'Bucky Bug' (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #50, 1944) - © Disney.
Carl Buettner was an American comic book artist and cartoonist who worked in two vastly different genres. At the start of his career, he drew saucy erotic cartoons for pulp magazines, and additionally continued the celebrity newspaper comic 'Mortimer and Charlie' (1939-1940). Later he worked on children's comic books based on popular animated characters, published by Western Publishing/Dell Comics. There, Buettner was a key artist on early Disney comics, originating several characters in their comic book careers. He notably created Li'l Bad Wolf, the good-natured son of The Big Bad Wolf, and popularized Bucky Bug, Pinocchio and Jose Carioca as comic book characters, paving the way for their international story productions by Disney licensees. At Western/Dell, Buettner was also a significant artist for Looney Tunes Comics, upping the ante in terms of artwork and setting the artistic standard.
Early life and career
Carl George Buettner was born in 1903 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as the son of German-American immigrants. Later in his career, he sometimes referred to himself with the more noble name "Von Buettner", but this suffix was merely a joke. His father was a factory machinist at the North Star Shoe Company. From an early age, the boy showed talent in writing and drawing. In 1919, Buetner won a free correspondence course in lettering at the Federal Schools of Minneapolis, which he followed up with other courses in art, graphics and cartooning. By 1925, he was hired as a teacher at this school too.
'Hooey' #2, 1934 and 'Saucy Stories' #2, 1936.
Fawcett Publications
In 1926, Carl Buettner became an illustrator for Fawcett Publications, a publishing company in Robbinsdale, near Minneapolis, Minnesota. He drew cartoons and illustrations for several of their joke books and magazines, including such titles as 'Captain Billys Whiz Bang', 'Smokehouse Poetry', 'Jim Jam Jems' and 'Hooey'. Many of his cartoons were naughty and featured erotic innuendo. While most of them were unsigned, some can be identified by his initials "CB". Whenever Norman Saunders was assigned to make a painted version of a Buettner cartoon for the magazine covers, the two artists used the joint pseudonym "Carl Blaine", with "Blaine" referring to the middle name of Saunders.
Among the colleagues that Buettner influenced with his lyrical drawing style were the illustrators Norman Saunders, Allen Anderson and Ralph Carlson. In 1934, Buettner followed Fawcett when it relocated to New York City, where he became an art director for the company's magazines. On the side he secretly drew similar risqué cartoons for pulp books of rival company Donenfeld and even more explicit drawings with full nudity for other companies like Paul Sampliner ('Saucy Stories') and Warren Angel ('Saucy Movie Tales').
Animation career
In 1937, Buettner ended his brief but memorable entry in saucy literature and moved to California. There he made a contrasting career move and joined the Walt Disney Studios. He worked as an art director in their animation department for a year, after which he joined the studio of Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising at MGM, where he stayed until 1941.
'Mortimer and Charlie' (12 November 1939), featuring Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd.
Newspaper cartooning
After his marriage (1938), Carl Buettner met the famous ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, who had a double act with his puppets Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. Bergen was already popular on stage, but now reached an even wider audience by making appearances in Hollywood comedies. In July 1939, a newspaper strip starring Bergen's puppets 'Mortimer and Charlie' had been created by Ben Batsford for the McNaught Syndicate. From October 1939 until 1940, Carl Buettner took over the feature with writer Chase Craig. In addition, Buettner and Craig collaborated on the short-lived Sunday newspaper comic 'Hollywood Hams' (1940), published in The Los Angeles Daily News.
Western Publishing/Disney comics
In 1942, Buettner and Chaise Craig joined Western Publishing as art directors and editors. In addition, Buettner was one of the earliest writers and artists for Western's new line of Disney comic books, distributed under the Dell Comics imprint. Dell's 'Walt Disney's Comics and Stories' had commenced publication in 1940, but the early issues contained only reprints of the newspaper strips by Al Taliaferro and Floyd Gottfredson. Original material popped up in the issues from September 1942 onwards, with notable early contributions by Carl Buettner, Walt Kelly and Carl Barks. As editor, Buettner was a mentor to artists like Kelly. On the website pulpartists.com, it is described how Carl Buettner engaged the Dell team: "During monthly meetings, Carl Buettner would enact new stories for the art staff in order to gage reactions. As a result of his antics, these routine meetings became popular with the staff."
Jose Carioca - 'The Carnival King' (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #27, December 1942) - © Disney.
The Three Caballeros
The first story by Buettner for Western Publishing to appear in print was 'The Carnival King' (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories issue #27, December 1942), which marked the comic book debut of Jose Carioca, the Brazilian parrot from Disney's 1942 animated feature 'Saludos Amigos'. Two months earlier, the character had already appeared in a King Features newspaper strip, penciled by Bob Grant and later Paul Murry. Buettner's his second Carioca story, 'The Three Caballeros' (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, issue #50, November 1944), also featured Panchito Pistoles, the Mexican rooster from the follow-up film 'The Three Caballeros' (1944). Both films were produced when the Disney's studios had lost their global market in Axis-occupied Europe, where all U.S. media was banned by the Nazis. Instead, Disney tried to appeal to audiences in Mexico and South America. 'Saludos Amigos' and 'The Three Caballeros' both star Donald Duck and are deliberately set in Latin American countries, bringing in local music stars into an exotic, swinging combination. Disney not only managed to tap into the Latin American market, but simultaneously also popularized Latin American music in the United States.
While Jose Carioca and Panchito appeared only in a handful of stories in the American Dell comic books - besides Buettner, other artists for them were Walt Kelly, Ken Hultgren and Dick Moores - they appeared more frequently in licensed Disney magazines in other countries. In Brazil, Jose Carioca even became the leading Disney comics character, appearing in his own magaizne Zé Carioca. Since the 1980s, both Carioca and Panchito have appeared regularly in the Dutch Disney magazines with locally produced stories.
'Bucky Bug' (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #42, March 1944) - © Disney.
Bucky Bug
Between 1944 and 1946, Buettner wrote and drew the first comic book stories with 'Bucky Bug' from the insect-populated town of Junkville. The character was created in 1932 by Earl Duvall and Al Taliaferro for the 'Silly Symphonies' newspaper Sunday page, and similar insect characters later also appeared in Disney's animated short 'Bugs in Love' (1932). Buettner's first story with Bucky in 'Walt Disney's Comics and Stories' #40 introduced the colony of red ants and their king, who have remained the arch enemies of the Junkville inhabitants to this day. Later regular artists for the feature were Vivie Risto, George Waiss and Ralph Heimdahl. While the US story production of 'Bucky Bug' came to an end in 1950, since 1978 regular new adventures about the little insect society have been produced in the Netherlands.
First appearance of the Li'l Bad Wolf (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #52, January 1945) - © Disney.
Li'l Bad Wolf
Carl Buettner's most notable contribution to the Disney universe was co-creating The Li'l Bad Wolf, the son of The Big Bad Wolf from Disney's extraordinarily popular cartoon 'The Three Little Pigs' (1933). The cartoon had a significant impact on popular culture and virtually all adaptations of the classic fairy tale nowadays follow the family-friendly Disney version in which the pigs are not only individualized, but none of them get eaten by the wolf either. Disney's adaptation of the classic fairy tale was such a hit that it received three sequels. In one of them, 'Three Little Wolves' (1936), the Big Bad Wolf had three sons, each just as evil as their dad.
In the 'Silly Symphonies' Sunday newspaper comics, writer Ted Osborne and artist Al Taliaferro followed the cartoon universe of the Big Bad Wolf quite faithfully. For the Dell comic books, scriptwriter Chase Craig created a new set-up with more family dynamics. The three sons from the 1936 cartoon were reduced to just one. In addition, his personality was changed considerably from his animated precursors. Unlike his name, Li'l Bad Wolf is far more honest, friendly and intelligent than his father. A shame to the Wolf family, he is best friends with the three pigs, and doesn't want to harm them, but instead help them against his father's antics. Much to his father's annoyance, he is also a vegetarian.
Zeke telling his son about his childhood heroics (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #65, February 1946) - © Disney.
The first comic book story with 'Li'l Bad Wolf' was written by Dorothy Strebe and illustrated by Carl Buettner in 'Walt Disney's Comics & Stories' #52 (January 1945). Buettner continued to draw (and possibly also write) the feature until April 1946, along the way giving the Big Bad Wolf a first name, Zeke. After Buettner, other artists took over, most notably Gil Turner. Since the 1950s, European Disney licensees have been producing regular new stories with the characters. Again, the Netherlands stand out with hundreds of new stories produced since 1955. In the Dutch-language version, Li'l Bad Wolf is named "Wolfje", and Zeke is called "Midas", lifted from the mythological Greek king. A 1946 short story by Carl Buettner in which Zeke tells about his childhood shenanigans with his brother Zeb, served as the inspiration for the Dutch sub-series 'Kleine Midas' (2021- ), written by Alex van Koten and drawn mostly by Daniel Pérez.
'Pinocchio' (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #63, December 1945) - © Disney.
Other Disney comics
At Western Publishing, Carl Buettner also illustrated comics and covers for comic books starring characters from the Disney films 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (1937), 'Pinocchio' (1940), 'Dumbo' (1941) and 'Bambi' (1942). Buettner remained involved in Western's production of Disney comics until 1952, although in later years only as an inker or cover artist. Again, he was the first artist to draw new comic book stories starring Disney's Pinocchio.
Looney Tunes comics
Between 1944 and 1947, Buettner also helped with the Sunday newspaper comic strip based on Tex Avery's 'Bugs Bunny', while drawing comic book stories starring other Warner Brothers characters for Western Publishing's 'Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics'. Although the Looney Tunes cartoons have always been massively popular, their comic adaptations never quite managed to reach the same level of success. The writers seemed unable to translate the zany, adult-layered visual comedy in comic form, while the earliest artists, Ed Volke, Veve Risto, Chase Craig, Roger Armstrong and Tom McKimson, drew Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in a rather crude way. Of all the Western artists, Buettner had the best "feel" for the characters, combining dynamic poses with wild action, while staying true to their modelsheets and on-screen personalities. Raising the bar, Buettner served as a mentor to his colleagues, which uplifted Dell's Looney Tunes comic books considerably.
Dell's Four Color #33 (December 1943) featured only Buettner 'Bugs Bunny' stories.
Later life and career
Carl Buettner left his job as art director in 1947, but continued to write, edit and illustrate for the Little Golden Books line, a joint children's book venture of Western Publishing and Simon & Shuster. He served as the collection's editor from 1950 to 1955. In later years, he worked as a writer on juvenile books starring Walter Lantz's 'Woody Woodpecker', Edgar Rice Burroughs' 'Tarzan', and installments based on celebrities like Bozo the Clown and the western stars Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. He also wrote installments such as 'Donald Duck: Private Eye' (1961).
Carl Buettner passed away on 21 January 1965 at the age of 61.
'Porky Pig' (Four Color #78, August 1945).
Inducks entry
Carl Buettner on pulpartists.com
Carl Buettner on Ger Apeldoorn's blog