Saturday, December 10, 2011

Buck O'Rue is back in print!

For the first time in almost 60 years, the comic strip Buck O'Rue is once again available to entertain readers across the globe, this time in a collection covering the entire run of the strip, plus several months' worth of what appears to be previously unpublished daily strips and Sunday pages.

New cover drawn by Gerben Valkema.

The fifties are long gone, but not the stories they left us. Fans of Disney animation and comics have for decades known about the comic strip Buck O’Rue, created and written by Disney animator/storyman Dick Huemer and illustrated by Mickey Mouse artist (literally!) Paul Murry. Its two-year run 1951-52 is still one of those legendary features many know about, but very few have read. The idea to collect Buck O’Rue in book form was first discussed almost ten years ago and it is now our pleasure to present the resulting book: The Adventures of Buck O’Rue and his hoss, Reddish. Edited and compiled by Dick Huemer’s son Richard Huemer and Murry collector Germund von Wowern, more than 90% of the artwork in the book has been scanned from original 1950s proofs, bar a handful of late Sunday pages we were forced to restore from newspaper tearsheets. The result: Buck has never looked better.

The book is printed in black and white, but the Sunday pages were originally intended to be read in brilliant color. We therefore decided to share our far from complete collection of Buck O’Rue color Sundays with you here on a blog, to show you just how captivating and beautifully drawn the strip really is. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the ride so much you’ll get the book and spoil yourself with a practically complete run of the strip. But for now, just follow the label Color Sundays and begin a journey westward, to a town “so rotten it got booted out of the US of A”.
–  Westward, HA!

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Episode list: Buck O'Rue dailies 1951–52

The run of daily strips is only reprinted in the printed book, but we include a short episode list here for the sake of completeness.

Election in Mesa Trubil* (1/15 – 5/20/51)
The Floomies (5/21 – 9/22/51)
       Oaf Monday (7/16 – 8/4/51)
       The Schmatum Bomb (8/6 – 9/15/51)
A Clash with Trigger Mortis (9/24 – 11/10/51)
Betrayed by “Two-Faced” Tessie (11/12 – 12/29/51)
Swede Kelly is shot! (1/2 – 1/19/52)
The Kidnapping of Dorable Duncan (1/21 – 6/18/52)
A Trial of Wits** (6/19 – 7/19/52)


* Dailies and Sundays
** Never finished storyline

Comment:
We have never seen any dailies after May 1952 published in newspapers of the time, and later strips may thus only exist as proofs. Our book contains the full run Jan 15, 1951  July 19, 1952 scanned from proofs, bar the next to last week (July 7-12,1952) which sadly seems to be irretrievably lost.

Episode list: Buck O'Rue Sundays 1951–52

Election in Mesa Trubil* (1/21 – 5/20/51)
The Birth of a Genius (5/27 – 7/8/51)
The Falseface Bandit (7/15 – 11/4/51)
Lillian Rustler (11/11 – 12/16/51)
Christmas page (12/23/51)
King Leery th' Great (12/30/51 – 1/20/52)
Varmint City (1/27 – 2/24/52)
The Annual Gunman's Convention (3/3 – 4/6/52)
Oily Business (4/13 – 6/1/52)
The Floomies are back! (6/8 – 7/6/52)
Gag Sundays (7/13 – 11/2/52)
Bet-A-Million Bates** (11/9 – 12/7/52)

* Dailies and Sundays
** Never finished storyline


Comments:
The last Sunday we have seen published in a newspaper is August 24, 1952 (later pages likely only exist as black & white proofs). Neither have we found any published complete Sundays in newspapers from 1952, only the cropped versions (which were used by many if not most newspapers) with 1/3 of the artwork deleted, corresponding to 4 missing panels
.
Our book contains the full run of Sundays. They are all scanned from proofs, with the following exceptions which have been restored from newspaper tearsheets:
1951: 12/16,  12/30
1952: 1/20,  2/3,  5/4,  6/87/6,  8/10–8/24
This means that a mere 13 Sundays out of 100 are not scanned from excellent quality proofs, but the 11 tearsheet Sundays from 1952 are sadly all the cropped version. Need I mention that we too would love to see the complete versions of these Sundays?

Sundays #1-18 (Jan 21 – May 20, 1951)

Episode title: Election in Mesa Trubil
This first episode included both dailies and Sundays, before they continued with separate storylines from May 21.


January 21 (#1) This is of course the first Sunday, introducing the main characters, and is scanned from an original color proof.

January 28, 1951 (#2)(Not yet available)

February 4 (#3)

February 11 (#4)(Not yet available)

February 18 (#5)

February 25 (#6)(Not yet available)

March 4 (#7)(Not yet available)

March 11 (#8)

March 18 (#9)(Not yet available)

March 25 (#10)(Not yet available)

April 1 (#11)

April 8 (#12)

April 15 (#13)

April 15 (#13A)(Not yet available)
This was an introductory Sunday page, intended for papers picking up the strip at this stage in the run.

April 22 (#14)

April 29 (#15)

May 6 (#16)

May 13 (#17)

May 20 (#18)

Sundays #19-25 (May 27 – July 8, 1951)

Episode title: The Birth of a Genius 


May 27 (#19)

June 3 (#20)(Not yet available) 

June 10 (#21)(Not yet available)

June 17 (#22)

June 24 (#23)

July 1 (#24)(Not yet available) 

July 8 (#25)(Not yet available)

Sundays #26-42 (July 15 – Nov 4, 1951)

Episode title: The Falseface Bandit

July 15 (#26)(Not yet available)

July 22 (#27)

July 29 (#28)(Not yet available) 

August 5 (#29) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

August 12 (#30)

August19 (#31)

August 26 (#32)(Not yet available) 

September 2 (#33) 

September 9 (#34)(Not yet available) 

September 16 (#35)(Not yet available) 

September 23 (#36)(Not yet available) 

September 30 (#37)(Not yet available) 

October 7 (#38)(Not yet available) 

October 14 (#39)(Not yet available) 

October 21 (#40)(Not yet available) 

October 28 (#41)(Not yet available) 

November 4 (#42) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

Sundays #43-49 (Nov 11 – Dec 23, 1951)

Episode title: Lillian Rustler 
Notice especially the christmas Sunday (#49), which is composed of panels from two different sources (and includes one panel partly restored from our black and white source). The two middle row panels were not used at all in the cropped 8-panel version run in many, or even most newspapers.

November 11 (#43)(This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

November 18 (#44)(This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

November 25 (#45)(This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

December 2 (#46)(This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

December 9 (#47)(This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

December 16 (#48)

December 23 (#49)

Sundays #50-53 (Dec 30, 1951 – Jan 20, 1952)

Episode title: King Leery th' Great 

December 30 (#50)


January 6 (#51) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

January 13 (#52) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

January 20 (#53) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

Sundays #54-58 (Jan 27 – Feb 24, 1952)

Episode title: Varmint City

January 27 (#54) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

February 3 (#55) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

February 10 (#56) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

February 17 (#57) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.) 

February 24 (#58) (Not yet available)

Sundays #59-64 (Mar 2 – Apr 06, 1952)

Episode title: The Annual Gunman's Convention

March 2 (#59) (Not yet available)

March 9 (#60) (Not yet available)

March 16 (#61) (Not yet available)

March 23 (#62) (Not yet available)

March 30 (#63) (Not yet available)

April 6 (#64) (Not yet available)

Sundays #65-72 (Apr 13 – Jun 1, 1952)

Episode title: Oily Business

April 13 (#65) (Not yet available)

April 20 (#66) (Not yet available)

April 27 (#67) (Not yet available)

May 4 (#68) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

May 11 (#69) (Not yet available)

May 18 (#70) (Not yet available)

May 25 (#71) (Not yet available)

June 1 (#72) (Not yet available)

Sundays #73-77 (Jun 8 – Jul 6, 1952)

Episode title: The Floomies are Back!

June 8 (#73) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

June 15 (#74) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

June 22 (#75) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

June 29 (#76) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

July 6 (#77) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

Sundays #78-94 (Jul 13 – Nov 2, 1952)

Episode title: None (gag pages)
The last published Sunday we have ever seen is from August 24 (#84). Subsequent Sundays may only exist as black & white proofs and will thus only be presented in the book.


July 13 (#78) (Not yet available)

July 20 (#79) (Not yet available)

July 27 (#80) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

August 3 (#81) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

August 10 (#82) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

August 17 (#83) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

August 24 (#84) (This is the cropped 8-panel version.)

August 31 (#85) (Was this ever published?)

September 7 (#86) (Was this ever published?)

September 14 (#87) (Was this ever published?)

September 21 (#88) (Was this ever published?)

September 28 (#89) (Was this ever published?)

October 5 (#90) (Was this ever published?)

October 12 (#91) (Was this ever published?)

October 19 (#92) (Was this ever published?)

October 26 (#93) (Was this ever published?)

November 2 (#94) (Was this ever published?)

Sundays #95-99 (Nov 9 – Dec 7, 1952)

Episode title: Bet-A-Million Bates
We created a post for this story for the sake of completeness. This story never reached its conclusion and the five Sundays that were drawn probably only exist as black and white proofs, and are thus only included in the book.

November 9 (#95) (Was this ever published?)

November 16 (#96) (Was this ever published?)

November 23 (#97) (Was this ever published?)

November 30 (#98) (Was this ever published?)

December  7 (#99) (Was this ever published?)