Authors: William Ritt (1933–1948)
Clarence Gray (1948–1956)
Paul Norris (1956–1987)
Illustrator: Clarence Gray (1933–1956)
Paul Norris (1952–1987)
Current status/schedule Concluded daily & Sunday strip
Launch date August 21, 1933
End date April 25, 1987
Syndicates: Central Press Association / King Features Syndicate
Publisher: David McKay Publications
Genres: science fiction, adventure
Brick Bradford was a science fiction comic strip created by writer William Ritt, a journalist based in Cleveland, and artist Clarence Gray. It was first distributed on August 21, 1933 by Central Press Association, a subsidiary of King Features Syndicate which specialized in producing material for small-town newspapers.
Brick Bradford achieved its greatest popularity outside the United States. The series was carried by both newspapers and comic books in Australia and New Zealand. In France the strip was known as Luc Bradefer ("Luke Ironarm") and was published in many newspapers. The strip was also widely published in Italy where it was known variously as Giorgio Ventura and Marco Spada and in Greece in the newspaper Έθνος during the 1960s.
Publication history
Ritt grew tired of Brick Bradford in the mid-1940s, and by 1948 he had turned over first the daily and then the Sunday to Gray, who did the strip by himself until his health problems increased. In 1952, Paul Norris (who had been working on King's Jungle Jim) took over the daily. When Gray died in 1956, Norris took over the Sunday strip. Norris retired in 1987, and the strip was retired as well with the daily ending April 25, 1987, and the Sundays two weeks later.
Characters and story
Brick Bradford was an athletic and adventurous redheaded (later blond) aviator from Kentucky who continually encountered fantastic situations. Initially, the strip was focused on Earth-bound, aviation-focused adventures, in a similar manner to Lester J. Maitland and Dick Calkins' Skyroads. However, as the strip developed, Brick Bradford increasingly featured fantastic elements in the manner of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Ritt was an admirer of science fiction writers H. G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Abraham Merritt, and drew on some of their ideas when writing Brick Bradford. Brick Bradford now became more of a space opera/adventure story, with its tales of dinosaurs, lost civilizations, intergalactic villains, robots and subatomic worlds.
By 1935, Brick Bradford's popularity had greatly increased, and it arrived in the Sunday comics sections of major newspapers in 1933, followed by a weekend edition that began November 24, 1934. In the daily strips Brick kept company with his friend Sandy Sanderson, balding and bearded scientist Kalla Kopak, and June Salisbury, Brick's girlfriend and daughter of his ally Professor Van Atta Salisbury. The Sunday strips featured completely different characters and plots. Here Brick was often accompanied on his adventures by Professor Horatio Southern and his daughter April, who was Brick's love interest. Later characters included Brick's pugnacious sidekick Bucko O'Brien and the beautiful, black-haired bad girl Saturn Sadie who reformed and in the end married the stalwart hero.
Brick's enemies included Dr. Franz Ego, a spy; Avil Blue, inventor of a giant robot; and the "Assassins", descendants of the Middle Eastern sect of the same name.
On April 20, 1935, the strip added a large top-shaped time machine invented by Professor Southern called, fittingly, the Time Top which could travel to both past and future and off into the depths of space, presaging Doc Wonmug's device in Alley Oop four years later and the TARDIS on Doctor Who by almost three decades.
Daily strips by Clarence Gray and William Ritt
- D001 In the City Beneath the Sea (08/21/1933 – 06/30/1934) 270 strips
- D002 With Brocco the Buccaneer (07/02/1934 – 05/18/1935) 276 strips
- D003 On the Isles Beyond the Ice (05/20/1935 – 04/11/1936) 282 strips
- D004 Brick Bradford and the Lord of Doom (04/13/1936 – 02/06/1937) 258 strips
- D005 Adrift in an Atom [aka Voyage in a Coin] (02/08/1937 – 01/08/1938) 288 strips
- D006 In the Fortress of Fear (01/10/1938 – 02/11/1939) 342 strips
- D007 Brick Bradford and the Metal Monster (02/13/1939 – 03/16/1940) 342 strips
- D008 Brick Bradford Seeks the Diamond Doll (03/18/1940 – 12/28/1940) 246 strips
- D009 On the Throne of Titania (12/30/1940 – 06/12/1943) 768 strips
- D010 Beyond the Crystal Door (06/14/1943 – 10/21/1944) 462 strips
- D011 The Queen of the Night (10/28/1944 – 06/01/1946) 468 strips
- D012 The Witch Doctor of Wanchi (06/03/1946 – 12/07/1946) 162 strips
- D013 The Strange Case of Captain Boldd (12/09/1946 – 07/19/1947) 192 strips
- D014 Lost Train In Tunnel #10 (07/21/1947 – 05/01/1948) 246 strips
- D015 The Prophet of Thorn (05/03/1948 – 03/19/1949) 276 strips
- D016 The Colossal Fossil (03/21/1949 – 07/02/1949) 90 strips
- D017 The Island of the Eye (07/04/1949 – 12/24/1949) 150 strips
- D018 Smokeballs (12/26/1949 – 03/25/1950) 60 strips
- D019 The Howling Face (03/27/1950 – 06/17/1950) 90 strips
- D020 The Legacy of Low Lake (06/19/1950 – 10/07/1950) 96 strips
- D021 Detour of Doubt (10/09/1950 – 12/30/1950) 60 strips
- D022 Frame-Up (01/01/1951 – 03/31/1951) 90 strips
- D023 Mesa Macabre (04/02/1951 – 08/11/1951) 114 strips
- D024 Moon Maiden (08/13/1951 – 10/06/1951) 48 strips
- D025 Shadow in the Sky (10/08/1951 – 02/16/1952) 102 strips
- D026 The Six Seeds of Sibed (02/18/1952 – 05/10/1952) 96 strips
- D027 Mr. Distance (05/12/1952 – 10/18/1952) 138 strips
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