Bucky Bug

[Donald D. Markstein]

> On the same vein. "Bucky Bug" reads like its something aimed for 3-5 
> year olds. I know that Bucky is a character from old Silly Symphonies, 
> but I have only recently seen those new stories appearing. Anyone know 
> why they are making those now? Have they started to re-use to 
> characters in cartoons or something and then decided to make a comic 
> version as well?
>
> Are they popular among the readers?  Has publishers made polls or 
> something? I don't like them that much, so I am trying to figure out 
> if anyone else does.Since so many older characters are now banned by 
> Egmont for example Moby Duck, I just can´t get why they do stories 
> about Bucky Bug but not Moby Duck (except for those Italian Bay 
> stories, which are actually good).
>
> Are publishers trying to meet a quota with these? Perhaps their deal 
> with Disney includes a clause that "requires" them to use certain 
> characters besides just ducks and mice.


Unfortunately, as far as I know, nobody is making new Bucky Bug stories 
outside of The Netherlands. I wouldn't even have known that, if Daan 
Jippes hadn't mentioned it the one time I met him in San Diego (mid 
1990s). Those stories don't have the one quality that stands out so 
strongly to me, the fact that they're written in meter and rhyme -- he 
told me the character remains popular there because of the contrast 
between his tiny world and the one we live in.

And yes, the stories, at least the ones that originated in English, are 
aimed at very young readers, a perfectly legitimate demographic. In 
fact, it was while reading a stack of 1940s WDC&S aloud to a 
stepdaughter in that range (circa 1980)  that I became a fan of the 
series. I started reading them for the Barks (who goes over great with 
ALL ages), but continued with Li'l Bad Wolf, which she liked well enough 
(tho I was already a big fan, fascinated by what I call his existential 
dilemma), and Bucky -- and it was when I read Bucky, whom I'd never paid 
much attention to before, that the whole room lit up. The moment I 
started reading the first one, I knew I had a winner. (After a few 
months, when I told her I was running out of unread ones -- I have about 
80-90% -- she said I should buy more.)

About ten years later, Bucky became the first Disney character I wrote. 
Talking with Bob Foster, when he was editor of WDC&S, I found out Bob 
was a fan of Bucky too, so I took it into my head to write the first new 
one since the '50s. He bought it, and about a dozen more (most 
environmental PSAs in the 1-2 page range, tho there are three real 
stories that I'm quite proud of), but they've never been illustrated -- 
they're currently sitting around in a filing cabinet, and in case any 
Disney publisher ever wants to publish them and can't find that filing 
cabinet, I'll be glad to provide fresh copies.

When I was writing American dialog for Gladstone, I badgered John Clark 
into getting a half-dozen of those Dutch stories, so I could write 
rhyming dialog for them. They remain my only published Bucky Bug work, 
tho I do like to place cameos of him (a picture on a wall, somebody 
dressing as him at a costume party, etc.) when I can dream up a 
not-too-obtrusive way, in my Mickey Mouse stories.

But by an odd coincidence, I happen to have scheduled some Bucky Bug 
work later today. His 75th anniversary is coming up (tho he did appear 
in a Silly Symphony nine months after his print debut, he's the very 
first Disney character to start in comics), and David Gerstein managed 
to talk the PTB at Gemstone into commemorating the fact with a new story.

Will this lead to a full-scale revival, including resurrecting my early 
work? Sure, why not? Hold your breath. But it is fun to be working on 
Bucky again.

(You can read about him at http://www.toonopedia.com/buckybug.htm)

Quack, Don