Paul Murry

Born 25th November 1911 in the town of Stanberry, Missouri, Paul Murry first worked as a farmer after finishing school. After winning the attention of a print shop owner in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1937 with the addition of a drawing on a contest entry, he worked as an advertising illustrator for nearly a year. Then he applied for a position as a cartoonist for the Walt Disney Studios and was accepted. On 5th June 1938, Murry started as the assistant to Fred Moore and helped in the creation of several animated cartoons, including a few Mickey Mouse shorts as well as the "Dumbo" and "Pinocchio" movies. From 1943 on Murry worked on the Sunday strips starring José Carioca, and later also assisted <a href="/c/comics/credit/19424/floyd-gottfredson/">Floyd Gottfredson</a> with the Mickey Mouse comic strips, making Murry part of the first generation of Disney comic artists. In 1945 and 1946 he took over the "Uncle Remus" Sunday strip with Brer Rabbit. After a three-year hiatus spent farming, Murry's first Donald Duck stories were published in early 1950 in "March of Comics 56" and Dell's <a href="/c/comics/series/32806/walt-disneys-comics-and-stories/">"Walt Disney's Comics and Stories"</a>, while his first Mickey Mouse story appeared in "Vacation Parade Nr. 1". In 1953 Murry started working with the author <a href="/c/comics/credit/15333/carl-fallberg/">Carl Fallberg</a> - whom he later described as his favorite author of Mickey stories. Throughout his career, Murry concentrated mostly on the Mickey Mouse universe, but also created many Duck stories. As he was known for being able to draw a multitude of characters perfectly, he drew stories with nearly all Disney characters, including for instance the Big Bad Wolf and Brer Rabbit. Murry was also involved in the creation of Super Goof as the artist of the first Super Goof story. Aside from his Disney work, Murry occasionally drew Woody Woodpecker stories, illustrated Dick Huemer's "Buck O'Rue" comic strip and provided gag cartoons for magazines. He spent his last years with "music, natural history, farming and sometimes just plain doing nothing" (Alberto Becattini, in: PROFILI ALBUM 2, Lucca 2002.) and died in Palmdale, California on 4th August 1989. Murry's style has been described as utterly original and very recognizable - including not only his drawings, but also his characteristic speech bubbles and hand lettering. His drawings are rounded, similar to Floyd Gottfredson, whom he assisted in the Mickey Mouse strip for a while. His Duck style was drawn both from the cartoon films and Al Taliaferro's comic strip artwork. Murry's work has set a standard for the generations of artists to follow.