Or, would that be "Leap 'MUNK", or "Leap BUNNY"? With funny animal comics, you just never know!
As with CHIP 'N' DALE 78 (Whitman Comics, 1983)...
...And a TRIPLE... er, HEADER from BUGS BUNNY # 144 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: September, 1972)...
...BUGS BUNNY # 208 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: May, 1979)...
...And BUGS BUNNY # 237 (Whitman Comics, Cover Date: May, 1982)!
I guess this means that Bugs is THREE TIMES THE PEST that Chip 'n' Dale are!
Though Donald might disagree!
Either that, or bunnies are simply more inclined toward HOPPING!
9 comments:
I'm not sure how you manage to make these marvelous connections, but definitely keep 'em coming! Love it! Love it!
I do notice that the older style covers exude more sense of "authenticity" than the more slapdash later covers. While Bugs is essentially "on model" in each iteration, the character of Elmer looks almost like a non-squinty Magoo in those later renderings. The 15 cent cover looks like it was done by Strobl, while each of the rest of them puts me in mind of Alvarado in his later years. Chip 'n' Dale and Donald don't quite look as they should, although there is of course no doubt of the characters. The artwork of the 70's and early 80's looks like it was done in a hurry, where the one cover that I mentioned (the Strobl cover) seems well planned.
Hmmm... since ALL the kids playing leapfrog are frogs, each leaping over the others in turn... maybe, "leap-Fudd"? Though I kinda doubt that Elmer will get to take his turn leaping over Bugs!
Scarecrow:
Honestly, the connections come from my continually organizing and reorganizing my comics and spending a lot of (quality) time doing so! Having moved in 2016 and again in 2026 added quite a bit to that process. Those connections will be coming for (hopefully) many years to come!
Truth to tell, I think the Bugs Bunny covers are all fine, with #144 being the clear winner. It was by Ralph Heimdahl (who did covers but rarely interiors – and also drew the Bugs Bunny newspaper strip before it eventually began looking like DC’s Looney Tunes comic) although I can see why some would assume Strobl – both being great artists for the Bunny! #208 and #237 are indeed penciled by Pete Alvarado and inked by the great Mickey Mouse artist of the ‘40s and ‘50s Bill Wright!
Alvarado was fairly consistent over the years but could vary depending on if he inked himself or it was done by others. Wright, along with another great ‘40s and ‘50s artist Roger Armstrong, had declined considerably from their earlier artistic heights upon returning to Western Publishing in the 1970s!
While I’ve never actually heard this for a fact, it would not surprise me if the printing process itself might have cheapened at some point during the ‘70s accounting for at least some of what you’re noticing. Longtime editor Chase Craig leaving Western in mid-1975 would certainly have been a factor as well!
Elaine:
Yeah, “Leap-Fudd does work! But, I don’t think Elmer will be “One Fudd A-Leaping” anytime soon! Notice that Bugs scrunches him in three different places… head, back, and rear end! And in the middle one, he gets a mouthful of “fwee-wange cawwots” for his… er, twouble!
The Bugs #144 interpretation is the winner, all right—not just because Heimdahl drew it, but because he drew it at the peak of his powers; it originally appeared on Bugs Bunny FOUR COLOR #393 (1952), at which point Heimdahl was still effectively drawing a late-1940s animation Bugs. As a result, the scene almost pulsates with energy—and while as you note, the reuse of the gag with other characters shows that it isn't a uniquely Bugs gag, Bugs' animated energy as he jumps over Elmer certainly echoes an animation Bugs at his period best.
I had the unlucky opportunity recently to rewatch Bugs in HALF-FARE HARE, a later McKimson cartoon pitting him against two railroad bums patterned after Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton. Bugs' 1950s evolution into a generally smugger, wryer, less active character relies so heavily on giving him clever dialogue that when the dialogue comes up short—as here—he's not only easily outshone by one-off co-stars, but he comes across like a rabbit version of the later Tweety: a childlike naïf who escapes only by sheer luck, or by extension a character primarily targeted *at* children.
For me, the later leapfrog covers' lack of the first version's energy and personality reflect the problem with so many later interpretations of once-classic characters: from Bugs to Popeye and Mickey—and indeed, even Chip 'n Dale—a portrayal that's entirely adequate for five-year-olds is neither enough to interest adults nor, in base commercial terms, a successful means of keeping a brand alive.
Anon:
First, apologies for the lateness in publishing this comment and issuing a reply! It seems that I recently received one comment that was so obviously spam that, when I marked it as such, it sent subsequent comments to my Spam Folder as well! Hopefully, I’ve rectified the situation!
You write: “The Bugs #144 interpretation is the winner, all right—not just because Heimdahl drew it, but because he drew it at the peak of his powers; it originally appeared on Bugs Bunny FOUR COLOR #393 (1952), at which point Heimdahl was still effectively drawing a late-1940s animation Bugs. ”
Absolutely correct, but with the addition that Heimdahl maintained a superior quality even into that 1970s period, which others, alas, did not! For example, compare 1952 Tony Strobl – especially when he inked himself – with his late sixties and early seventies stuff. Perhaps Heimdahl more-or-less limiting himself to covers (working around the Bugs Bunny syndicated comic strip?) may have been a factor.
“Half-Fare Hare” suffers from the same deficiencies as most mid-to-late McKimson entries! Compare his “No Parking Hare” with Jones’ earlier “Homeless Hare” – essentially the same plot and same antagonist, but why was the former “lesser” than the latter, when they were more or less only 4-5 years apart? McKimson was still making good-to-great Bugs Bunny cartoons such as “Oily Hare” and “Rabbit’s Kin” not long before that!
There’s no question that the shorts made by Jones, Freleng, and McKimson ALL declined in overall quality as the fifties rolled on into the sixties, but why was McKimson’s decline so much steeper? He once ran very well with Jones and Freleng, but his dropoff was far more precipitous! If it was just a matter of not having writers like Michael Maltese and Warren Foster (in my view the two best animation writers who ever lived), what accounts for a similar dropoff in the design and animation itself?
Bugs Bunny deserved a better cartoon to go out on than “False Hare”! And, again, in just my opinion, he didn’t get one until “Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers” which nicely played with the “Bugs Bunny formula” established by the earlier greats!
Energy and personality, unfortunately for us, only reflect those who are in charge of those “once-classic characters” you name! And, just as unfortunately, the wrong people all too often are the ones selected to be in charge!
But, fortunately for us (I say with unabashed pride) the Disney comic books and hardcover collections from Fantagraphics DO have the right people in charge with editor David Gerstein selecting prime material and scripters like Thad Komorowski, Jonathan Gray, and yours truly to Translate-and-Dialogue it!
As examples, I have an Uncle Scrooge Meets the Duckburg analog of H.P. Lovecraft story coming in December! You’ve seen nothing like it! And I’m presently working on a 90-page Mickey and the Phantom Blot story that is darker in tone than usual, essentially returning the Blot to his 1939 eyeball-less Gotfredsonian roots!
So, it really is a matter of WHO! Hope you check them out and let us know!
"As examples, I have an Uncle Scrooge Meets the Duckburg analog of H.P. Lovecraft story coming in December! You’ve seen nothing like it!"
Au contraire, bub! I've seen *everything* like it... because I, editor David Gerstein, was your anonymous commenter! But I thought I'd submitted the comment normally... so why didn't my name appear?
I'm wondering if the Blogger site software had a hiccup... I'm uploading a screencap of myself leaving this column at this address: https://i.imgur.com/7qRNrAi.jpeg
So you can see I did it right... now let's see if the system correctly gives you that ID information...
David:
You did come up as Ramapith for this comment! But something(s) is/are different about Blogger…
For instance, your comment, and one by Mouse Maestro, went to my Spam box, rather than my inbox! Unless there *really is* a hiccup, as you suggest, I might have an explanation for that one…
Recently, I got a comment that was SO OBVIOUSLY SPAM that I deleted it. Unfortunately, I deleted it as Spam from my inbox, rather than Blogger’s comments suppository! Since then, your anonymous comment, Mouse Maestro’s comment, and your Ramapith comment have all gone into the Spam filter. Perhaps if I mark enough of these as “NOT SPAM” that newly-learned behavior will become unlearned!
But, among other things that have changed (assuming you’ve not used Blogger in a while), are that you can’t preview a COMPLETE POST before publishing it! You can only see what you’ve written in a small window that does not allow you to see your work as a whole - and does not display anything you might have done through HTML, like Italics, Bolding, etc.!
Also, we used to be able to scroll through our entire list of LABELS, selecting the appropriate ones as we go! Now, I find there is no longer a way to do that – so I ended up selecting labels by entering a LETTER “A” and scrolling trough that portion of labels that contain a letter “A”. Then follow with the remaining vowels “E”, “I”, “O”, and “U” in order to hit them all, but still excluding the odd labels without vowels – “1966”, “WB”, “DVD”, and such.
But yes, my esteemed editor’s ID is back… reminding me I must get on with that 90-page (!) Mickey I’m working on… so we can restore Mouse Maestro’s “excitement”, per his last comment in our last post!
...Say, if anyone knows a way to circumvent these unwanted changes in Bloggers behavior, please drop us a comment!
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