THE ART OF COLLAGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.