DISNEYVILLE

MICKEY MOUSE FABLES

2011-09-29T06:28:00.000-07:00

This vintage British Disney book by the Collins Clear Type Press titled Mickey Mouse Fables was recently sold on ebay for the winning bid of 54.5 pounds. The seller estimated its date as "circa 1934", an estimate which is undoubtedly off the mark by several years as the renditions of Donald Duck does not feature the long and narrow beak he sported in its early appearances in 1934 and in the subsequent few years. I would estimate the book to be from the late 1930s.

MY FAVE MICKEY MOUSE POSTCARD (1931)

2011-09-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

This vintage postcard that I won at a recent ebay auction has just arrived today..

NARCISTIC MICKEY MOUSE POSTCARD FROM 1931

2011-09-08T10:19:00.001-07:00

This British Mickey Mouse postcard issued by Inter Card Co. based in "Barnes, S.W." was recently sold on ebay for the winning bid of 31 British pounds (app. 49 US dlrs). The handwritten correspondance and the official postofice stamp on the reverse carries a date from 1931. The same seller sold several other Mickey Mouse postcards from the same era. The below undated Inter Art Co. card, which was sold for the winning bid of 16 pounds, is also interesting as it features a cat in distinctively British police uniform!:
However, as far as I am concerned, a more desirable one was this "Milton Post Card" issued by the London-based Woolstone Bros. which features triple Mickeys, all smoking and one apparently even drinking a liqour!!..

This particular card, whose faded postoffice stamp on the reverse appears to carry a date from 1932, was sold for the winning bid of 10 pounds. Woolstone's "Milton" postcards are probably the earliest Mickey Mouse cards in the world, I'd earlier seen one dated from 1930. I bought one myself and will post a scan when I receive it.

BRITISH MICKEY MOUSE POSTCARDS FROM 1935

2011-09-08T04:19:00.000-07:00

I had very much wanted to buy this British Mickey Mouse postcard from 1935 off ebay, but unfortunately missed bidding for it. It was sold for a winning bid of 10.5 British pounds, an affordable price for such a vintage item with such a nice illustration in my opinion. Several more cards from the same series were also sold by the same seller. The below one fetched the highest bid at 25.8 pounds (app. 41 US dlrs), presumably because it was unused:
Close behind was this card which fetched 25.3 pounds:

And the below one, which should indeed be considered as highly collectible in my opinion as it features a mega-rare appearance of Patricia Pig, a supporting character from early Mickey Mouse cartoons, was sold for the winning bid of 22 pounds:
These cards were issued by the London-based H. Delgado Ltd. and carried the "By permission: Walt Disney - Mickey Mouse Ltd." tag. With the exception of the Patricia Pig one, which has been re-drawn from one of the illustrations in the illustrated story book The Adventures of Mickey Mouse (1931), the illustrations are very much in the style of the color plates of British Mickey Mouse Annuals. Those annuals are known to be the work of Wilfred Haughton 'though I am not 100 % certain if it was also Haughton who drew the color plates as well as the interiors; if so, the illustrations on these cards are also probably the work of Haughton. Any opinions are welcome..

VINTAGE ELMER ELEPHANT CARD

2011-09-08T02:33:00.000-07:00

This vintage greeting card featuring Elmer Elephant was recently sold on ebay for a winning bid of 7.25 British pounds (app. 11.5 US dlrs). The UK-based seller gave no info on the publishing company or the date of the card, but it is likely to be from the late 1930s as it depicts a scene from the 1936 Sunday newspaper comics continuity headlining Elmer.

TURKISH ARTICLE ABOUT MICKEY MOUSE CARTOONS (1934)

2011-09-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

This article from no. 27 (from the year 1934) of Turkish cinema weekly magazine Holivut was kindly brought to my attention by my friend Özge Özyılmaz (*) who came across it while researching old Turkish cinema magazines for her PhD thesis on the coverage of Hollywood in pre-war and war-time Turkish film magazines. The article is apparently about animation in general with one section on p. 11 on Mickey Mouse cartoons which, the article reports, will began to be screened in Istanbul cinemas "in the coming season." Unless the author of the article has unknowingly missed any previous release of MM cartoons in Turkey, this indicates that they made their Turkish debut in 1934, with a six years delay from their inception in the US. I know that MM cartoons were being distributed in Britain as early as 1930, but I cannot find any info on the dates they began to be distributed elsewhere in the world. If anyone can kindly provide any info on the distribution of MM cartoons outside the US, esp. in continental Europe, that will be great. In any case, 1934 is a somewhat curious date for the possible debut of MM cartoons in Turkey as MM strips, possibly reprinted from French albums, had already began to be serialized in Turkish children's magazines as early as 1932 and even Turkish illustrators themselves had made several MM gag panels from that date onwards prior to 1934. And yet, it is also a fact that MM comics and story books did really proliferate in Turkey from 1935 onwards.
By the way, if anyone can point out the original source of the illustration on the upper right corner in which Mickey is reading an issue of Holivut, we will be very grateful.
(*) I also thank Cemil Yıldızcan for converting the pdf file into jpg format so that I could post it in this blog.

DUMBO CARD GAME

2011-08-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

This British-made card game based on Dumbo (1941) was today sold on ebay for the winning bid of 23 pounds (appr. 37 US dlrs). Below is a close-up of two of the cards:
And below is the reverse of the cards:

CINDERELLA CARD GAME

2011-08-28T06:54:00.000-07:00

This British-made card game featuring characters from Cinderella (1950) was today sold on ebay for a winning bid of 7.5 pounds (appr. 12 US dlrs). Gus and Jaq are my fave characters from this movie, so here is a close-up of their card:
And below is the reverse of the cards:

PETER AND THE WOLF CARD GAME

2011-08-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

This British-made card game featuring the characters of the 'Peter and the Wolf' segment of Disney's feature-length compilation animation Make Mine Music (1946) was today sold on ebay for the starting bid of 4 pounds (appr. 6.5 US dlrs).Above are the cards featuring the cast and below are the cards featuring scenes from the cartoon:And below is the reverse of the cards:

BRITISH-MADE COVER GAG (1948)

2011-08-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

Above is the cover of the no. 479 (dated Nov. 27th, 1948) of Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine, featuring a British-made gag. While fogs are not obviously unique to Britain, they are ann integral part of the popular image of London, so this fog-themed gag has a distinctively British feel to it.

FRENCH-LANGUAGE MICKEY POSTCARD FROM 1932

2011-08-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

This vintage Mickey Mouse postcard was today sold on ebay for a winning bid of 9.5 British pounds. The reverse side has a stamp dated from 1932. Even though the illustration's caption text is in French, it was published by the German label Hegelberg, which was one of the earliest publishers of Disneyic postcards in the world.

BRITISH WAR INSIGNIA WITH PLUTO

2011-08-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

This cover of Britain's Mickey Mouse comic dated Nov. 6th, 1943, which was recently sold on ebay, features a British war insignia with Pluto. While Disney characters are known to be featured extensively in US war insignia, this is the first such British item that I have come across.

DONALD DUCK AND THE PELICAN

2011-07-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

Above scan is of the cover of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly no. 476 (dated Oct. 16th, 1948) featuring a British-made Donald Duck gag strip. The splash panel is actually re-drawn from the last panel of a Donald Duck daily strip (dated Jan. 24th, 1948) from the US:The British version was also used as the cover of the no. 3 (dated June 1949; seen below in a 2002 reprint) of Italian Topolino:

MICKEY MOUSE PICTURES TO PAINT (1931)

2011-07-28T05:26:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post in this blog, I had covered the Mickey Mouse Coloring Book from 1931. Mickey Mouse Pictures to Paint is another similar publication from the same year. A copy of that book was recently sold ebay as part of a lot of other Disney books. Above is its cover and below is a sample page:

BRITISH MICKEY MOUSE CARD FROM 1930

2011-07-22T05:15:00.000-07:00

Here is a very early Mickey Mouse postcard from the UK. I have bought (will post scan when I receive it) another card from this same series whose user had dated his inscription on the reverse as Easter 1930, so this one must also be from the same year even though its inscription carries no date:
You can see two more samples from this series in this link: http://classicdisneypostcards.com/Publishers/Woolston.html

BRITISH-MADE UNCLE SCROOGE CHRISTMAS 1-PAGER FROM 1956

2011-07-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

The above photo is of the page 5 of the no. 868 (dated Dec. 29th, 1956) of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly featuring an apparently British-made Uncle Scrooge one-pager. I have no idea as to the identity of the artist. This issue was recently auctioned at ebay along with some consecutive issues, but I opted not to bid because the seller was asking for a ridiculously unfair postage charge, so I cannot unfortunately post any scan but only this photo from the ebay listing. And below is the photo of the central pages of the same issue, featuring a pleasantly colorful Christmas illustration; the non-Disney characters are Strongbow the Almighty and Robin Alone, the heroes of two non-Disneyic British comics serialized in MMW at the time.

MANDRAKE ARTWORK IN SHUFFLED SYMPHONIES

2011-07-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

'Shuffled Symphonies', Basil Reynolds' illustrated story series in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly, initially began with narratives bringing various characters from Disney's 'Silly Symphony' cartoon short series together with regular Disney characters as Mickey and Donald in novel plots. Over the years, storylines evolved into more and more off-Disneyic terrains with Donald et al embarking on various fantasy-oriented adventures. It seems that during the course of this evolution, Reynolds occasionally (or perhaps frequently?) borrowed graphic material from non-Disneyic sources. One such case is in the installement in MMW no. 147 (dated Nov. 26th, 1938) where Donald, Mickey and his twin nephews time-travel to the future. The illustration of the "metal man" in the above scan is clearly redrawn with minor alterations from the illustration of the 'wheel man' in a Mandrake the Magician adventure (with art by Phil Davis) from 1936-37 titled 'Chamber into the X Dimension':

I am certain that the helmeted figure in the lower left corner (or perhaps even the whole background landscape) of the below illustration from the same installement is also redrawn from a non-Disneyic comics, but I cannot immediately pinpoint the source

GOOFY WATCH FROM 1939

2011-07-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

This pocket produced by the Ingersoll company of the US in 1939, said to be "in good working condition , was sold for a winning bid of app. 134 US dlrs on ebay today. The illustration is from the poster of the cartoon short Goofy and Wilbur (1939).

BRITISH DEBUT OF DONALD'S NEPHEWS

2011-07-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

Donald's nephews first appeared in a Sunday strip in the US newspapers on Oct. 17th, 1937. They were created by Al Taliaferro, Disney's Sunday strips artist of the time. By the time the first strips with the nephews were reprinted outside the US, they had already returned to their home after staying on with their uncle for six consecutive Sundays in the US newspapers (*). In the UK, Donald's nephews were first heralded at the bottom rim (see above scan) of the back cover of the no. 98 (dated Dec. 18th, 1937) of Mickey Mouse Weekly. The art on this slim herald, by an unknown British illustrator, is rather substandart, but it is somewhat historically important for being the first non-American rendition of the nephews. Nevertheless, talented British artist Wilfred Haughton used them in his cover illustration for MMW no. 100; below scan is of the portion of the said cover with the nephews
...and below image is of the full cover:
And here is the first strip with the nephews as reprinted in the color central pages of that issue:The same issue also featured a puzzle with British-made illustrations of Donald's nephews (along with Mickey's nephews):

(*) Donald's nephews would return to Donald's home in daily strips in 1938 for "just a few days", but stay on indefinetely.

DONALD DUCK WATCHES FROM 1937

2011-07-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

Above scan of an ad promoting Donald Duck watches in the 1937 Christmas season is from the bottom rim of the back cover of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly no. 96 (dated Dec. 4th, 1937). Disneyic watches produced in the US since 1933 are well-known, but I'd never heard of these Donald Duck watches, "Swiss made", according to the ad and produced for and/or distributed in the UK by London-based Louis Newmark, before. If anyone knows more about them, please let us know.

JUNGLE CLUB MEMBERSHIP CERTIFICATE

2011-07-12T05:10:00.000-07:00

This 'Jungle Club membership certificate' issued by Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly in 1952 was sold on ebay for a surprisingly high winning bid of 104 pounds today!

MICKEY MOUSE GUM CARDS

2011-07-12T04:37:00.000-07:00

This lot of Mickey Mouse gum cards was recently sold on ebay for the reserve price of 100 US dlrs. This series of cards were issued in 1933-35. Below are close-ups of some of the cards from the lot:

RARE BRITISH DISNEY ITEMS

2011-07-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

This British-made lead figurine, with a detachable head, was recently sold on ebay for a winning bid of 1,000 British pounds!.. The seller dates it from 1939.
Meanwhile, the below tray and plate set with beautiful illustrations was sold for a winning bid of 367 British pounds. The seller gave no date estimate, but it is almost certainly from 1930s. If I was rich enough, I would have loved to get this set; I am not sure, but I think the illustrations might be the work of leading British Disney artist Wilfred Haughton who had worked on merchandise art before embarking on a cover artist career for Mickey Mouse Weekly for which he is better known for.

On the other hand, the below Donald Duck plate from Britain's Wadeheath was sold for a winning bid of app. merely 14 pounds:

And finally, the below British knitting book from 1950 was sold for the openining bid of 4.5 pounds:

'PETER AND THE WOLF' TIN BOX FROM BELGIUM

2011-07-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

This tin box from Belgium, featuring characters of the 'Peter and the Wolf' segment of Disney's feature-length compilation animation Make Mine Music (1946) was recently offered on ebay, but received no bids.

GHASTLY IMAGES FROM SHUFFLED SYMPHONIES (1940)

2011-07-07T00:02:00.000-07:00

Above scan is from the 'Shuffled Symphonies' page of the no. 210 (dated Feb. 10th, 1940) of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly. 'Shuffled Symphonies' was long-running series of illustrated text stories serialized in MMW from its first issue in 1936 onwards till 1940. Written and illustrated by the talented British comics artist Basil Reynolds, it featured silly but widely imaginative stories -frequently with fantasy motifs- told with a tongue-in-cheek. The installement in no. 210 is unusually creepy however, with Donald, Mickey's twin nephews and Pluto getting lost in a scary dark forest one night and taking shelter in a desolate-looking mansion. The installement ends on a cliffhanger note as Donald meets a ghost. However, in the next installement in the subsequent issue, the ghosts are revealed to be friendly. Nevertheless, Reynolds continued to toy with eerie imaginary for a while as in the below illustration from the installement in no. 212:

DONNA DUCK CUT-OUT FROM 1940

2011-07-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

MORE BRITISH CHEWIE CHOC CARDS FROM 1939

2011-07-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

In a below post, I had covered the set of British chewie choc cards from 1939. Here are images of a few other cards recently offered on ebay from the same series.

TURKISH DONALD DUCK BOOK (1961)

2011-06-30T02:14:00.000-07:00

While Donald Duck books began to be published in the US (and also in the UK) since the late 1930s, titles headlining Disney's most famous duck appeared in Turkey much later. The earliest such Turkish title appears to be Ördek Kardeş Istanbulda [Brother Duck in Istanbul], first published in 1947. A very rare Turkish edition Donald Duck book is Vak-Vak Kardeş Masal Diyarında [Quack-Quack Brother in the Land of Fairytales], a 16 pages-long booklet translated by Turhan Tümay and published by Necmeddin Salman's Kitap Yayma Odası in 1959 as no. 30 of 'Küçüklere Kitaplar' [Books to the Minors] series; I have never seen a copy of this title, all the info I have on it is from the index of the Turkish National Library in Ankara.
The next in line was Vakvak Amca [Quackquack Uncle], currently the oldest Turkish Donald Duck illustrated story book in my collection. This 16 pages-long booklet was published by Edip Alşar in 1961 as no. 3 of 'Eğlendirici Çocuk Kitapları' [Entertaining Children's Book] series, and distributed by Gazeteci Kitap ve Yayınevi. Edip Alşar is an author of a soccer history book and also of school books for children. Gazeteci Kitap ve Yayınevi was a short-lived franchise active in 1960-62. It was apparently a miniscule enterprise as only a post box number is given as its adress.
Vakvak Amca features a very ugly Donald Duck illustraton on its first pageand two more illustrations in the central pages:The plot concerns Donald deciding to make a feast all for himself, with eventually smoke rising from the kitchen while the food is being cooked. It turns out to be a false fire alarm however as a bird is revealed to have blocked the chimney.
The backcover showcases the covers of the books from the series, all of which are Disneyic:

THE FOX HUNT (1938)

2011-06-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

Between 1934-42, dozens of Disney cartoon shorts were promoted in the US magazine Good Housekeeping in the form of one page illustrated text story adaptations by Disney artists Tom Wood and Hank Porter. Some of these would later be re-used in Walt Disney's Comics & Stories. And yet, several other Disney cartoons which did not make into Good Housekeeping were also adapted into illustrated text story format and published in Mickey Mouse Magazine, the predecessor of WDC&S. One of these is The Fox Hunt (1938) whose adaptation was published in the central pages of MMM vol. 3 no. 12 (dated Sept. 1938). The last illustration in this story was the basis for the cover of that issue:

Years later, another illustration from 'The Fox Hunt', the upper one in the second page, would be the basis of the cover illustration of the no. 371 (dated Sept. 23rd, 1944) of Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine:

FRENCH EDITION OF THE FIRST ELMER SUNDAYS

2011-05-27T06:29:00.000-07:00

As I have noted in the below post in this blog, the first five 'Silly Symphony' Sunday newspaper strips featuring Elmer Elephant have unfortunately never been reprinted in any English-language edition. However, they had been reprinted in non-English editions in continental Europe. Above scan of the first-ever Sunday strip featuring Elmer is from the no. 86 (dated June 7th, 1936) of the French Le Journal de Mickey and the below ones from no.'s 87-90:

note: scans in this post originate from the outducks archive

RARE ELMER SUNDAYS FROM 1935-36

2011-05-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Elmer Elephant was the star of a 1936 cartoon short from the 'Silly Symphony' series. Prior to the release of the cartoon Elmer Elephant, the character actually debutted in the Sunday newspaper comics medium on. The weekly Silly Symphony newspaper strips series featured the exploits of Elmer Elephant for 12 consecutive Sundays from Oct 27th, 1935 onwards till (including) Jan. 12th, 1936. A planned Elmer cartoon sequel would never materialize, but Elmer would re-appear in Silly Symphony strips in 1938-39. While Elmer's second run in the Sunday strips would be reprinted in the US Mickey Mouse Magazine and, decades later, also in a special edition of reprints, his first run from 1935-36 has never been reprinted in the US. The only known English-language appearance of those Elmer Sundays strips outside of newspapers has been in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly. Sadly, MMW omitted the first five Elmer Sundays and started its serialization with the 6th one. I am not sure but I think the first five Elmer Sunday strips, of which I have so far been able to see only one (in a Turkish reprint from 1938), might consist of stand-alone gags. The remaining seven, on the other hand, consist of a narrative continuity revolving around a baby ape attached to Elmer. Here is the complete run of Elmer Sunday strips published in MMW, with the above scan from MMW no. 2 (dated Feb. 15th, 1936) and the below ones from no.s 3-8 (MMW no. 1 did not feature any Elmer strip):

FIRST COLOR EDITION OF MICKEY MOUSE IN TURKEY (1941)

2011-05-23T02:37:00.000-07:00

Above scan is from the no. 257 (dated March 29th, 1941) of Turkish weekly children's magazine Yavrutürk, featuring the first installement of 'Miki Fare ve Lambası [Mickey Mouse and His Lamp]' which happens to be the first color edition of a Mickey Mouse strip in Turkey. 'Miki Fare ve Lambası' is an abridged and colorized Turkish edition of a US daily newspaper continuity from 1939-40 known as 'the Miracle Master'. It was serialized in Yavrutürk till (including) no. 286 in a total of 30 parts with one page each issue.

FIRST COLOR EDITION OF DONALD DUCK IN TURKEY (1940)

2011-05-22T03:20:00.000-07:00

Above scan is of the back cover of no. 206 (dated April 6th, 1940) of Turkish children's weekly magazine Yavrutürk, marking the first color edition of Donald Duck in Turkey. The Turkish edition is missing two panels from the original American Sunday newspaper edition from Jan. 28th, 1940 (below scan from a 1997 reprint):
Donald Duck Sunday newspaper comics would be reprinted in color in the back covers of Yavrutürk no.'s 206-212 and no. 216.

BRITISH CHEWIE CHOC CARDS FROM 1939

2011-05-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

The above swap card, a giveaway with the Quax "chewie choc" manufactured by the British firm A. J. Caley Ltd of Norwich, was recently sold at ebay for the winning bid of 14.5 pounds. This card in particular is of special interest as it features Donna Duck, the earlier incarnation of Donald's girlfriend Daisy. The below card from the same series had earlier been sold for the winning bid 19 pounds:In my collection, I have the below card with Elmer the Elephant (one of my favorite Disney characters) which I had bought several years ago:The Dirty Bill referred to in the dialogue of this card is the villain of the Disney cartoon short Robber Kitten (1935) who was featured in person in card no. 3:Below are four other cards from the same series, including no. 1 (above left):Online sellers offering these cards have variously dated them as supposedly being from 1932 (!) to 1937 or 1938. The earlier claim is especially preposterious as many of the characters featured in the cards had not been created by then! The truth is that these cards were issued in July 1939. The merchandise which they would be given away with were first alluded to in the editorial page of no. 180 (dated July 15th, 1939) of Mickey Mouse Weekly:
More info was given in the 'Wise Quacks' page of the next issue:Note that the "free gift" referred here is not the cards, but the chocolate bar itself which would be given to any reader of MMW when they present the below coupon provided in the same page:
The cards were first mentioned -and highlighted- in no. 182:From then onwards, similar promotions of Quax highlighting the enclosed swap cards were published in several subsequent issues of MMW. The illustrations in the above and below (from no. 183) promos are by the British staff of MMW:On the other hand, the illustration on the below promo from the next issue is modeled from an illustration from the publicity materials of the Disney cartoon short Donald's Cousin Gus (1939), with the sandwiches in the original material redrawn as Quax bars:The Donald and Donna illustation in the below promo from no. 185 is again by British artists:The below promo from the next issue features a clever re-contextualization by juxtapositioning of illustrations derived once again from cartoon publicity materials:On the other hand, the illustration of the promo from no. 187 appears to me to be of British origin even though the art is more slick than those in earlier ones:The Donald Duck figure on the left in the below promo from the next issue is very familiar, but I can not immediately recall its original source (if anyone can, please let us know):Similarly, I am not sure about the illustration from no. 189, but it is somewhat reminiscent of a scene from the Disney cartoon short Modern Inventions (1937):The last illustrated promo for Quax in MMW appeared in no. 190:The next issue had a promo highlighting the album to be given to those who collect all the 48 cards in the set:

DONALD DUCK AND THE WASTE PAPER SALVAGE CAMPAIGN

2011-05-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post on this blog, I had covered a British-made Disneyic strip about savings efforts during the 2nd World War in Britain's Mickey Mouse magazine. Recently, I've come other samples of the same theme, so these strips constitue a short-lived series. The above scan (broken into two due to the limited size of my scanner) is from no. 309, dated May 9th, 1942.

RARE MICKEY MOUSE SUNDAY STRIP

2011-05-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Above scan is from the color central pages of no. 309 (dated May 9th, 1942) of Britain's Mickey Mouse magazine and features a re-formatted reprint of an American Sunday newspaper Mickey Mouse strip from Nov. 23rd, 1941. This particular Sunday strip has never been reprinted in the US after its original publication in newspapers.

THE ART OF COLLAGE

2011-04-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

From 1938 onwards till 1948, the covers of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly magazine (re-titled simply as Mickey Mouse during its bi-weekly run between 1941-50), usually consisted of a reformatted reprint of an American Sunday newspaper strip placed against the background of an illustration by British artists. However, the illustration on the cover of no. 402 (dated Dec. 1st, 1942) actually features a collage of figures from illustrations of America origin. The Donald figure at the lower left corner is copied from an illustration featured in the illustrated text story adaptation of the cartoon short Donald's Snow Fight (1942) published in Walt Disney's Comics & Stories no. 18 (dated March, 1942):and the Goofy figure at the upper right corner seems to be redrawn from the publicity material of cartoon short The Art of Skiing (1941) published in the Good Housekeeping magazine in 1941:

APPARENTLY BRITISH-MADE ILLUSTRATED STORIES IN BRITAIN'S POST-WAR MICKEY MOUSE

2011-04-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

A string of illustrated short stories published in the early post-war issues of Britain's Mickey Mouse magazine do not appear to be of America origin as far as I could establish and hence might be British-made. Above scan is from page 6 of no. 402 (dated Dec. 1st, 1945) and is of the first sample from this particular series. The name responsible for the quite slick-looking illustration may be Reg Perrot who was the most talented of the British artists known to be working in those issues of Mickey Mouse magazine.

TV-THEMED BRITISH-MADE COVER GAG FROM 1950

2011-04-17T03:31:00.000-07:00

Above scan is of the cover of the no. 526 (dated June 10th, 1950) of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly comics magazine, featuring a tv-themed British-made gag. Across the Atlantic, television had already began appearing in Donald Ducks daily newspaper strips in the US by 1946 (with Daisy buying a tv set for Donald), but the the above British comics might have been the inspiration for the below American strip from August 30th, 1950:I am somewhat surprised and delighted to see that visiting others who were priviliged to own a tv set to watch broadcasts in the early days of television was also a common social practice in Western contexts, just like it was in Turkey. While I don't recall visiting neighbors for this purpose, my earliest recollection regarding tv is about watching an episode of the Pink Panther cartoon series in my uncle's house during a visit with my parents; that must have been in 1974 (public tv broadcastig had began in Istanbul in 1971).

THE BRITISH-MADE 'SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS' STRIP

2011-04-17T02:49:00.000-07:00

The above scan is from the color central pages of the no. 526 (dated June 10th, 1950) of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly comics magazine which marks the debut of the British-made Disneyic gag comic strip series 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. Despite the title, Snow White would rarely appear in the series after the initial strip and the series in actuality feature only the dwarfs in most cases, as in the below scan from no. 532: 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' would cease by early 1951 (leaving its space to a British-made Thumper strip), which is a pity as it was one of the better British-made Disneyic strips in terms of both art and humor. At some point in the future, I hope to scan and post all the 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' strips of MMW in my collection.

MICKEY MOUSE ALPHABET BOOKS

2011-04-13T02:00:00.000-07:00

The earliest Disney alphabet book that I've come across is the hardcover A Mickey Mouse Alphabet Book (From A To Z) published by Whitman in 1936. A British edition by Collins features the identical cover illustration but is titled as A Mickey Mouse Story (From A To Z). A.B.C de Mickey, a French Disney alphabet book published by Hachette in 1936 features a cover illustration clearly redrawn from these English-language Disney alphabet books: However, the contents of the French and the English-language books are not identical, with different sets of illustrations. The French book also boasts a color illustration on the reverse of its cover:In the US, Whitman also published the soft-cover A Mickey Mouse Alphabet in 1938.

DONNA DUCK IN MMW COVER FROM 1942

2011-04-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post in this blog, I had covered the earliest appearances of Donna, the initial incarnation of Donald's girlfriend Daisy, in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly in 1936-37. Interestingly, Daisy seems to have been ignored by the British artists of MMW as Donna continued to make appearances in MMW after Daisy became Donald's steady girlfriend in US newspaper strips from 1940 onwards. The above image is of the cover of no. 312, dated June 20th, 1942. The cover illustration is inspired by the cartoon short Don Donald (1937) where Donna had debutted.

BRITISH BUCKY BUG BOOK

2011-04-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

In a below post from Nov. 9th, 2009 on this blog, I had covered the earliest British Disney books, concentrating on publications by Dean & Sons Ltd. Recently, two early Disney books by Dean which I was not aware of hence had not mentioned in that post were offered on ebay. One of them was Mickey Mouse Presents Bucky and Bo which is probably a re-formatted British edition of the American Mickey Mouse Presents a Silly Symphony (1934) from Whitman's Big Little Book series. Dean's Buck book is undated, but the copy on sale had a handwritten 1936 inscription. Below is its title page and the back cover: This copy was offered for 300 British pounds but received no bids. On the other hand, a Mickey Mouse Painting Book by Dean was sold for a winning bid of 41.75 Br. pnds: Below is a sample page:

CHILEAN DISNEY MAGAZINE FROM 1937

2011-04-04T05:32:00.000-07:00

A very rare sample from a very little-known (unknown to me till now) pre-war Chiliean Disney magazine has surfaced on ebay. The no. 19 of Album Mickey, reportedly put out by a publisher named Ercille in 1937, is currently being offered by an Argentine-based seller for 750 US dlrs.The cover art is reproduced from the cover of Mickey Mouse in Giantland published by David McKay Co. in the US in 1934, which was an illustrated text story adaptation of the Mickey Mouse cartoon short Giant Land (1933). The ebay seller states that the item "features exclusive drawings by a local illustrator called Jorge Christie (considered the main pioneer in the local comic book industry), and supposedly also original stories." Judging by the images provided by the seller, the sparse comics content of the magazine, which seems to be modeled on the Mickey Mouse Magazine from the US, largely consists of one or two page gag comics, some of which are non-Disneyic such as Popeye and Felix the Cat, plus a four-page extract from the first Mickey Mouse daily newspaper continuity from 1930: However, some of the other gag comics might indeed be of local origin, such as this Donald Duck gagwhich definitely does not originate from any of the Sunday newspaper comics featuring Donald Duck; unless it originates from the Mickey Mouse Magazine, it is likely to be a local (Chilean) production. The same applies to the below Goofy gag, but one should also add the British Mickey Mouse annuals (which often used a three-panel-per-page format) as a possible source in this case: The back cover is reproduced, with minor alterations, from the front cover of no. 20 (dated May 1937) of Mickey Mouse Magazine: Album Mickey, whose first issue had come out on June 18th, 1937, lasted till no. 40 (March 18th, 1938).

1935 GREETING CARD

2011-04-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

The above photo is of the framed original oil-on-canvas art of the Disneyic New Year's card for 1935, currently being offered on ebay (for an astronomical price). The unsigned art is likely to be the work of Tom Wood. The seller notes that the piece has come from the collection of collector Don Veron who died two years ago.

'SORCERER MICKEY AND THE WASTE PAPER CAMPAIGN' (1942)

2010-12-29T15:00:00.000-08:00

Above scan (broken into two due to the limited size of my scanner) from the no. 311 (dated June 6th, 1942) of Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine is an interesting example for the utilization of Disney characters for the savings efforts during the 2d World War years.

The boy character is from the Disney animation movie The Reluctant Dragon (1941).

BEDTIME STORIES

2010-11-30T04:35:00.000-08:00

This vintage illustrated story book was recently sold on ebay for 50 British pounds (app. 78 US dlrs). It is undated, but the seller and various online sources estimate it as being from 1937, but I have no clue as to the foundation of this estimate. Below are the credits page..

.. and the color insert:

The book reportedly features three stories: 'The Three Golden Keys', 'The City Under The Oak', 'The Giant's Castle'. The Sunshine Press also published several Disneyic 'Wonder Books' in circa early 1950s.

BIG MIDGET BOOK

2010-10-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

In a below post from Nov. 9th, 2009 on this blog, I had covered the earliest British Disney books, concentrating on publications by Dean & Sons Ltd. Recently, I've become aware of another early Disney book by Dean which I had not mentioned in that post: Mickey Mouse Sails For Treasure Island. This is the British edition of the US book by Whitman with the same title from 1933. The US edition was part of a popular series called 'The Big Little Books' while the British edition carried the tag 'Big Midget Book'. The British edition featured a different cover illustration, which curiously included a white Pluto, than the US one. It is undated, but probably either from 1933, the date of the US edition, or mid-1930s.
The copy whose image is above was recently sold on ebay for 100 British pounds (=app 157 US dlrs). Another copy had been earlier sold by Hake's for 185 US dlrs.
As I had noted in my earlier post, Dean had also published a book simply titled as Mickey Mouse with the tagline 'Great Big Midget Book', which might have been the British edition of one of the Big Little Books.

'KING OF THE CASTLE' (1950)

2010-10-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

At least five short British-made Thumper comics were serialized in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly between 1950-51. At some point in the future, I hope to present a comprehensive overview of them in this blog, but, for the moment, here are scans of the complete run of one of them, 'King of the Castle', serialized in no's 549-553, for you to enjoy:

The art might be the work of Basil Reynolds, who was also making a Thumper strip for the British newspaper Daily Herald in the same years.

BONGO, BIPPO AND MR. CHERRY (1949)

2010-09-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

When Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine's page count was increased to 12 from 8 with no. 499 (dated Sept. 3rd, 1949), one of the new strips added to the roster was 'Bongo, Bippo and Mr. Cherry' (above scan from no. 499). This humorous British-made b&w strip, which entailed a gag-week format within a loose continuity over the weeks, featured the Disney character Bongo the bear in the company of two traveling showmen. It was however shortlived as such. By early 1950, the strip's cast had been dispersed into two separate strips. While the two human characters gained their own two-row strip titled ''The Big Top featuring Mr Cherry & Bippo The Clown' in the central color pages, Bongo began his solo b&w strip career as 'Bongo - The Wonder Bear' (the below scan is from no. 508, dated Jan. 7, 1950):

The reason for the break-up is perhaps explained in the concluding episodes of the 'Bongo, Bippo and Mr. Cherry' strip, but I don't have those issues unfortunately. Perhaps the editors thought that putting Bongo in the company of showmen was incompatible with the character's authentic origin: Bongo was a run-away bear from the circus in the animation movie Fun and Fancy Free (1947) where he had debutted (his segment was based on a story by nobel-winnner author Sinclair Lewis).
While 'The Big Top' was clearly the work of Basil Reynolds, the artist(s?) behind 'Bongo, Bippo and Mr. Cherry' and 'Bongo - The Wonder Bear' is not determined. However, Reynolds appears to have a hand in at least some strips of 'Bongo - The Wonder Bear' as in the below example from no. 538 (dated Sept. 3rd, 1950) which betrays his lettering:

'Bongo - The Wonder Bear' would cease in 1951, the last strip appearing in no. 574.
In the US, Bongo had two one-shot comics in 1956 and 1958, but his comics appearances became scant in the 1960s and 1970s. He hasn't been seen since 1979.
As a bonus, I close this post with a scan of a cover of a Turkish comics magazine from 1963 which mark the only solo cover appearance of Bongo anywhere in the world. The cover illustration is actually a reworking of the splash panel of a comics of American origin:

AMORAL PINOCCHIO GAG (1950)

2010-09-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post (on April 26th, 2010) in this blog, I had covered British-made Pinocchio gag comics run in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly between 1949-53. The plots of most of these are didacticly moralistic as they involve the mishaps Pinocchio has to endure when he fails to act 'properly' as dictated by Gepetto and/or Jiminy Cricket. However, the gag from no. 511 (dated Feb. 18th, 1950) is rather unusual as seen in the above scan...

BRER RABBIT OUTWITS HIMSELF

2010-09-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

The 'Uncle Remus and His Tales of Brer Rabbit' Sunday newspaper comics, based on characters from Afro-American folktales compiled by folklorist J.C. Harris, had began to be run in US newspapers in 1945 as production for a feature-length live-action/aimation hybrid movie based on the tales commenced (the movie would eventually be released in 1946 as Song of the South). The stories of the comics involve the wise Brer Rabbit outwitting his forest foes. However, the Sunday from March 6th, 1949, the scan of whose British re-formatted reprint from Mickey Mouse comics magazine no. 508 (dated Jan. 7th, 1950) is above, is interesting because it depicts a different resolution than usual (click on the image to view it in larger size).

Between 1945-48, the Brer Rabbit Sunday comics featured short continuities which would last a few weeks. Beginning with 1949, a gag-a-week format was adopted. The Sunday covered in this post is one of the first such Sundays and has not been reprinted in the US, as most of Brer Rabbit Sundays.

BRITISH-MADE PABLO ADAPTATION (1949)

2010-09-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

Above scan is from the color central pages of the no. 482 (dated Jan. 8th, 1949) of Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine, featuring a British-made comics adaptation of an episode of the feature-length live-action/animation hyrid Disney movie Three Caballeros (1944). The movie had already been adapted into comics with a one-shot comics book in the US in 1945 and this segment had taken 8+ pages of that 48 pages long comics. The short British-adaptation in Mickey Mouse is the first stand-alone appearance of Pablo the Penguin. Later in 1949, he would co-star with Dumbo the Flying Elephant in a Xmas special comics from the US. Following another stand-alone adaptation in a Silly Symphony comics book from 1954, Pablo would sink into oblivion until Brazilian Disney comics artists revived him for a short-lived series in 1995. He has not been seen since than.

The same issue of Mickey Mouse which had the Pablo comics strip also featured the below apparently British-made ice-related single-strip illustration at the bottom of its back cover:

EARLIEST BASKETBALL THEMED DISNEY STRIP (1942)

2010-09-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Turkish national basketball team's amazing 83-82 win over Serbia in the last seconds of the semi-finals of the world basketball championship tonight, I present a scan (taken from the outducks archive) of the Donald Duck daily strip from Aug. 8th, 1942, which appears to be the earliest basketball themed Disney comics strip according to the inducks index.

1944 MAGAZINE CLIP REGARDING TURKISH RELEASE OF BAMBI

2010-09-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Above scan from the no. 70 (dated April 29th, 1944) of Turkish children's weekly Çocuk Haftası [Children's Week], which had been serializing an illustrated text story of Bambi, is of a notice, perhaps an 'advertorial'!, urging its readers not to miss the movie itself which had opened in Istanbul's Sümer cinema. The one-and-a-half year delay for the Turkish release of Bambi (which had premiered in the US in August 1942) is quite normal given the wartime conditions.
The Sümer cinema, which had opened in 1930 as Artistik, would be renamed in the later decades as Rüya and then function as a venue for mostly B-movies. Further later, it would become an adults-only theater (*). A long way from Bambi!..

(*) On Dec. 27th, 2008, Rüya was raided by Turkish police's vice squad for being a site of gay prostitution. Next month, it was renamed as Yeni [New] Rüya and converted back into mainstream programming, eventually even hosting the Istanbul Film Festival. However, it closed its curtains for good on May 7th, 2010.

PINOCCHIO ON THE COVERS OF BRITAIN'S MICKEY MOUSE WEEKLY IN 1940

2010-09-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

While Pinocchio had made its British debut on the cover of Mickey Mouse Xmas Special published in late 1939, the puppet-boy made its first appearance on the covers of the regular Mickey Mouse Weekly with no. 217 (dated March 30th, 1940) which marked the start of the reformatted serialization of the US 'Pinocchio' Sunday newspaper comics in this British magazine. The artwork of the cover was by Victor Ibbetson who had been on the staff of MMW since its early days in 1936 and was responsible for several covers after the main cover artist Wilfred Haughton left circa 1939 (Prior to his employment in MMW, he had worked in animated short cartoons by Roland Davies based on Davies' newspaper strip 'Come On, Steve'.) As can be seen in the above scan, Ibbetson's rendition of Mickey Mouse is rather substandard, not to mention the awkwardness in the sizes of the featured characters.
On the other hand, the below cover from no. 226 (June 1st, 1940), whose artist is unknown, is quite good-looking in terms of art, and the design, with the panels of the featured Donald Duck strip pasted on the fish bowl, is imaginative.

This copy was recently sold on ebay for app. 17 Br. pounds (app. 26 US dlrs); alas, having gone almost bankrupt after a summer vacation, I couldn't afford to top the highest bid... However, I still dared to snatch the below no. 228 (June 15th, 1940) for app. 13 Br. pounds (app. 21 US dlrs):

In my opinion, this is one of the most creative MMW covers ever with the very meaningful integration of the featured strip into the main illustration. The artist is again unknown, but I suspect Basil Reynolds' hand as he is known to have made similar cover works, with diegetic integration of strips into his own art, in post-war MMW issues.
The below cover of no. 235 (Aug. 3rd, 1940), on the other hand, is average and might again be the work of Ibbetson:

By the end of October 1940, both Reynolds and Ibbetson would be drafted for the 2d World War and the British art chores of MMW would be handed over to Ernest Richardson, the younger brother of Charles Richardson, a collaborator of Ibbetson from his animation days.

The info on the backgrounds of the artists is derived from Basil Reynolds' memoirs, which were kindly made accessable to me by John Wigmans.

MEXICAN PINOCCHIO LOBBY CARDS

2010-08-30T02:17:00.000-07:00

BRITISH-MADE GOOFY GAGS (1949)

2010-08-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

This Goofy gag comics from the cover of no. 486 (dated March 5th, 1949) of Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine is one of the better British-made gags featured on the covers of this magazine. Not only is the humour well-thought, but the art of the splash panel is excellent in my opinion.

The below cover of the preceeding issue is also noteworthy. It actually features a re-drawn and abridged version of an American Sunday newspaper strip from 1945 with a new (British-made) splash panel, adding a distinctly local cultural flavor with reference to British obsession for afternoon tea:

PINOCCHIO CROSSWORD PUZZLE (1940)

2010-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Above scan is from the vol. 5 no. 5 (dated Feb. 1940) of the US Mickey Mouse Magazine.

TURKISH PINOCCHIO VINYL RECORD

2010-08-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is a Turkish "children's fairy tale" vinyl record (possibly from the late 1960s or early 1970s) of Pinocchio. It's not a song record, but features an audio renditio of the tale of Pinocchio.

BRITISH-MADE PINOCCHIO COVER GAG (1949)

2010-08-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

In a below post on April 26th, I had covered British-made Pinocchio gag strip series ran in the color central pages of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly between 1949-53. Recently, I've come across this issue, no. 483 (dated Jan. 22d, 1949) which features a British-made Pinocchio gag comis on its cover, predating the start of the series by about half a year.

TRACED PINOCCHIO COMICS IN TURKISH CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE FROM 1945-46

2010-08-08T02:38:00.000-07:00

Above scan is of the cover of no. 24 (dated Apr. 24th, 1946) of a little-known Turkish children's weekly magazine titled Şen Çocuk [Merry Kid], showcasing Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket alongside Laurel & Hardy as well as a bunch of Turkish comics characters featured in that magazine. Şen Çocuk had began to serialize the first comics adaptation of the feature-length Disney animation movie Pinocchio (1940), originally run in the US newspapers in 1939-40 as a Sunday half-page comics on the eve of the movie's theatrical release, from its first issue (Nov. 14th, 1945) onwards.

As can be seen from a comparison of the first installements in Şen Çocuk (above scan) and the US newspapers (below image, taken from the outducks archive), the Turkish magazine had produced a traced version with panels of reduced length in most cases, causing a loss of detail and overall decrease in the beauty of the original art. The practice of tracing would be very common in cheap Turkish comics publications of the post-war era.

The first issue of Şen Çocuk had also promised a locally-made Mickey Mouse comics for the coming issues, but that promise wouldn't materialize in the next 23 issues and I don't know if the magazine continued publication beyond the first 24 issues available in my collection.

By the way, the art in this promo for the promised Mickey Mouse comics is a reworking of the cover art of no. 8 (dated March 28th, 1936) of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly.

BRITISH ALICE COMICS IN TURKISH CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE FROM 1952

2010-07-31T02:33:00.000-07:00

I've recently come across, at a Turkish online auction site, this Turkish children's weekly magazine from 1952 which apparently serialized the British-made Alice In Wonderland comics adaptation originally serialized in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly the year before. The reader-bound volume of the first 40 issues of Karınca [the Ant] was offered at an unreasonably high starting price and I couldn't afford it (it did not receive any bids anyway). Hence, I don't know if it featured any other Disney comics, British-made or otherwise. The cover illustration at the right of the above image looks familiar, but I cannot immediately identify its original source.

Karınca was published by Nihat Bali and its editor was Ramazan Gökalp Arkın. According to the (often unreliable) Çizgiroman Ansiklopedisi, Bali (1928-1991) had made traced Mickey Mouse comics for a Turkish children's magazine in 1945. He is better known as a satirical/humourous strip artist, the short-lived Karınca marking his only stint as a publisher. Prior to Karınca, Arkın had also worked as editor in Şen Çocuk, a children's weekly from 1945-46 which had serialized a traced/redrawn version of the comics adaptation of Pinocchio. Later in 1952, Bali would handover the ownership of Karınca to Arkın. In 1966, Arkın would publish the short-lived Disney comics weekly Renkli Miki as well as a series of illustrated Disney story books.

VINTAGE EUROPEAN PINOCCHIO POSTERS

2010-07-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

Four Pinocchio posters are among an an amazing lot of vintage European movie posters currently on sale at ebay from a Spanish seller. The most interesting is undoubtedly the above poster from Yugoslavia. The below posters are from Holland, Denmark and Spain:

MATANIA ILLUSTRATION INTEGRATED INTO MICKEY MOUSE WEEKLY COVER

2010-06-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

In his memoirs published in a fanzine of the Britain-based Association of Comic Enthusiasts (ACE) years ago, British comics artist Basil Reynolds, who had also worked in editorial capacity in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly in the post-World War 2 years, recounts how he had once visited famous illustrator Fortunio Matania (1881-1963) and borrowed a b&w original of one of his illustrations ("a jousting scene") to use on a cover of MMW ("as the large opening pictıre of a Disney strip") in colors. Above scan is of the cover of no. 592 (dated Sept. 15th, 1951) of MMW, which must obviously be the cover in question.

Big thanks to John Wigmans for providing me the Reynolds memoirs...

SOCCER-THEMED BRITISH DONALD DUCK STRIP (1948)

2010-06-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

Above scan is of the cover of no. 478 (dated Nov. 13th, 1948) of Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine, featuring a British-made soccer-themed Donald Duck strip.

BRITISH-MADE DONALD DUCK AND GOOFY STRIPS FROM 1948

2010-06-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

I had covered the evolution of the covers of Britain's Mickey Mouse magazine in the aftermath of the 2nd World War in my post on May 1st. In that post, I had noted that British-made strips had become the norm by 1949. Recently, I've come across an earlier example from 1948: no. 470 (dated July 24th, 1948) whose scan is above. Incidentally, that there was apparently something wrong with the publication of this strip: as far as I can fathom, the title 'Famous Last Words!' is unrelated to the plot..

The same issue also includes a British-made Goofy strip:

SNOW WHITE FRENCH SONG SHEET

2010-06-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

'CUBBY AND TUBBY'

2010-05-02T02:37:00.000-07:00

Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine reverted back to weekly period in 1950 and was re-retitled as Mickey Mouse Weekly as it was titled from its inception from 1936 till 1941. Two additional British-made Disneyic gag comics series were featured in the revitalized magazine, alongside British-made cover gags and Pinocchio gags which had started the year before and material of US origin,: the color 'Cubby and Tubby' and the black&white 'Bongo the Wonder Bear'. Of these, 'Cubby and Tubby' is of great interest as it is, to a large degree, a British creation.

The inspiration behind 'Cubby and Tubby' appears to be two bear cubs, one of whose is named as Cuthbert, which appear in a Li'l Wolf comics from the US Walt Disney's Comics & Stories no. 52 (dated Jan. 1945): And the inspiration for Cuthbert and his sibling appears to be the two bear cubs from the Disney black&white cartoon short The Bears and Bees (1932).

In any case, when 'Cubby and Tubby' first appeared as a single-row strip spread over the bottom rim (soon, the strip would be shifted to the top rim) of the two central pages in no. 512 (scans at the top of this post), both of the cubs were of brown color, just like the bear cub friends of Li'l Wolf in WDC&S. Eventually, one of them began to sport orange fur, as in the below scans from no. 525: The British artist(s?) responsible for 'Cubby and Tubby' were initially careless in differentiating the cubs. Note that in the above gag, the brown cub is named as Tubby. However, in subsequent gags, the name Cubby would stick to the brown one!

'Cubby and Tubby' has pleasant artwork while the humor in the gags is not always as qualified. It would be one of the longer running British-made gag series and continue till 1953.

BRITISH-MADE COVER GAGS IN MICKEY MOUSE COMICS MAGAZINE (1948-49)

2010-05-01T14:06:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks, I have been covering British-made comics material published in Mickey Mouse in the late 1940s. I round up this coverage with today's post on gags which appeared on the covers of this British comics magazine. Initially in the post-war (as well as war-time) era, the covers of Mickey Mouse (or Mickey Mouse Weekly as it was titled till 1941) featured American strip material in irregularly re-formatted columns/rows, with the remaining cover space filled up with illustrations by British artists. In 1948, the cover layout was standardized with American-origin strip material taking up the lower 1/3rd of the cover and British illustrations taking up the remaining space. Initially, the British illustrations were unrelated to the accompanying American strips in terms of content, like in the above scan of no. 464 whose accompanying strip was a Li'l Wolf comics from US Walt Disney's Comics & Stories redrawn and reformatted as a strip. Eventually, the British illustrations began to take their cue from the strips, as in the below scan(s) from no. 472 (whose strip is an abridged -missing 2 panels from the original- version of an American Mickey Mouse Sunday strip):

In the above example, the British illustration is related to the strip in the sense of featuring the same set of characters in the same setting, but is nevertheless independent of it in the last analysis in terms of plot. By 1949, the relation began to go further than that with the British-made illustrations functioning as if they were enlarged introductory panels ('splash panel') of the American-origin strips in the sense of plot as well, as in the below example from 491 (whose stip is again an abridged version an American Mickey Mouse Sunday strip):

By this time, British-made strips themselves also had began to appear occasionally, an early example being the cover of no. 488 whose scan I had posted at the bottom of my below post on April 9th. By the summer of that year, such all-British covers would become the norm. The below scans are from no's 495, 498 and 500:

BRITISH-MADE PINOCCHIO GAG COMICS

2010-04-26T04:22:00.000-07:00

The longest-running British-made gag comics series to start in Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine would be 'Pinocchio'. It started in no. 495 (dated July 9th, 1949) as a single-row strip spread over the top rims of the two central pages (scan above is broken into two due to limitations of my scanner) after the end of 'The Reluctant Dragon' strip. Soon, it would be reformatted as in the below scan from no. 500:

Later, it would be reformatted once again, this time as two-columns, and continue until 1953.

In 1975, another apparently British-made Pinocchio gag comics series would appear in The Wonderful World of Disney magazine under the title of 'The Playful Pranks of Pinocchio'. The Wonderful World of Disney Annual 1977 also included an installement of 'The Playful Pranks of Pinocchio', whose original art scans are below:

THE RELUCTANT DRAGON REDRAWN (BY BASIL REYNOLDS?)

2010-04-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

'The Reluctant Dragon' comic strip which was serialized in Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine in 1949 as a single-row strip spread over the top rims of two central pages was a redrawn version of the comics story published as a "one-shot" comics in the US in 1941 (which itself was an adaptation of the feature-length Disney movie from the same year). The above scan (broken into two due to the constraints of my scanner) is of the first installment of the British version (from no. 488) and below images are of the first three pages of the original American version:

The British version, which, in my opinion, is actually an improvement over the American original by Irvin Tripp, was probably the work of Basil Reynolds.

BRITISH-MADE FIGARO AND PEDRO THE AIRPLANE GAG COMICS (1949)

2010-04-23T00:09:00.001-07:00

Besides the 'Danny the Lamb' strip, two other British-made gag comics published in Britain's Mickey Mouse once this comics magazine was re-enlarged to 12 pages beginning with no. 499 (dated Sept. 3rd, 1949) were a Figaro strip and 'The Adventures of Little Pedro', both of which were apparently short-lived. Figaro had debutted in the animated feature Pinocchio (1940) as the cat of the wooden-boy's father Gepetto. The Figaro strip in Mickey Mouse (the above scan is from no. 499 and the below ones from 500 and 505) had come at the tail end of a resurgence of the popularity of the feline character when he had starred in a series of six cartoon shorts (as Minnie's cat) between 1943-49 (most of these were adapted to comics or illustrated text story formats published in the US Walt Disney's Comics & Stories). Decades later, he would also star in a series of one-page gag comics in continental Europe between 1999-2001.Pedro the Airplane was the star of one of the animation segments of the feature-length compilation movie Saludos Amigos (1943).In the same year as 'The Adventures of Little Pedro' was published in Mickey Mouse (the above scans are from no. 499, 500 and 500), he had also co-starred with Dumbo the Flying Elephant in a 9-pages comics published in no. 234 of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories. However, he had earlier appeared in one cover of the British Mickey Mouse (no. 398, dated Nov. 6th, 1945), making his first-ever appearance in the cover of a comics magazine anywhere in the world:

As a bonus, I also post a Pedro cover from Turkey, the no. 6 (dated May 12th, 1958) of the 'special issue' series of Vak Vak Kardeş:

'DOC'S WOODLAND WONDERS' (1948-49)

2010-04-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

'Doc's Woodland Wonders' was a nature-themed strip published in Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine between 1948-49. Basil Reynolds (see the below post for more on him) was the main artist. It debutted in no. 462 (dated April 3rd, 1948) as a b&w strip but was soon moved to the color central pages, replacing the non-Disneyic comic strip 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer', and initially featured the Seven Dwarfs and occasionally some other Disney characters. Eventually, it was shifted first to the b&w pages and then, with no. 483, reverted back to color in the bottom portion of the last page (back cover) but the Disney characters began to be omitted from the strip henceforth even though the name of Doc (of the Seven Dwarfs) remained in the title. It lasted till (including) no. 498. The scans in this post are from no.'s 464 (above), 465, 467, 468, 470, 472, 475, 478 and 482.

Between 1953-54, Reynolds did another nature-themed series for Mickey Mouse Weekly titled 'True Life Adventures'.

BASIL REYNOLDS' 'DANNY THE LAMB' (1949)

2010-04-11T00:21:00.000-07:00

Basil Reynolds (1916-2001) was one of the young artists who had joined the team of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly during its inception in 1936, creating the excellent (non-Disneyic) 'Skit, Skat & the Captain' humourous comics for this magazine, as well as contributing illustrations for the 'Shuffled Symphonies' text story series, not to mention making Elmer and Tillie gag comics. His work would disappear in MMW during the 2nd World War (perhaps he was drafted?), with 'Skit, Skat & the Captain' being taken over by an inferior artist before being discontinued altogether, but he would return to the same magazine, then retitled as Mickey Mouse, sometime after the war. In a comment appended to one of the below posts (March 26) in this blog, John Wigmans had identifed the artist for some of the British-made Bucky Bug material in Mickey Mouse in 1947-48 as Reynolds. The 'Danny the Lamb' series, which had started in no. 499 (dated Sept. 3rd 1949; see above scan), is also by Reynolds. The below scans are from no. 500 and no. 505:Reynolds' 'Danny the Lamb' was first heralded in the editorial page of no. 488 of MM, announcing the new comics to be featured in the coming issue when the magazine would be re-enlarged back to 12 pages (it had been reduced to 8 pages in 1940 during the tail end of its first weekly era):
'Danny the Lamb' would be short-lived and soon replaced by 'Big Top', a non-Disneyic strip by Reynolds.
Danny had first appeared in the non-animation Disney movie So Dear To My Heart (1949). Immediately prior to the debut of Reynold's gag comics series, Danny was featured in an illustrated text story in the US Walt Disney's Comics ad Stories no. 107, dated Aug. 1949. He would appear in four more such stories in the same magazine between 1950-62, but the British series would remain his only proper comics.

BRITISH-MADE GAG COMICS DERIVED FROM 'PETER AND THE WOLF'

2010-04-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

British-made comics published in Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine in 1948 include several gag comics featuring the characters of the 'Peter and the Wolf' segment of Disney's feature-length compilation animation Make Mine Music (1946). The above scan is from no. 486, (June 26th, 1948) and the below ones from no. 499 and no. 500:

'Peter and the Wolf' is originally a musical story (with text to be narrated and music to be performed) by Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev. Its first comics version was published in the US Walt Disney's Comics & Stories simoultanously with the release of Make Mine Music. Hence, the gags in British Mickey Mouse were Peter and his nemesis' second comics appearances. Next, there was a newspaper comics in 1954 and a further comics adaptation in the Silly Symphonies compilation comics magazine in 1957.

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

2010-04-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

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...

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

2010-04-06T01:40:00.000-07:00

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.

MORE BRITISH-MADE DISNEYIC GAG COMICS FROM 1948

2010-04-04T03:43:00.001-07:00

As noted in the below posts, British-made Disneyic comics had made a come-back in Mickey Mouse comics magazine in 1947 with Bucky Buck strips. Sometime in mid-1948, the British-made Bucky Bug material gave way to a new series titled 'The Walt Disney All-Star Feature'. The above scan is from no. 467 (June 12) and the below one from no. 468 (June 26):

Soon, 'The Walt Disney All-Star Feature' would evolve into a continuity format, beginning with the serialization of a Dumbo adaptation.

BRITISH-MADE BUCKY BUG STRIPS (1947-48)

2010-03-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

A large number and variety of British-made Disneyic comics had been published in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly from its inception in 1936 till the early 1940s. My collection of this magazine during its bi-weekly run between 1941-50, when it was re-titled as Mickey Mouse, is still very incomplete, but British-made Disneyic comics appears to have diminished or altogether disappered during the first half of this period, only to make a comeback with single-row 'Bucky Bug' strips at the bottom portion of its last pages (back covers). Below scans are from issues no. 431, 448, 450 and 451, all from 1947. The above scan is of the wonderful cover of 450.

In 1948, the 'Bucky Bug' strip move to the central pages, as in the below scan from no. 462, 464 and 465:

In the US, Bucky Bug had debutted in the Silly Symphony Sunday half-page comics series in 1932, prior to the release of the cartoon short Bugs in Love later that year. In 1942, these newspaper comics would begin to be reprinted in re-formatted form in Walt Disney's Comics & Stories where new Bucky Bug comics would also begin to be published from 1943 onwards.

UPDATE: Note the comment appended to this post by John Wigmans, who identify the artist on some of the British Bucky Bug material as Basil Reynolds.

COMMERCIAL TIE-IN COMICS AT MICKEY MOUSE WEEKLY (1951)

2010-03-11T12:05:00.001-08:00

Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly is notable for, among many other aspects, featuring original, ie. British-made, Disney comics for most of its duration from 1936 thru 1957. However, the above scan (from no. 601, dated Nov.17, 1951) is of a rather unique British gag-comics in that it has been commissioned as a tie-in to a British Disney merchandise. Not only is the plot of the comics related to the concept of the promotion strategy of the soap, but the merchandise itself also appears as a plug-in at the second panel of the third row.

Another one-pag gag comics promoting the same soap brand was published in no. 615 (dated Feb. 22d, 1952).

COVER IMAGE OF 1937 MICKEY MOUSE HOLIDAY SPECIAL

2010-03-09T01:42:00.000-08:00

Between 1936-39, the publishers of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly also published four holiday special issues each year on the eve of the Christmas season. These are some of the rarest pre-war British Disney publications. Even though all four issues are fully indexed at inducks indexes, outducks archive hosts cover scans from only the last two. I haven't been able to come across the cover image of the first one myself anywhere either, but the above scan from Mickey Mouse Weekly no. 93 includes a reproduction of the cover of the 1937 special.

UPDATE FROM NOV. 23rd, 2010: A copy of this holiday special finally surfaced on ebay and was sold for 80 pounds (=127.5 US dlrs)! Below are scans of the front and back covers:

SPANISH DISNEY ALBUMS (1936)

2010-03-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Thanks to cover scans recently uploaded to outducks archive by outducks contributor Carlos de Grigorio, I became aware of a series pre-war Disney comics albums from Spain: 5 albums put out in 1936 by publisher Molino. According to the inducks index, no. 1 (above) features Spanish editions of 'Cookieland' and 'Robber Kitten', and no.2 (below) 'Three Little Kittens' and 'The Boarding-School Mystery', all from the Silly Symphony Sunday newspaper comics series.

The precise contents of the remaining three albums are yet unknown (yet unindexed), but the covers of no.3 and no. 5 indicate that they feature Mickey Mouse Sunday newspaper comics.

No. 4, whose cover scan is unavailable, is titled as 'Donald y Mickey policias'.

SCAMP RUNS AWAY FROM HOME (1955)

2010-03-07T06:59:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is not pre-war, but I think it's vintage enough. Below images are the first 5 daily Scamp strips, as published in Turkey's Milliyet newspaper, featuring the beginning of Scamp's first adventure:

Scamp had first appeared at finale of the animated feature Lady and Tramp (1955, and its comics adaptations from the same year) as the new-born child of the movie's protagonists. Later that year, he began to star in his own daily strip, scripted by Ward Greene and with art by Dick Moores. As can be seen from the above, the Scamp daily strips initially had entailed continuity adventures, but a gag-a-day approach would be adopted in the later years.

Scamp began to be published in Milliyet on Dec. 18th, 1955, starting with the original start of the strips from Oct. 31, hence with only a one and a half month delay from its debut in the US (*). It was retitled as 'Boncuk' [the Little Bead]. It was probably the first licensed publication of any Disney comics in Turkey. It was popular enough to be carried in Milliyet till March 2d, 1974.

From my own childhood, I recall that 'Boncuk' was still being published in some other Turkish newspaper by late 1970s or early 1980s.

A colorized and re-formatted version of this first adventure of Scamp would be published in no. 679 of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories in 2007.

(*) However, while the Scamp strip arrived in Turkey with almost no delay, the movie Lady and the Tramp, which had actually preceeded it, reached Turkey a year after the strip started! Below is the newspaper ad (from Milliyet) for its Turkish release on Dec. 26, 1956:

MEXICAN UGLY DUCKLING COLORING BOOK (1945)

2010-02-17T02:37:00.000-08:00

This Mexican Ugly Duckling coloring book from 1945, published by Endiciones Modernas, was recently sold at ebay for the opening price of 10 US dlrs.

OBSCURE MMW COVER LOOK-ALIKE ARTWORK

2010-02-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

The above artwork was recently auctioned at ebay and was eventually sold for a winning bid of 90 British pounds. The overall design obviously recalls the pre-war covers of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly, which are known to be the work of British artist Wilfred Haughton, but not only is the artwork signed by one "H.Horsley", the actual depiction of the figures is awkwardly 'distorted', which, in my tentative opinion, makes it unlikely that it was intended for MMW. The ebay seller speculated it might have been a sketch for Haughton to finish up, but I suspect this might have been a private re-working of MMW covers for unknown motives.

"THEY'RE BOMBING BERLIN!"

2010-01-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

The above panel is from the Donald Duck Sunday newspaper gag comics of June 24th, 1945. This particular Sunday has never been reprinted in the US; below is a scan of its reprint from Britain's Mickey Mouse magazine no. 401 (Nov. 17th, 1945):

MISSING PANELS IN MICKEY SUNDAY REPRINT IN WDC

2010-01-30T05:51:00.000-08:00

When Mickey Mouse Sunday newspaper comics were reprinted in Walt Disney's Comics & Stories magazine, they were re-formatted to fit the page layout and some panels from the original were often omitted in the process. For example, the above reprint of the Nov. 1st, 1942 Sunday in WDC&S no. 38 (Nov. 1943) is missing a total of 5 panels from the 12 panels of the original Sunday version.

Below are scans of the missing panels, as reprinted in Britain's Mickey Mouse magazine (wartime bi-weekly edition of Mickey Mouse Weekly) no. 399 (Oct. 20, 1945):

Note that only the third panel in the above scan is available in the WDC&S reprint..

..and only the central panel in the above scan.
The fifth missing panel is this reaction shot of Mickey, whose original place was just before the last panel:

FIRST DISNEY COVER IN TURKEY AND OTHER DISNEY COVERS OF AFACAN (2ND SERIES)

2010-01-26T11:55:00.000-08:00

Mickey Mouse gag panels had appeared on the covers of several issues of the first series of Turkish children's weekly Afacan (1932-34) but since that publication was of tabloid size, the said panels took up a small portion of the covers' area which they shared with other, non-Disneyic items and thus were not cover illustrations in the conventional sense. The first proper Disney cover of a Turkish publication came with the no. 3, dated Dec. 6th, 1934, of Afacan's 2nd series, whose scan is above. In the central illustration, Mickey is drumming to herald the coming of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. The artist is unknown. The smaller figures at the top of the cover are apparently taken from yet-unidentifed foreign sources (the Horace in bondage figure at the upper left might have been cropped from a panel of Mickey Mouse daily strip continuity from 1931 featuring gypsies).

Despite the full-fledged Disney cover, the contents of the issue in question featured only one Disney comics, a gag from British Mickey Mouse Annual of 1933:

However, in subsequent years, Afacan would serialize several Disney comics, originating from Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly and at least two issues, no. 19 (Mar. 28, 1935) and 76 (Apr. 30, 1936), would feature covers of British origin, the former the cover of Mickey Mouse Annual of 1934 and the latter the cover of Mickey Mouse Weekly no. 8 (Mar. 28, 1936).

The next Disney cover in Afacan was in no. 134, dated June 10th, 1937, heralding upcoming adventures of Toby Tortoise ad Max Hare:

The art on this cover illustration originates from the cover of the 1935 Frech album Le liévre et la tortue by Hachette. The last Disney cover illustration in Afacan was at no. 204 (Oct. 13, 1938):

And this illustration is from the reverse of the cover of 1938 French album Blanche-Neige et les Sep Nains by Hachette.

DISNEY ILLUSTRATION ON THE COVER OF TURKISH CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE FROM 1939

2010-01-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

I give a break to my coverage of pre-war British Disney publications to post the above scan of the cover of a pre-war Turkish children's magazine which I acquired this weekend. It is no. 121, dated Jan. 13th, 1939, of Çocuk. The central color illustration is from the Disney Studio's Christmas/New Year's greeting card from 1931 (see post dated Dec. 5th, 2008 on vintagedisneymemorabilia.blogspot.com); if anyone can identify any other reprint of this illustration in any publication prior to its reprint in Turkey in 1939, I will be very grateful.

The contents of the issue in question does not contain any Disney comics or stories. However, several other issues, from 1943, which I also acquired, feature Mickey Mouse strips.

Çocuk was published by Dr. Fuat Umay, a parliamentarian who headed the public Children Protection Association. It is one of the very few (perhaps the first?) Turkish children's magazines based in Ankara, rather than in Istanbul.

BRITISH FOLLOW-UP TO DONALD'S PSEUDO-DEBUT

2009-12-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post at this blog on Dec. 2d, 2008, I had extensively covered what I call as Donald Duck's "pseudo-debut" in the illustrated story book The Adventures of Mickey Mouse (1931) where he was named as one of Mickey's barnyard friends. Next year, Donald Duck would also get a mention in a British publication. An 8-pages illustrated text piece titled 'Mickey's 'Hoozoo'' in the third Mickey Mouse Annual (1932) introduces several of "Mickey's friends and foes" and Donald Duck gets a one-time mention in the third page (scan above).
'Mickey's 'Hoozoo'' is partially partially derivative of The Adventures of Mickey Mouse which had a British edition as well. The Adventures of Mickey Mouse has a plot while 'Mickey's 'Hoozoo'' is just a collection of sketches and the latter includes several characters not mentioned in the former, but there are several obvious connections, beginning with the fact some of the illustrations in the British annual are clearly copied/redrawn from the US book, such as the cat figure in the first page..

.. and the pig figure in the second page:

Equally significant is the fact that the character known today as Horace Horsecollar is named as Henry Horse and Clarabella Cow as Carolyne Cow in both publications. Hence, the inclusion of Donald Duck in the third Mickey Mouse Annual can be explained by its derivative relation to The Adventures of Mickey Mouse.

PRE-WAR BRITISH DISNEY PUBLICATIONS - PART 2: COLLINS CLEAR-TYPE PRESS

2009-12-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

In a post last month in this blog, I had provided a general overview of pre-war Disney books in Britain, concentrating on books by Dean, the pioneer of Disney publications in the UK. In that post, it was noted that the London & Glasgow-based Collins Clear-Type Press was the most prolific publisher of Disney books in Britain in the pre-war era and their books needed to be covered in a separate post. Collins' pre-war publications include a long series of illustrated story adaptation books of Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons, books for school beginner kids, annuals and Snow White books.' Their first Disney publication was Mickey Mouse in Giant Land (1934), featuring an illustrated story adaptation of the cartoon Giantland (1933). Below are scans of its color plate and two of its 44 full page b&w illustrations:

The same adaptation was published in the same year in US by David McKay Co., with a similar but non-identical cover art:

In 1935, Collins put out two more books in the same vein: Mickey Mouse in Pigmy Land and Mickey Mouse Crusoe:

They are illustrated story adaptations of Gulliver Mickey (1934) and Mickey's Man Friday. These two books were published, with identical covers, in the US by Whitman in 1936, that is one year after Collins' books came out, which indicates that Collins' early Mickey Mouse books were originally British-made and not British editions of US publications. Collins' last illustrated books derived from Mickey Mouse cartoons were Mickey Mouse Fire Brigade (1936) and Mickey Mouse and Pluto the Pup (1936), adaptations of Mickey's Fire Brigade (1935) and Pluto's Judgement Day (1935) respectively.

In addition to story books derived from cartoons, Collins also published several books aimed at first-grade school children, such as A Mickey Mouse Story from A to Z:

There is a 1936 Whitman book titled A Mickey Mouse Alphabet Book with an identical cover art, but since Collins' book is undated, it is hard to know which one came out first.
In 1937, Collins published Don Mickey, in a similar format to the cartoon-derived books but with a original story; this book will later be covered in a separate post in this blog.

Around 1934-36, Collins also published illustrated story adaptations several Silly Symphony cartoons, including Santa's Workshop, Nursery Stories, Water Babies, The Golden Touch, The Night Before Christmas:

For the year 1937, Collins put out a Silly Symphoy Annual:

This would remain a one-shot annual, as Collins would begin issuing Donald Duck annuals from 1938 onwards. Following the release of Disney's first feature-length animation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Collins published several publications derived from this movie, including coloring books.
One of the most prized Collins publications is the flip-book Donald & Pluto (1939):

Probably the last of Collins' pre-war Disney books (or perhaps the first of their war-time Disney publications, as it is undated) is an adaptation of late Silly Symphony cartoon Ugly Duckling (1939):

FIRST MICKEY MOUSE ANNUAL (1930)

2009-11-27T03:01:00.000-08:00

The first Mickey Mouse Annual, published by London's Dean & Son Ltd, is of great significance in the history of Disney publications. Published possibly around Christmas of 1930, it is the first-ever Disney book published for retail, a Mickey Mouse Book which had come earlier in the same year in the US having been printed as a give-away for promotion purposes. Furthermore, this MMA marks the first-ever appearance of Disney comics produced for publication other than newspaper syndication.

The annual opens with the below color plate...

...opposite this title page:

Oddly, there is no reference whatsoever to any affliation to the Disney company in either this title page or anywhere else in the annual that I could spot (most subsequent British Disney publications would include a tagline about "permission from the Walt Disney Mickey Mouse Ltd.").
While the larger figure of Mickey is copied from a US cartoon poster, the small Minnie figures at the bottom of the title page are taken from a model sheet produced by Disney to be utilized in creation of graphics on misc. items. See post dated March 30, 2009 from http://vintagedisneymemorabilia.blogspot.com/ for some info on this sheet as well as further examples of its utilization in MMA, including the figures in the below introduction page:

Below is the scan of the first gag page (acc. to David Gerstein's index at inducks, it is "partly made up of US clip art").

This is in a format close the comics format in the sense it includes more than one 'panel', but, in my opinion, would qualify only as a 'pseudo-comics' because while the the panels are sequential in a sense, they are not in the same diegesis (ie. the event depicted in the second panel is not of the same plane of reality as of the first panel).
The subsequent page on the other had features the first gag in the 'proper' comics format:

The artist on this, and most of the other comics pages in MMA, is Wilfred Haughton, best known as the artist of the highly acclaimed cover illustrations of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly onwards from its inception in 1936 till circa 1940. Haughton had been working on Dean's MM Annuals prior to his assignment to the MMW project. The bulk of the first MMA consists of such gag-a-page comics. Below follows a sampling of my favorite ones or those which I find interesting for various reasons:

I find the above gag noteworthy for two reasons. First, the side-line inclusion of a secondary humour element in the monkey silently stealing Mickey's food in the second panel is remarkable. Furthermore, producing a gag about women's fear of mice personified in Minnie's such fear is, on one had, ironic since she is, after all, an andromorphized mouse, and, on the other had, significant in showing the degree of internalizing the andromorph nature of Minnie (and Mickey).

The below gag is interesting in its inclusion of proper human beings into Mickey's world, which is out of line with Disney comics in general:

For my taste, I personally find the two below gags some of the funniest in this annual:

Unfortunately, MMA also includes some rather distasteful gags as well:

Even if the majority of the gag-comics in the first MMA can be assumed to be the work of Haughton, there were clearly more than one artist working on the comics in this publication. Below is a sample with markedly different and far more cruder graphic style:

In addition to gag-a-page comics, the first MMA also includes several gags in the format of non-panelized illustrations accompanied with text. The below one is interesting because it features Minnie's "papa", which we never see or even hear about in US comics:

Several of these non-comics gag pages incorporate illustrations from the US Mickey Mouse Book, such as the below one (see the post on MMB from Nov. 22, 2008 on this blog for a comparison with its original US edition):

The first MMA ends with this advertisement:

However, in addition to the first one at the very beginning, there are three more color plates throughout the annual:

DAISY'S FIRST INCARNATION AS DONNA IN MICKEY MOUSE WEEKLY

2009-11-22T10:27:00.000-08:00

Donald's longtime girlfriend had actually debutted as a Mexican lady named Donna in the cartoon Don Donald (1937). It appears that she might have been initially intended as a one-time character as she was not seen in any further cartoons for more than three years until she appeared in Mr Duck Steps Out (1940) as the Daisy we all know. Following the release of that cartoon, Daisy would accompay Donald in US newspaper comics strips even though Donna had not made it into comics in the US. However, Donna had frequently appeared in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly. Her first print appearance in MMW -the scan above- was in the editorial page of no. 47, dated Dec. 26th, 1936, promoting the upcoming Don Donald cartoon. Scan of the corresponding text is below:

In the next issue, Donna's portrait was seen on the wall of Donald's home in a gag-strip, titled 'A "Good" Start For The New Year!' and by an unknown British artist, in the color central pages, marking her debut in the comics format:

In the following weeks, she also appeared in the covers of no. 49, 52 and 54:

In no. 58, she was the subject of this depiction of a song:

The answer would be revealed in the next issue as 'Why did I kiss that girl?', apparently a popular song dating from 1920s. That issue included the below puzzle featuring Donald and Donna:

No. 66 of MMW announced an upcoming new comics serial headlining Donald and Donna, which would be the first-ever adventure comics of Donald:

EARLIEST BRITISH DISNEY BOOKS

2009-11-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

The London-based Dean & Son Ltd was the pioneer of Disney publications in the UK, beginning with the first Mickey Mouse Annual in 1930. Next year, they published a British edition of Mickey Mouse Illustrated Movie Stories, published in the US in the same year by David McKay, with identical cover art as the US edition. 1931 also saw the British editon of McKay's The Adventures of Mickey Mouse by George Harrap & Co. Next year, Dean published a book titled as More Adventures of Mickey Mouse:

This book appears to be a retitled British edition of McKay's The Adventures of Mickey Mouse - Book 2, with new cover art. Actually, the cover of Dean's edition is a reworking of the back cover of McKay's edition, with Minnie redrawn as Mickey!

In 1933, Dean published Mickey Mouse - The Great Big Midget Book:

I am not sure if the content of this book is from one of the American 'Big Little Books'. Next year, Dean would publish the British edition of the pop-up book Mickey Mouse in King Arthur's Court, with identical cover art as its American edition by Blue Ribbon from a year ago. In 1934, the London & Glasgow-based Collins Clear Type Press would also begin publishing Mickey Mouse books and would really begin to dominate the British market of Disney publications throughout the rest of the decade, but Dean would also continue to publish Disney books. In 1935, they published British editions of McKay's Mickey Mouse Movie Stories Book 2 from the previous year, as well as Three Orphan Kittens, Tortoise and the Hare and Robber Kitten, illustrated story adaptations of Disney's 'Silly Symphony' cartoons published in the same year in the US by Whitman. These large and oblong-formatted books are among the best-looking pre-war Disney books with numerous beautiful full-page color illustrations. Apart from the Mickey Mouse Annuals which continued to be published well into the next decades, the last Disney books by Dean in the pre-war era appear to be a Snow White Annual from 1938 and Snow White and Magic Mirror from 1939, the latter with 3-D plates to be viewed with special spectacles.

Collins' Disney books are too many to list here and would better be dealt in a separate blog, but three other British publishers needs to be mentioned in covering the pre-war era, John Lane the Botley Head, the Birn Brothers Ltd and the Juvenile Productions, all of which will also be covered in future blogs.

MICKEY MOUSE COLORING BOOK (1931)

2008-12-17T01:15:00.001-08:00

In addition to illustrated story books, comics albums and 'movie story books' by David McKay Co., the earliest Mickey Mouse publications also include two coloring books by Saalfield Co.: Mickey Mouse Coloring Book and Mickey Mouse Pictures to Paint, both of which came out in the summer of 1931. I have never seen the latter anywhere, but the former is available at ebay.
Available scans indicate that some of the illustrations in Mickey Mouse Coloring Book come from Mickey Mouse Book published by Bibo & Lang the year before (see the Nov.22 post in this blog), such as the middle illustration in the first scan below and the bottom illustration in the second scan below:

Below are some other nice scans from Mickey Mouse Coloring Book

With this post, I round up the coverage of earliest American Mickey Mouse publications from 1930-31. Coming posts in this blog will deal with other Mickey Mouse publications from 1930s, so stay tuned on..

VINTAGE COMICS BLOG RE-ACTIVATED

2008-12-17T00:56:00.001-08:00

Anyone interested in vintage comics in general are invited to take a look at my other blog on pre-war and wartime comics, which I have recently re-activated after several months of inactivity there: http://kayaozkaracalar.blogspot.com/

MICKEY MOUSE MOVIE STORY BOOKS

2008-12-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

Besides illustrated story books with original material and reprints of Mickey Mouse newspaper comics in album format, David McKay Co. also published a series of books featuring story adaptations of Mickey cartoon shorts, with stills fom the cartoons themselves used as illustrations.
The first of this kind was the hardcover Mickey Mouse Illustrated Movie Stories which came out at the tail end of 1931. This 200+ pages book featured stories and stills of 11 cartoon shorts from 1930-31.

A budget-priced abridged version featuring only four cartoons (all also featured in the other book) was also published the same year, titled simply as Mickey Mouse Story Book, featuring a different, and more alluring, cover illustration, which saw probably the first-ever appearence of Pluto on a book cover. A Turkish edition of this book would be published in 1944:

David McKay's next pair of 'movie story books' would come in 1934.
The oblong-format Mickey Mouse Movie Stories - Book 2 contains stories of 12 cartoons from the years 1932-34.

Mickey Mouse Stories from the same year contains stories of only four cartoons, all which had earlier been published in 1931's Mickey Mouse Illustrated Movie Stories.

THE FIRST AMERICAN DISNEY COMICS BOOK

2008-12-09T12:57:00.000-08:00

The first-ever Disney comics book published in the US is titled as Mickey Mouse Series No. 1. It was published by David McKay Co. in 1931 as the first installement of a series of annual comics albums reprinting select Mickey Mouse newspaper comics. It is in the format of other comics albums published in the 1930s by McKay reprinting other popular newspaper comics such as Popeye, that is roughly in square shape with cardboard cover (the book is slightly larger size than my scanner's area, so the above and below scans trim approximately 1 cm length from both the top and the bottom).
The reverse of the front cover carries an ad for the first printing of the illustrated story book The Adventures of Mickey Mouse and below is the scan of the title page:

Reverse of the title page features a "foreword" by Walt Disney where he dedicates this volume both to the fans of Mickey Mouse and to "those masters of merriment, my ever loyal associates, whose brains and brushes, pens and pencils, have been of untold aid". The rest of the book is 47 pages of comics, reprinting Mickey Mouse strips, re-formatted as below in the first page:

This re-formatting, which breaks each daily strip (originally of one row) into two rows, is nevertheless quite acceptable because each page still has one daily strip, so the original intent of the original creators with regards to rihtym is faithfully reproduced.
The daily strips reprinted in this volume date from a time span of from late 1930 to early 1931. First, we have one month of strips from Sept. 23 to Oct. 24 which tell the story of Minnie being courted and apparently seduced by an irritating (for Mickey!) rat named Slicker. All this drives Mickey to several unsuccessful suicide attempts! This is a now-legendary episode in the history of Mickey Mouse comics and has never been reprinted in the US again...
In the original newspaper run of the strips, Slicker was eventually revealed to be a fortune-hunter, but the reprints in Mickey Mouse Series No. 1 jump from Mickey qiving up his futile suicide attempts to a series of loosely-related gag strips where he and Minnie have united. These are originally dated from Dec. 27th to Jan. 14th; the volume ends with one more reprint of a gag strip, dated Jan. 17th.
The reverse of the back cover is blank and the back cover itself carries the same illustration as on the front cover.

We do not know precisely in which month Mickey Mouse Series No. 1 was printed, but since it carries an ad for the first printing of the illustrated story book The Adventures of Mickey Mouse, which had come out around May, it must have come out around either mid-1931 or in the 2nd half of the year. This estimate disqualifies it from being the first-ever Disney comics book published in the world because a French album, titled Les aventures de Mickey, reprinting Mickey Mouse strips had already been published in France by Hachette around March that year. And even before that, a Mickey Mouse Annual, featuring short gag comics beside non-comics material, had been published in UK around the Christmas season of 1930.

The second through to the the fourth volumes carry the title Book No. 2, Book Bo.3 and Book No. 4, rather than the word "series" as in the first volume. Book No. 3 reprints Mickey Mouse Sunday half-page comics and is in full color:

The last of the series, Book No. 4, came out in 1934:
This book once again reprints daily strips in black&white. The strips reprinted in this volume are all from 1931. First, there is a continuity from early 1931 in which Mickey engages in a series of fights with a new cat in the neighborhood. This continuity has never been reprinted in the US again, perhaps because of its violent contents. Then, there is another continuity from late 1931 in which Mickey decides to play the cupid. Only parts of this continuity entailing a subplot where Mickey works as a fireman has seen further reprints.

THE ADVENTURES OF MICKEY MOUSE (1931)

2008-12-06T09:22:00.001-08:00

While the significance of The Adventures of Mickey Mouse (1931) stems from the facts that it is the first Disney book published for retail and that it features the pseudo-debut of Donald Duck (see below post), it is also interesting for some other aspects and is overall a very nice book on its own merits.

First of all, The Adventures of Mickey Mouse is ideal stuff for those (like me) who have a soft spot for stories where Mickey is accompanied by a bunch of other vintage characters, as seen in this spread illustration on the reverse of its front cover:

This spread illustration also signals that the book will reflect the tone of the Mickey Mouse cartoons of the era. The setting clearly belongs to a farm building, in line with the 'barnyard' origin of Mickey Mouse. The depicted event is a musical gathering, which was the central theme of a large part of the earliest cartoons.

Below scans are those of the credits page (the image therein will be used in later Mickey Mouse books as well), copyright page and the dedication page:

The image on the dedication page (above right) actually contradicts the content of the story featured in the book. In that image, Minnie is seen standing by a house proper to her size; however, in the story, both Mickey and Minnie are portrayed as real-life mice-sized creatures living in "nests": Minnie's "home nest" is said to be "hidden, soft and warm, somewhere in the chicken house" while Mickey "lives in cozy nest under the floor of the old barn". Below image is a scan of the full-page illustration prior to the first text page, showing the interiors of Mickey's nest, perfectly capturing the "cozy" nature expressed in the text:

And below image is a scan of an illustration depicting the exteriors of the same nest, similarly made beautiful by the subtle use of soft-tone coloring, as well as by the simple but very charming props:

And below are scans of two pages further in the story, where Minnie's nest is depicted (not to mention her patched panty in full view!):

The plot of the story is very simple: Mickey tricks the ever-menacing Claws the Cat into getting caught in a trap he'd set up for Mickey and safely holds a party for his farm friends. These friends include many characters familiar from Mickey cartoons of the era, some of which turned out to be long-lasting and some of which largely faded into oblivion over the years. These are, first and foremost, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabella Cow, who are named here as "Henry Horse" and "Carloyn Cow". It would be interesting track down when these two of Mickey's oldest friends were first named under the names we know them today. Other mentioned characters are Patricia Pig, Donald Duck (see below post), Clara Cluck the Hen, Robert Rooster, Long Dog the Dachshund, George and Gertie Goat.

Patricia Pig is portrayed in several of the illustrations, including the below:

In addition to the early Mickey Mouse cartoons since 1929, Patricia Pig was also featured in Mickey Mouse daily strip and Sunday page comics in the early 1930s. Her comics appearances would become less sparodic in the 1940s and she would disappear from newspaper comics from early 1950s onwards ('though she would be revived in the 1980s).

On the other hand, I can not spot Clara Cluck, or any hen for that matter, in any of the illustrations in The Adventures of Mickey Mouse even though she is mentioned twice in the text. More curiosly, -not counting an unmaned hen in Mickey's Follies (1929)- the hen known as Clara Cluck does not seem to have appeared in Mickey cartoons by then either! So, Donald Duck is not alone in getting a reference in this book prior to a cartoon appearance... Clara Cluck wouldn't appear in newspaper comics in the 1930s despite her highlight performance in the popular cartoon Orphan's Benefit (1934), but she would have her own comics stories in comics magazines after Orphan's Benefit's color remake in 1943.

As for "Robert Rooster", I cannot spot any rooster in any of the illustrations, either. Actually, I am not aware of any Disney character explicitly named as such in any other media, but there was a rooster in at least two Mickey Mouse cartoons from 1929: The Plowboy and Mickey's Follies.

On the other hand, "George and Gertie Goat" does appear in several of the illustrations. Goat characters had also appeared in early Mickey Mouse cartoons, but I am not aware if they were ever named in that media. A similar goat character named Gideon Goat would appear in Mickey Mouse newspaper comics in the first half of the 1930s before disappearing into complete oblivion.

"Long Dog the Dachshund" also does appear in one illustration, the beautiful one scanned below. He had debutted in the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoon, Plane Crazy (1928) and appeared in the earliest Mickey Mouse daily strips, but could not become a long-lasting character.

I will post about other Mickey Mouse books from 1931 in this blog as well, so stay tune on..