Tuesday 6 April 2010

THE FIRST COMICS VERSION OF DISNEY'S PECOS BILL (1949)


I had noted in the below post that the British-made 'The Walt Disney All-Star Feature' which had started in the color center pages of Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine as gag-comics in 1948 had soon evolved into continuities. One of these was 'The Amazing Adventures of Pecos Bill', serialized between no.'s 483-488 in 1949, which is of note as the first comics version of Disney's take on Pecos Bill who had been featured in one of the animation episodes of the compilation movie Melody Time (1948). The above scan is of the first installement from no. 483 and the below ones are from no.'s 484, 485, 486 and 488 (last installment):



Pecos Bill is a fictional cowboy popularized in American pulp fiction in the early 20th century as allegedly a real figure of (apparently fake) folktales. Prior to Disney's Melody Time, he had already been featured in a US comics in the pre-war era, but, unlike many of the characters featured in Disney cartoons, he was never utilized in US Disney comics. Interestingly, Guido Martina, the main writer of Italian-made Disneyic comics, created a non-Disneyic Pecos Bill comics, which would become a hit in Italy (as well as in Turkey), in 1949, the same year as Pecos Bill's appearance in the British Mickey Mouse.

2 comments:

JC said...

I think there are at the "walt disney Mickey mouse" (not weekly) other Pecos Bill stories ¿can you post them? ¿and the number 487 of "the adventures of Pecos Bill"?

Kaya Özkaracalar said...

I don't have MMW 487 nor any issue from the other magazine unfortunately