Thursday 7 July 2011

GHASTLY IMAGES FROM SHUFFLED SYMPHONIES (1940)


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:

No comments: