The Taliaferros trace their origins to Northern Italy and were one of the early families who settled in the Colony of Virginia during the 17th century.

In January 1931, Taliaferro was hired by Walt Disney Studios as an animator, but soon transferred to the comic strip department.

[1] The Bucky Bug stories were typical for a talking animal series, though every character was either an insect or another type of invertebrate.

[1] In the 1930s, the Silly Symphony film series was at the height of its popularity, due to its innovations in storytelling and professionalism in production methods.

Other animation studios launched imitations with similar names, such as Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, and Happy Harmonies.

[1] Taliaferro and Ted Osborne started producing comic strip adaptations of specific short films, as a tie-in to whichever Silly Symphony the Disney studio was trying to promote.

Taliaferro was the first artist to adapt Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs into comics, as characters of serial fiction.

The Big Bad Wolf series would be continued by other artists, long after Taliaferro stopped producing new stories for it.

[1] Between August 30, 1936, and December 5, 1937, Taliaferro and Osborne depicted Donald in gag-a-week comic strips for the Silly Symphony series.

But Brightman was mostly a screenwriter, and soon quit the comic strip and returned to writing plots for animated short films.

Brightman was replaced by Bob Karp, who would serve as Taliaferro's main creative partner for the rest of his career.

[1] The inkers for the comic strip included Karl Karpé, Dick Moores, George Waiss, and Bill Wright.

Taliaferro also relied on a number of assistant artists, including Ellis Eringer, Frank Grundeen, Al Hubbard, and Kay Wright.

[1] On October 17, 1937, Taliaferro and Osborne introduced Huey, Dewey, and Louie, based on a film that was in production at the time, Donald's Nephews.

Taliaferro actually proposed the initial idea for the film, so that the studio would have duck counterparts to Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, the nephews of Mickey Mouse.

[1] On November 4, 1940, Taliaferro and Karp introduced a comic strip version of Daisy Duck, as Donald's new neighbor and love interest, shortly after her film debut in Mr.

[1] Grandma Duck, Donald's grandmother, was introduced on September 27, 1943, and was created for the comic strip by Taliaferro and Karp.

[1] Although not created by him, Scrooge McDuck joined the cast of the comic strip on February 13, 1951, and Ludwig Von Drake on September 25, 1961.

In 2015, IDW Publishing began three series of hardcover reprints of Taliaferro's Disney comics under their imprint The Library of American Comics: Animation historian Jim Korkis noted that Taliaferro designed the mascot Litternaut in 1967 who adorned the public trash receptacles in Glendale into the 1970s and to this day is the official mascot of the Committee for a Clean & Beautiful Glendale.