BRICK BRADFORD

   US COMIC strip created by author William Ritt and artist Clarence Gray for King Features Syndicate. BB appeared in 1933 as a Sunday page and daily strip, with the Sunday strip the more fantastic and futuristic. Gray's clean, economical style, together with Ritt's imaginative, purple prose, made BB more than just an imitation of BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY, which probably inspired it. Ritt was fired in 1948 for failing to keep deadlines, and Gray developed cancer in the 1950s. Artist Paul Norris took over the daily strip in 1952, and the Sunday page in 1957, writing as well as illustrating.Bradford was a red-haired hero with a lovely sidekick, April Southern. The poetic imagery of BB was pure SPACE OPERA (futuristic cities rise out of lush jungles, flying ships battle with giant butterflies, etc.), while the scenarios were just as exotic as the contemporary sf appearing in the magazines: the discovery of lost races, a descent into the microcosmic universe within a coin, a journey by drilling vehicle to the Earth's interior world, and travels through time and space in the Time Top or "Chronosphere".BB appeared as a serial film (Columbia, 1947, 15 episodes, starring Kane Richmond), an sf comic book and a Big Little Book (JUVENILE SERIES).

   JE/PN