'CUBBY AND TUBBY'

Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine reverted back to weekly period in 1950 and was re-retitled as Mickey Mouse Weekly as it was titled from its inception from 1936 till 1941. Two additional British-made Disneyic gag comics series were featured in the revitalized magazine, alongside British-made cover gags and Pinocchio gags which had started the year before and material of US origin,: the color 'Cubby and Tubby' and the black&white 'Bongo the Wonder Bear'. Of these, 'Cubby and Tubby' is of great interest as it is, to a large degree, a British creation.

The inspiration behind 'Cubby and Tubby' appears to be two bear cubs, one of whose is named as Cuthbert, which appear in a Li'l Wolf comics from the US Walt Disney's Comics & Stories no. 52 (dated Jan. 1945): And the inspiration for Cuthbert and his sibling appears to be the two bear cubs from the Disney black&white cartoon short The Bears and Bees (1932).

In any case, when 'Cubby and Tubby' first appeared as a single-row strip spread over the bottom rim (soon, the strip would be shifted to the top rim) of the two central pages in no. 512 (scans at the top of this post), both of the cubs were of brown color, just like the bear cub friends of Li'l Wolf in WDC&S. Eventually, one of them began to sport orange fur, as in the below scans from no. 525: The British artist(s?) responsible for 'Cubby and Tubby' were initially careless in differentiating the cubs. Note that in the above gag, the brown cub is named as Tubby. However, in subsequent gags, the name Cubby would stick to the brown one!

'Cubby and Tubby' has pleasant artwork while the humor in the gags is not always as qualified. It would be one of the longer running British-made gag series and continue till 1953.