'Mickey Mouse'.
Paul Murry drew for the Disney comic books and was mainly responsible for the adventurous 'Mickey Mouse' stories of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The charming style of the Mickey Mouse characters was already formed in the 1930s and 1940s in Floyd Gottfredson's daily comic strips, and Murry did much to further develop these characters. Murry drew thousands of pages of comics during his career and was one of the few Disney artists who was successful in drawing all the characters.
'Panchito', 1945.
Born in Missouri, Murry started out working as a farmer. He started to draw in his spare time, and he began to work for an engraving company in 1937. Soon afterwards, he went to work at the animation department of the Disney Studios. He cooperated among others on 'Pinocchio’ (1940), 'Dumbo’ (1941), 'Saludos Amigos’ (1942) and 'Song of the South’ (1946). He enrolled into the comics department in 1943. He started out doing the 'José Carioca' Sunday page, and subsequently worked on the 'Mickey Mouse' daily strip and the 'Uncle Remus with Br'er Rabbit' and 'Panchito' Sunday pages.
'Br'er Bear'.
Murry went to work for the Disney comic books of Dell Publishing in late 1946. He drew several classic 'Br'er Rabbit' stories for the Four Color Comics, as well as some 'Big Bad Wolf' stories. From 1953 to 1973, he was one of the most productive and most notable 'Mickey Mouse' artists for the Dell comic books.
In The Phantom Blot issue #2 (February 1965), Del Connell wrote a story in which Goofy becomes a superhero under the name 'Super Goof', which Murry illustrated. Originally the dumb dingo merely dreamt he was able to fly and fight crime, but readers responded so enthusiastically to the concept that Connell and Murry revisited it in the story 'All's Well that Ends Awful' in Donald Duck issue #102 (July 1965) and made Super Goof an actual superhero. A few months later, in October 1965 'Super Goof' became its own comic book series, with meteor-irradiated peanuts being the source of Goofy's superpowers. The series, published by Gold Key Comics, ran until 1984. 'Super Goof' helped revitalize Goofy's comics career. Compared with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck he had a rather unimpressive run in comics. Most of the time he was merely a sidekick to Mickey or featured in gag comics. As a superhero Goofy could not only star in longer adventure stories: he could even be heroic! The 'Super Goofy' stories enjoyed tremendous popularity in Italy, where many local artists created new titles.
'Buck O'Rue'.
In addition to his Disney work, Murry worked as a gag cartoonist and illustrated for Walter Lantz's 'Woody Woodpecker' comic books. He also did the comic strip 'Buck O'Rue' with writer Dick Huemer in the early 1950s.
Paul Murry was an influence on Primaggio Mantovi.
'Woody Woodpecker'. Spanish-language version.