Bugs is Canadian! – Peggy Feltmate

Bugs, Snow White, The Flintstones, Superman, Prince Valiant - created by Canadian artists.

This week marked the 80^th anniversary of Bugs Bunny’s debut. And while Bugs was a big part of my growing-up years, and probably yours too, I never knew that the wascally wabbit’s creator, Charles Thorson, was a Canadian from Manitoba. Not only did he design Bugs but he also named him, and created many other beloved characters.

Born in Winnipeg in 1890, at age 24 he was chief illustrator for the Eaton’s catalogue. (In the early catalogues, all the goods were hand-drawn.) After 2 decades there, he headed to Hollywood where he worked for a number of studios. At Disney he created Little Hiawatha (if you remember him) and also the beloved Snow White, not to mention the seven dwarfs. Thorson claimed Snow White’s likeness was based on a waitress he had met in Winnipeg.

After leaving Disney, Thorson moved to Warner Bros. where he developed Bugs, Elmer Fudd, and others. The University of Manitoba where his archive is housed says that Thorson “radically revised the Warner style towards anthropomorphic animals” – a tremendously successful direction! Thorson was never publicly credited for his creations. You will find a full list in his Wikipedia entry, which says, “His name was never mentioned in associated movie credits, and ‘rarely mentioned in studio records or in other animation books.’ These creations can be found in Thorson’s personal albums that includes sketches and model drawings shared with his family.” (The photos are from the covers of my “Golden Age of Looney Tunes” tapes.)

From Warner Bros. Thorson moved to Fleisher Studios in Florida, redesigned the Popeye characters and created The Flintstones! When he was 56, he moved back to Winnipeg where he designed my personal favorite, the sweet little bear Punkinhead. The seed for this entire post was the discovery of my old Punkinhead purse from when I was small. Punkinhead was in books and songs and became Santa’s helper in the annual Eaton’s Christmas parades. But Thorson wasn’t finished yet. In 1952, he designed Elmer the Safety Elephant! I remember when I broke my arm in elementary school, I was so afraid it would mean Elmer’s flag would have to come down!

Lynn Johnston, creator of “For Better or Worse” was born in Collingwood ON. But there must be something in the Manitoba water because she didn’t start her famous comic strip until she moved to Lynn Lake, MB. Johnston was the first woman and first Canadian to win the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Award – so I guess they should now call it the INTER- National Cartoonist Society.

Remember “Prince Valiant” comics in the ‘60s? He of the funny haircut with bangs. It fired my early fascination with King Arthur and the Round Table. Valiant was Canadian-made by Hal Foster (born in Halifax NS), and debuted in 1937. What is it about Manitoba and cartoonists? Foster left Halifax to become a staff artist for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Winnipeg. Then at age 27 (in 1919) he rode his bike to Chicago (!!) to study at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. (Those Canadians, eh?) Prince Valiant is still going strong, although another artist took over for Foster in 1971 when Foster developed arthritis. Foster is considered “a seminal figure” in the history of comics. He, like Lynn Johnston, won the NCS’s Reuben Award in 1957, well before Lynn, but by then he was considered to be “American”. But he was inducted into the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creators Hall of Fame in 2005.

Which brings us to the Canadian creator of Superman, Joe Shuster. Superman debuted a couple years before Bugs Bunny. The comic book industry was still young, and it is said that Superman provided major impetus. When I was a teen, we laughed with Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster on The Wayne and Shuster Show. Joe was Frank’s father. There is a Toronto street named Joe Shuster Way, out Queen Street West. Beginning in 1945 another Canadian, Hamilton-born Win Mortimer, provided cover art for the Superman comic books and from 1949 to 1956, Mortimer drew the Superman newspaper strips.

Superman isn’t the only superhero drawn by a Canadian. Once a character is created, it then appears across many different series and offshoots. Ontarian Ty Templeton has received many awards through the 1990s/2000s for his Batman Adventures series, and Saskatoon-born Kaare Andrews was the first recipient of the Shuster Award for Outstanding Artist for his work on Spider-Man: Doctor Octopus. Other Andrews work includes The Incredible Hulk and various X-men comics.

We’ve been having fun finding “all things Canadian” this month because my husband Harvey officially became a Canadian citizen two weeks ago! Hailing from New York City, he has lived and worked in Canada for several decades. Because of our current physical-distancing mandates due to CoVid-19, Harvey’s Oath of Citizenship ceremony had to be taken online, via Zoom. But it was a warm and personal experience, nonetheless, and he is proud to say, “I am Canadian”.