Friday 9 April 2010

BRITISH-MADE 'PIPES OF PAN' (1949) INSPIRED FROM FANTASIA'S 'PASTORAL SYMPHONY' SEGMENT


The last continuity published in Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine as part of 'The Walt Disney All-Star Feature' series was 'Pipes of Pan', serialized in 10 parts between no.s 489-499 in 1949 (the above scans are of the 2nd and 3rd parts). This odd comics, which notably lacks any speech balloons, appears to have been inspired from, 'though not really based on, the 'Pastoral Symphony' segment of the feature-length Disney animation Fantasia (1941). 'Pastoral Symphony' is mostly made up of dance sequences of various creatures of ancient Greek mythology, the only plot element being Zeus stirring up a storm to interrupt the dances. 'Pipes of Pan', on the other hand has a more distinctive plot. Pan's son, who seems to lack musical skills but is nevertheless expected to excell in this regard, practices with his father's pipe, only to disturb Zeus with the bad music he makes (below scan of part 5):
Zeus assumes Pan to be the culprit and wrongly imprisons him (below scan of part 7):
Hence, Pan's son embarks on a "perilous" journey to heavens to explain the situation to Zeus and clear his father's name. It all ends happily, as in the below scan of the last istallement:

Prior to the start of the serialization of 'Pipes of Pan', Pan and his son were featured in the cover gag of no. 488:


Beyond the tenious connection to upcoming 'Pipes of Pan', the splash illustration of this cover is very interesting for the queer air to it...

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