The Mickey Mouse artist Paul Murry* is recognized all over the world as one of the most eminent Disney comic book artists ever. His character gallery consists of figures drawn in a very special, easily recognizable, and highly appealing style. Murry was strictly a graphics artist and is not known to have written any of the stories he drew, but there may be an exception to the rule!
In 1960 Murry drew a story for Mickey Mouse #74 titled The Rare Stamp Search. It has never been established who actually wrote the story, but the story line was unmistakably close to that of Carl Barks' from 1952, FC0422 The Gilded Man. This fact makes it plausible that Murry simply 'translated' Barks' original Donald Duck story (32 pages) into a Mickey Mouse story (15 pages), in which plot, locations, and secondary characters were very similar. Such a copycat behaviour has never been unusual in artistic circles, where artists are inspired by each other. For example, Barks was often inspired by books he had read and films he had seen.
So Murry's act as a potential copycat (a person who imitates or copies others) shall not necessarily be seen as a negativity. In fact, he may have been requested by his publisher to churn out a story, in which Mickey experienced the very same events as Donald had 8 years prior. And there can be no doubt at all that Murry had Barks' story on his drawing board during his own drawing process; the often fairly identical panels speak their own, revealing language! On this page you are presented to some of the two artists' graphically comparable story panels enabling you to see for yourself how close Murry got to Barks' work.

* Mini biography:
Paul Russell Murry was born on November 25, 1911, in Saint Joseph, Missouri. In his younger years he wanted to be a farmer, but when he finally succeeded he also began practicing his artistic skills. Just as Barks he had never received any formal education in this field when he was hired for the Disney Studios in 1938. He started out in the animation department as an artist on the long feature cartoon classics Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Dumbo, but in 1943 he was transferred to the newspaper comic strips, where he drew José Carioca, Panchito and Brer Rabbit. Later on Murry added Li'l Bad Wolf to his repertoire. His graphics on Brer Rabbit are still especially revered as sparkling gems.
But Murry felt restricted under the Disney Studios' umbrella - just as Barks did - and he joined up with Western Publishing and started an unparalleled career drawing comic book stories for the Mickey Mouse universe. He worked with a number of writers, of which Carl Fallberg was the most productive and creative. Murry's drawing style was extremely distinct; he produced hundreds of well-polished pages using thick, rounded lines, and his characters has an elasticity and charm that has never been surpassed.
It is unlikely that Murry and Barks ever met. They were both quite reclusive by nature, they worked from their homes, and the only reference Murry ever made to Barks' work was that he found his lines too thin...

BARKS   MURRY