so distinctive and delicate.
Wes:
Al Hubbard was a unique talent, even among his very talented peers! Just as you say “distinctive and delicate”… and perfect for characters such as Scamp, Jiminy Cricket, the Peter Pan characters, and Disney animated film adaptations in general.
I have one friend in particular (maybe more) who strongly disagrees with me but I feel that Al Hubbard’s talents were tragically wasted on those “Donald and Fethry” stories for the Disney Studio Program. Tony Strobl could have done them just as well, if not better, looking more like the Donald Duck comics for which was the primary artist – and in the final story of THIS BOOK he proves it!
I suppose, though, as time went on there was less need for features like Scamp, Jiminy Cricket, etc. and, thus, “Donald and Fethry” became his niche.
Al Hubbard certainly had a way with dogs (and cats, and other Disney feature film characters, animal and human, as well as Mary Jane and Sniffles for Warner Bros.). His work with the ducks isn't bad, but illustrating the slapstick antics of Donald, Fethry and Uncle Scrooge really doesn't fit as well with his storybook style. Did he ever draw Chip 'n' Dale?
It's amazing to think these feature characters had their own titles. I wonder why Disney shied away from making comics about them, eventually leaving only the "Core Four" of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories. Did the Disney features and their characters lose their appeal at some point? I find that hard to believe. I'm not really in tune with current trends, but, as a kid, my impression was that classic Disney features were just as, and indeed probably even more, popular than classic Disney shorts.
Deb:
Yes, Hubbard was also perfect for Mary Jane and Sniffles. Thanks for correcting that huge omission! He did draw Chip ‘n’ Dale on occasion, and it was just as good as you would imagine it to be… but, for what it’s worth, I still think the best ‘munks were drawn by Harvey Eisenberg!
Once a great while, he even drew a Mickey Mouse adventure story but was miscast there as well, as his “distinctive and delicate” (Thanks, Wes!) style did not lend itself to convincing adventure. But I also felt the same way about Jack Bradbury’s Mickey adventures. Those were best left to Bill Wright, Paul Murry, Dick Moores, and Tony Strobl… in that order!
…None of them, I might add, would have been as perfect for Scamp as was Al Hubbard!
Sergio:
I’d say that the “Core Four of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories” probably sustained itself for many of its active years, strictly on the basis of its high quality and compelling stories. Way back when I started reading, who knew who Uncle Scrooge was, and that he, Donald, and Mickey had such grand adventures in addition to shorter gag stories?
During my day, the Disney cartoons were rarely seen… only in occasional repackaged TV formatted specials on Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, or sporadic reruns of the old MICKEY MOUSE CLUB. So, the comics really existed (and thrived, as it were) as their own thing.
While the feature character comics might have been of equally high quality, I’d venture to guess that their characters being seen in only “a single, solitary irregularly re-released movie-theatre go-round” contributed to their lack of visibility and their decline as viable comic book properties.
Also, Scamp, as much as I love him, never "Outwitted the Phantom Blot"! ...Not even in Vic Lockman's wildest imagination - which could get plenty-wild, believe you me! And there, in a nutshell, was the difference between feature characters and the "Core Four"!
The mere fact that Disney itself put such a talent as Al Hubbard on (all together now) “those Donald and Fethry things", speaks volumes to that.
One more arena in which Al Hubbard really shone was with regard to the late 60's and early 70's feature characters, such as "The Jungle Book," "The Aristocats," and "Robin Hood." Whenever Hubbard drew these characters in the film adaptations as well as the comic book sequels and spin-offs, they had a definitive look that escaped other artists. The "O'Malley and the Alley Cats" title really shone in this regard. As for "Robin Hood," there was a series of graphic novel specials, bound in thick card stock, in which Al's skills were particularly on display. Though I did not know the names of the artists at the time, I could tell the difference between Pete Alvarado (he did the film adaptation of "Robin Hood") and Al Hubbard (who contributed several of the supplementary stories). Much as I adore Alvarado's work, by the 70's his style had become somewhat loose and jaunty, which lends a hastily-drawn appearance to his characters, whereas the same characters in Hubbard's hands have a classic look and feel to them, more "realistic" in a sense, perhaps because more pains were taken with the artwork. As I have stated before, there is something very "on model" in Hubbard's work on the features characters, less so when he drew the shorts characters--although his Chip 'n' Dale work is very strong and solid (save for when ducks or mice are involved). Also he did a run of "Woodsy Owl" that has a similar classic feel to it.
A great contrast between the work of Hubbard and the work of Strobl is found in the Dell Giant "Donald Duck in Disneyland" in which Hubbard does the framing story and Strobl does most of the other illustrating chores (I believe Jesse Marsh did the Davy Crockett sequence). Gyro Gearloose first joins the mix in a Tomorrowland story drawn by Strobl, and finishes with the other characters at the very end, drawn by Hubbard. You have to look twice to figure out that it's the same character!
Scarecrow:
As we’ve established, Al Hubbard had a very unique skill set among the greater collection of talented artists who drew American Disney comics. A skill set that rendered a particular subset of Disney characters (mainly those of, or derived from, the animated feature films) better than anyone else in the field.
Again, that is why I feel those great gifts of his were wasted on (Take Two: all together now) “those Donald and Fethry things"! I didn’t see, or buy the comics based upon, anything that occurred after Jungle Book (unless you count the later WINNIE-THE-POOH comics) but I have no doubt that Al Hubbard did those characters proud… just as he did everything else!
Oddly, to digress while I mention WINNIE-THE-POOH, I don’t think Hubbard would have been the right artist for those comics. He might have given it “too realistic” a look! There, I feel that John Carey and Pete Alvarado did those characters just fine in service to all those stories written by Vic Lockman… Yes, he wrote them ALL – and seemed well suited for such an assignment. All in all, WINNIE-THE-POOH was a well-crafted series, especially for having come along during Western’s declining years!
Oh, and to give Pete Alvarado some love in the particular area of feature adaptations, he did a great job of illustrating the MARCH OF COMICS adaption of “The Sword in the Stone”, a version that not very many folks got to see because… well, it’s MARCH OF COMICS! Also, big props to the unknown writer who managed to nicely distill the feature film to a 14-page (!) adaptation, and still tell the story well! You can find my GCD (Grand Comics Database) indexing of it HERE!
And, while we’re at it, the same goes for Tony Strobl, who shined so with Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, and The Jetsons, for his feature character work on “The Sword in the Stone” spinoff one-shot WART AND THE WIZARD! If so inclined, you can also find my GCD indexing of that issue HERE!
Finally, the biggest surprise to be derived from your comments is that Al Hubbard drew the WOODSY OWL comic! I’d imagine they’d simply have thrown that to Vic Lockman to draw, or some other, lesser artistic talent. The things I learn from my commenters!
Joe, I just got around to reading through all these comments and on the last one your link to the GCD index of Wart and the Wizard is not working. I did find it at https://www.comics.org/issue/274843/ so maybe you can fix that. I am intrigued as this is a comic book I had never heard of and drawn by Tony Strobl, one of my favorites.
As for Al Hubbard, I have grown to like his style as I picked up the recent books from Fantagraphics. It is very different than the likes of Barks, Strobl, Murry, all of whom I like for different reasons and are each best suited to certain characters and types of stories. However, there is something about the loose, free-drawn style that has a comic appeal that does fit the zany stories of the Donald and Fethry variety and also well suited to the less anthropomorphic animal characters like Scamp or O'Malley and his rendering of the various moods of Donald's harried cat in the Fethry stories brings a smile to my face every time, definitely not the typical Disney cat seen through the years.
Carl:
Always great to hear from you! And thanks for pointing out the link-error for WART AND THE WIZARD!
You can try the new and improved link HERE! Can’t seem to retroactively revise the older link, so don’t use it, everybody!
Glad you’re enjoying the Fantagraphics books. They are the best representations these (otherwise woefully neglected) comics have ever had!
We may have to “agree-to-disagree” on Hubbard doing Donald and Fethry (…as I have long done with the incomparable David Gerstein – so you are in good company). After seeing so many Italian stories, I’ve seen lots of Donald in a “loose, free-drawn style”, and generally prefer the classic Barks/ Strobl/ Marco Rota style.
On the other hand, maybe that style DOES fit those particular stories in a way Barks, Strobl, and Rota could not… so it’s all good!
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