Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company , including Mickey Mouse , Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck .
93-455: Mickey Mouse Weekly is a 1936–1957 weekly British tabloid Disney comics magazine, the first British comic with full colour photogravure printing. It was launched by Willbank Publications and later continued by Odhams Press . The comics were said to be "drawn in a slick, smooth style which was clearly influenced by American comics." Mickey Mouse Weekly featured American reprints as well as original British Disney comics material, including
186-464: A topper Silly Symphony strip. Silly Symphony initially related the adventures of Bucky Bug , the first Disney character to originate in the comics. It went on to print more adaptations of Silly Symphony shorts, often using the characters and setting of the original shorts, but adding new plotlines and incidents. It also went on to print adaptations of the feature films, as well as periods of gag strips featuring Donald Duck and Pluto. By late 1935
279-460: A "photo" that was printed on cards and sent out to the readers. According to a Disney press release, they received more than 20,000 requests for the picture, demonstrating the strength of the strip's appeal. An early 1932 story, "The Great Orphanage Robbery", is seen as a milestone in Gottfredson's increasingly sophisticated storytelling. To raise money for an orphans' home, Mickey and friends stage
372-671: A 12-page tabloid, with four pages in colour — the cover pages and the centrefold. The early covers were drawn by Wilfred Haughton — a full-colour comic panel with many characters, with each one saying a joke or a pun. As the American Mickey Mouse Magazine inspired Mickey Mouse Weekly , the new publication inspired a number of European spinoffs, including Switzerland's Micky Maus Zeitung (1936–37) and Sweden's Musse Pigg Tidningen (1937–38), which used Haughton's covers and other British material. The magazine ceased production with its 28 December 1957 issue after Odhams lost
465-596: A Disney comic strip department at the studio. Initially Floyd Gottfredson along with his responsibilities for the Mickey Mouse comic strip oversaw the Disney comic strip department from 1930 to 1945, then Frank Reilly was brought in to administer the burgeoning department from January 1946 to 1975. Greg Crosby headed the department from 1979 to 1989. The Mickey Mouse daily comic strip began on January 13, 1930, featuring Mickey as an optimistic, adventure-seeking young mouse. It
558-576: A character from the Silly Symphony shorts. Over time, it transitioned to stories about Mickey and friends embarking on science-fiction and fantasy-themed adventures, including a story about Donald, Mickey and Mickey's nephews traveling in a time machine to the future. The feature began in issue #1 (8 February 1936), and continued until at least #210 (10 February 1940). Reynolds left Mickey Mouse Weekly in 1940 for military service in World War II. After
651-672: A crashing airplane. In the end, the Blot is captured and unmasked. The character was dubbed "the Phantom Blot" in 1941, when the strips were reprinted in Dell Comics ' Four Color (1st series) issue #16, Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot . The name stuck, and the character has been the Phantom Blot ever since. In the Sunday pages from August to November 1938, Mickey performed in an adaptation of
744-559: A decline of popularity in the United States. In the rest of the world Disney comics have remained very successful, especially in Europe, where weekly Disney comics magazines and monthly paperback digests are national best sellers. Disney comics have been the basis for academic theory, cultural criticism, and fan-created databases. The first Disney comics appeared in daily newspapers, syndicated by King Features with production done in-house by
837-481: A fire as her mansion burns around her, and her caretaker rushes inside to be with her in the flames. At this point, the threat of death became a real presence in the strip. In mid-1945, the daily strip moved to a mostly gag-a-day format, with brief two-week continuities through the summer of 1947. In September 1947, the strip returned to long continuities and introduced a new character: Eega Beeva , "the Man of Tomorrow". Eega
930-531: A flight with his girlfriend Minnie . She falls out of the plane, and Mickey travels through a storm to land on a deserted island, inhabited by fierce natives who want to cook him alive. As these first strips were being released in January 1930, Iwerks left the Disney studio, signing a contract with Disney competitor Pat Powers to leave Disney and start an animation studio under his own name. Win Smith, who had been inking
1023-420: A gag-a-day strip; they were concerned that TV serials were making the audience lose interest in adventure comic strips. Walsh continued to write the daily strip until 1964. Notable supporting characters from the gag-a-day strip include Morty's friend Alvin (1956–75), his girlfriend Millie (1962–87), Doctor Proctor (1966–89), and Goofy's girlfriend Glory-Bee (1969–79), who also appeared in Disney comic books in
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#17328588625851116-458: A powerful and unpredictable machine, which soon attracts the monstrous mad scientist Dr. Grut and his posse of mind-controlled Aberzombies. A few months later, Mickey, Minnie and Pluto visited The World of Tomorrow (July-Nov 1944), where Pegleg Pete ruled the world with his deadly robots, the Mekka Men. The next story, The House of Mystery (Nov 1944-Jan 1945), had the evil scientist Drusilla die in
1209-405: A production of Uncle Tom's Cabin , but when the play is over, they discover that the money has been stolen. The thieves are Shyster and Pete, returning to the strip after a year and a half, but they manage to place the blame on Mickey's friend Horace Horsecollar , who's thrown in jail. Mickey chases after the villains, but his disappearance puts suspicion onto him as well. In the second volume of
1302-423: A rival, spends a week trying (and failing) to commit suicide. He tries shooting, gassing, drowning and hanging himself, before he decides that he's overreacting and gives up on the idea. In a 1931 publicity stunt, Mickey—just crowned boxing champion in the strip—had his photograph taken, and then encouraged readers to send a stamped, addressed envelope to him care of the newspaper to get a copy. Gottfredson painted
1395-420: A special daily strip with a holiday theme utilizing the Disney characters was offered each year through 1987. It generally ran for three to four weeks with the concluding strip appearing a day or two before Christmas, often promoting the latest Disney release or re-release. These were unique in that in some cases, they showcased the crossover of Disney characters that otherwise rarely interacted. The tradition
1488-543: A topper for the Mickey Mouse strip, but after the first few years, almost always appeared on its own. The previous comic strip adaptations of Disney films lasted for four or five months, but the Uncle Remus strip continued for almost thirty years, telling new stories of Br'er Rabbit and friends, until the strip was discontinued on December 31, 1972. In 1950, Disney distributed a limited-time Sunday strip adaptations of their new animated feature Cinderella , and followed
1581-435: A tradition of publishing occasional "Disney Giants", plus-size comic books with more pages and a higher price. The first Giant was Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #1 (Nov 1949). This was a 132-page square-bound comic that sold for 25 cents, considerably higher than the typical 10-cent comics. Christmas Parade had a cover by Walt Kelly, and began with a Carl Barks-penned Donald Duck story, "Letter to Santa". Christmas Parade
1674-554: Is an American newspaper comic strip by the Walt Disney Company featuring Mickey Mouse and is the first published example of Disney comics . The strip debuted on January 13, 1930, and ran until July 29, 1995. It was syndicated by King Features Syndicate until 1990, when Disney switched to Creators Syndicate, which distributed the strip until 2014 (in reruns after 1995). The early installments were written by Walt Disney , with art by Ub Iwerks and Win Smith. Beginning with
1767-531: Is cameras of a special type and he smashes them open on the spot. (The strange crime and the motive behind it resembles closely the Sherlock Holmes story " The Adventure of the Six Napoleons ".) The crime appears eccentric, but the villain is deadly serious—three times during the story, he captures Mickey and leaves him in deadly peril, and the pair engage in a car chase, a boat chase and a battle for control of
1860-565: The Mickey Mouse comic strip . Mickey Mouse Magazine , the first American newsstand publication with Disney comics, launched in 1935. In 1940, Western Publishing launched the long-running flagship comic book, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories , which reached 750 issues in September 2019. Uncle Scrooge , launched in 1952, reached issue #450 in June 2019. In recent decades, Disney comics have seen
1953-509: The Topolino ( Mickey Mouse ) comic magazine. As Walsh was not interested in Mickey Mouse as a character, and had a taste for science-fiction , mystery and horror , his stories quickly diverged from those of the previous decade. Walsh created various bizarre characters and made Mickey's antagonists darker and deadlier. In The 'Lectro Box (Oct 1943-Feb 1944), Mickey and nephew Morty create
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#17328588625852046-513: The Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse series, a hardback collection of Gottfredson's run on the strip. A total of 14 volumes were published between 2011 and 2018, collecting the entirety of Gottfredson's Sunday color work (two volumes) and all of his serialized story-themed daily strips (12 volumes). The collection doesn't include any of Gottfredson's gag-oriented material from 1955 onwards. The Mickey Mouse Sunday strip started on January 10, 1932, with
2139-518: The Disney adaptations of the characters, the strip was written by Don Ferguson and drawn by Richard Moore. In addition to the regular cast of characters, Ferguson and Moore also added a knight named Sir Brian, and his worrywart dragon. The strip lasted for almost ten years, ending on April 2, 1988. Other Disney strips distributed over the years included (chronologically by start date): A proposed Roger Rabbit strip underwent development but cancellation of
2232-506: The Donald Duck strip. As of 2019, five volumes of Donald Duck: The Complete Daily Newspaper Comics and two volumes of Donald Duck: The Complete Sunday Comics have been released. Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit was launched as a Sunday strip on October 14, 1945, as a preview of the upcoming 1946 film Song of the South . The Uncle Remus strip began, like Silly Symphony , as
2325-677: The Four Color one-shot series, beginning in issue #9 (Oct 1942). Carl Barks , the first great figure among Disney comic book creators, wrote all of his early long stories for the Donald Duck one-shots, including Donald Duck and the Mummy's Ring (1943), The Terror of the River! (1946), Volcano Valley (1947), The Ghost of the Grotto (1947), Christmas on Bear Mountain (1947), The Old Castle's Secret (1948), Sheriff of Bullet Valley (1948), Lost in
2418-452: The 1928 short Plane Crazy , followed by a sequence in the jungle, inspired by the 1929 short Jungle Rhythm . When Floyd Gottfredson took over, he also took inspiration from Disney's animation department, who provided him with storyboards and model sheets for upcoming Mickey Mouse shorts . Recurring characters in the strip include: From the beginning, the strips were parts of long continuing stories. These introduced characters such as
2511-667: The 1934 Disney short The Wise Little Hen (Sept. 16, 1934-Dec. 16, 1934). As Donald's popularity grew, he became the star of the Silly Symphony strip for an extended run (August 1936 to December 1937), and then got his own daily strip starting on February 7, 1938. A Donald Sunday strip premiered December 10, 1939. Carl Barks , known to fans as "The Duck Man," wrote at least 20 of the strips between 1938 and 1940. Donald Duck ran until May 2005, when it went into reprints. Starting in 2015, IDW Publishing 's Library of American Comics imprint has been publishing hardcover collections of
2604-638: The 2011 reprint collection, comics historian Thomas Andrae describes the resulting storyline: Gottfredson's newfound mastery of the serial format is evident in nearly every strip of "Orphanage Robbery". First we are enticed into the story by following Mickey's attempt each day to increase the running total for the orphans' fund. Then the suspense increases through the use of an exciting chase -- conveniently supplied by [1932 Mickey short] The Klondike Kid -- as well as cross-cutting techniques developed from old movie serials, another influence Gottfredson now learned to mimic with ease. The strip cuts back and forth between
2697-591: The Andes! (1949), Voodoo Hoodoo (1949) and Luck of the North (1949). The title received its own numbering system with issue #26 (1953) and ended with issue #388 (June 2017). Mickey Mouse (1943–2017) first appeared as part of the Four Color one-shot series, beginning in issue #27 (1943). It received its own numbering system with issue #28 (December 1952), and after many iterations with various publishers, ended with #330 (June 2017) from IDW Publishing . In 1949, Dell began
2790-535: The Castaways (1962). In April 2018, it was announced that, due to the sales goal of the series not being met, the third volume may be the last one to be published. In 1955, the animated film Lady and the Tramp inspired a new comic strip based on an adorable, unnamed puppy glimpsed at the end of the movie. Scamp debuted in newspapers on October 31, 1955, and ran for more than 30 years, ending on June 25, 1988. The strip
2883-663: The F crossed out, and T written in above. This one-page serial began in issue #45 (12 December 1936), and starred Goofy and Toby Tortoise , from the 1935 Silly Symphony short The Tortoise and the Hare , assisted by Pluto . The stories were written and drawn by Wilfred Haughton. The serial had four stories: Considered the first Donald Duck comic book serial, originally called Donald and Donna , which began in issue #67 (15 May 1937), drawn by William A. Ward. There were 15 weekly parts of this first serial featuring Donald and his girlfriend Donna, an early version of Daisy Duck . Donna left
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2976-527: The May 5, 1930, strip, the art chores were taken up by Floyd Gottfredson (often aided by various inkers), who also either wrote or supervised the story continuities (relying on various writers to flesh out his plots). Gottfredson continued with the strip until 1975. By 1931, the Mickey Mouse strip was published in 60 newspapers in the US, as well as papers in twenty other countries. Starting in 1940, strips were reprinted in
3069-495: The Phantom Blot was colored, reformatted into comic form and released as issue #16 (1941). In 1941, Four Color published the two earliest Disney comic book stories, based on new Disney films. Issue #13 featured an adaptation of The Reluctant Dragon , and a Dumbo adaptation was the focus of issue #17. Both of these stories were assembled by using a film-editing machine called the Moviola , and having artist Irving Tripp trace
3162-471: The Phantom Blot" (March–April) and "The Mail Pilot" (June–July). All three were drawn by Rick Hoover. Merchandise for the campaign often used the "pie-eyed" Mickey design, and included keychains and storybooks published by Golden Press . "Perils of Mickey" comics also appeared in the Disney Adventures magazine, including "Return to Blaggard Castle", an adventure featuring Mickey, Minnie, Horace and
3255-452: The Phantom Blot, Eega Beeva , and the Bat Bandit , which Gottfredson created; Disney created Eli Squinch , Mickey's nephews, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse , and Sylvester Shyster , which were also introduced in the comic. Mickey Mouse had adventure storylines from its inception until October 1955, when the syndicate instructed the creators to move to a simpler, gag-a-day format. In 1990,
3348-509: The Phantom Blot, published in Vol. 3 Nos. 10-11 (1993). In the 1930s and 40s, Western Publishing published a very popular series of small hardcover books for children known as Big Little Books . These chunky, compact books featured a captioned illustration on one page, with a page of text on the facing page. The stories featured a wide assortment of popular characters, including a number of Disney stars, and Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse strips provided
3441-584: The Pigs. Li'l Bad Wolf's adventures began in issue #52 (Jan 1945), and he made regular appearances until almost the end of the comic's original run, issue #259 (April 1962). Finally, Little Hiawatha had his own monthly story for two years, from issue #143 (Aug 1952) to #168 (September 1954). The complete strip has been reprinted in four hardcover collections, Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics , published by IDW Publishing 's Library of American Comics imprint. The first volume, published in 2016, includes all of
3534-484: The Pooh strips as part of a "classics" package and posts the current strip on its site (without archiving). Domestically the strips have 20-30 clients at any one time; they also appear in many newspapers outside the United States (exact number unknown). Mickey Mouse Magazine (1933–1940) was the first Disney comics publication, and preceded the popular 1940 anthology comic book Walt Disney's Comics and Stories . The concept
3627-534: The Pooh , and others. With more than 700 issues, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories is the longest-running Disney comic book in the United States. By the mid-1950s, WDC&S was the best selling comic book in America, with a circulation hovering around three million a month (with the highest level reached being 3,038,000 for the Sept. 1953 issue). It is regarded as one of the best-selling comic books of all time. The book
3720-579: The Rose (1953) and Kidnapped (1960) to comedies like The Shaggy Dog (1959) and The Parent Trap (1961). In 2016, IDW Publishing and their imprint The Library of American Comics (LoAC) began to collect all the Treasury of Classic Tales stories in a definitive hardcover reprint series . As of 2019, three volumes have been published, reprinting all the stories from Robin Hood (1952) through In Search of
3813-828: The Stone (1963) and The Jungle Book (1968). Classic Tales also featured animated shorts, including Lambert the Sheepish Lion (1956) and Ben and Me (1953), and featurettes like Peter & The Wolf (1954) and Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966). The 1979-80 adaptation of The Black Hole was particularly notable for featuring pencil art by comics icon Jack Kirby , with Mike Royer inking. Treasury of Classic Tales also adapted live-action films like Old Yeller (1957–58), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), Mary Poppins (1964) and The Love Bug (1969). The strip transitioned from historical dramas like The Sword and
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3906-654: The actual frames of the film to make up each panel. Each issue also had additional short back-up features—the Reluctant Dragon issue included comic adaptations of the 1941 shorts Old MacDonald Duck and Goofy's How to Ride a Horse , and Dumbo of the Circus had an illustrated text adaptation of the Donald Duck short The Village Smithy , as well as some filler comic strips from Silly Symphony and Mickey Mouse . The next story specifically created for Disney comic books
3999-613: The brash duck was hired as a newsboy, selling Mickey's crusading newspaper, The Daily War-Drum . He returned to the strip in fall 1936 for "The Seven Ghosts", helping Mickey and Goofy investigate a haunted mansion. This would be his last appearance in the Mickey Mouse strip—starting in August 1936, Donald was the star of a year-long sequence in the Sunday Silly Symphony comic strip , and he got his own comic strip in 1938. Since Mickey and Donald could appear in rival newspapers,
4092-482: The characters appeared in 85 Sunday strips, and in 1956 he was also featured in 12 daily strips by Gottfredson. In 1993–1994, the Disney Company began a branding campaign called "The Perils of Mickey", evoking the spirit of Gottfredson's early-30s Mickey comics. The campaign involved "remakes" of three classic Gottfredson stories in the daily newspaper strip: "Blaggard Castle" (Jan-Feb 1994), "Mickey Mouse Outwits
4185-430: The characters weren't allowed to cross over to the other's strip. Another well-remembered 1930s story is Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot , published from May to September 1939. In this story, Chief O'Hara hires Mickey to capture a new criminal who calls himself the Blot. According to O'Hara, he is the smartest thief they've ever met, but Detective Casey calls this new criminal a looney. The only thing he steals
4278-603: The comic book form. This was common for comic books at the time. Dell also had an anthology series, Four Color , which started in 1939 as a series of "one-shot" specials, each focused on a particular character. In the early days, Four Color mostly featured comic strip reprints of Dick Tracy , Little Orphan Annie , Terry and the Pirates and others. The first series included two issues of Disney comic strips -- Donald Duck strips were reprinted in issue #4 (Feb 1940), and Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse serial Mickey Mouse Outwits
4371-496: The comic. Starting in the 1950s, Gottfredson and writer Bill Walsh were instructed to drop the storylines and do only daily gags. Gottfredson continued illustrating the daily strip until he retired on October 1, 1975. After Gottfredson retired, the strip was written and drawn by many other creators. The Sunday page went into reprints in February 1992, and the daily strip ended on July 29, 1995. In 2011, Fantagraphics Books began
4464-414: The creative force of the strip for more than 45 years. While the early months of the strip did have a loose plot, the pace and style were still the standard gag-a-day approach to comic strips. With adventure and daily continuity strips like The Gumps and Wash Tubbs becoming increasingly popular, King Features Syndicate asked Disney to make Mickey Mouse a more serious adventure strip. This led to
4557-499: The current short cartoon Brave Little Tailor , bookended with segments showing him as an actor, being cast in the film by Walt Disney. This was Gottfredson's last work on the Sunday strip. At that point, Manuel Gonzales took over as the lead artist on the Mickey Sundays, and stayed in the post until 1981 (except for his military service during World War II , from 1942 to 1945). Gonzales and writer Merrill De Maris continued writing
4650-484: The daily strip returned to the adventure format. The headings in the table below refer to the Fantagraphics Books reprint collections, Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse . In 1990, writer Floyd Norman convinced King Features Syndicate to allow him to bring back the comic strip's adventure story format. Norman and Colette Bezio shared the scripting, with Rick Hoover, Alex Howell and Thomas Lewis providing art. With
4743-562: The early 1950s. Alberto Becattini says, "Especially after Eega Beeva left, Mickey found himself unwillingly mixed up in dangerous adventures whose development and outcome he no longer seemed to be able to control." Goofy, who had been fairly absent from the daily strip during Eega Beeva's tenure, returned to the strip in March 1951 with "Dry Gulch Goofy", a story in which he becomes a Hollywood actor. In mid-1955, King Features Syndicate asked Gottfredson and Walsh to stop writing continuities and become
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#17328588625854836-659: The early 70s. Gottfredson originally wrote and drew the Mickey Mouse strip by himself, but scaled back in 1932, only plotting the stories and doing the penciling , while the dialogue was mostly done by other hands. The stories were always untitled; titles were usually assigned later, when the strips were reprinted in picture books or comic books. Scripts were written by Webb Smith (1932–33), Ted Osborne (1933–38), Merrill De Maris (1933–42), Dick Shaw (1942–43), Bill Walsh (1943–64), Roy Williams (1962–69) and Del Connell (1968–88). Even so, Gottfredson always worked closely with his writers, and would often suggest changes in
4929-455: The end of "The Moook Treasure". On a Sunday page in October 1949, Goofy bought a talkative, self-centered mynah bird named Ellsworth . Also created by Walsh, Ellsworth was a major focus of the Sunday strip for ten years, sometimes crowding Mickey out of his own strip. He also appeared in the daily strip in 1956, once the dailies became gag-focused as well. The daily strip took a darker turn in
5022-426: The first Donald Duck comic book serial. The magazine also featured reprints of Floyd Gottfredson 's Mickey Mouse comic strip continuities in full colour on the back cover. 920 issues of Mickey Mouse Weekly were published between 8 February 1936 and 28 December 1957. Mickey Mouse Weekly was inspired by the 1935 launch of Mickey Mouse Magazine , the first American Disney newsstand publication. It began as
5115-479: The first adventure storyline, "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley", which ran from April 1 to September 20, 1930. The story—begun by Smith, and continued by Gottfredson—involves a crooked lawyer, Sylvester Shyster , and his thuggish associate Peg-Leg Pete , who kidnap Minnie in order to find a map to her Uncle Mortimer's hidden gold mine in Death Valley. Mickey and Minnie race Shyster and Pete to the desert, to lay claim to
5208-420: The later years of the strip, art duties were shared by Alex Howell (1990–1995), Rick Hoover (1991–1995) and Thomas Lewis (1994–1995). The Sunday page went into reprints in February 1992. By 1994, the strip was running in only 30 newspapers, and Disney and King Features decided to discontinue it. The daily strip ended on July 29, 1995. The first two weeks of Mickey Mouse strips in 1930 were loosely based on
5301-484: The lone exception of "Reform and Void", the 1990-1995 stories have not been reprinted in the US, and only rarely in other countries. List of storylines: The two volumes of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse reprint the Sunday pages that Gottfredson worked on. Following the Brave Little Tailor adaptation in 1938, Manuel Gonzales took over as artist for the Sunday pages until 1981. Due to his military duties, he
5394-432: The mad scientists Professor Ecks, Professor Doublex and Professor Triplex, and 1933's "The Mail Pilot", where Mickey finds Shyster and Pete once again, ruling a secret zeppelin kingdom in the clouds. Mickey's best pal Goofy joined the strip in January 1933—still using the proto-Goofy moniker "Dippy Dawg" —and by the end of the year, he went into business with Mickey as detectives in "The Crazy Crime Wave", investigating
5487-496: The mine. The story runs through a number of Western melodrama tropes—a desperate horse chase, gunplay, a crusty old sheriff, the heroine getting locked up in a jail cell, the hero unfairly branded an outlaw. Over six months, Gottfredson made it clear that Mickey Mouse could deliver action and thrills. The next story, "Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers", included a sequence in which Mickey, convinced that Minnie has thrown him over for
5580-492: The monthly comic book Walt Disney's Comics and Stories , and since then Gottfredson reprints have become a staple of Disney comics publishing around the world. Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse , a definitive collection of Gottfredson's work, was published by Fantagraphics Books from 2011 to 2018. There are fourteen volumes in the set—twelve books of the daily strips from 1930 to 1955, and two volumes of Gottfredson's Sunday pages from 1932 to 1938. A Mickey Mouse comic strip
5673-477: The mysterious city-wide thefts of hair and red flannel underwear. The character appeared in several stories as Dippy, until January 1936, when he's called "Goofy" for the first time in the strip. Donald Duck first appeared in the Sunday pages in February 1935, where he got Mickey involved in "The Case of the Missing Coats" and then stuck around to fight with Morty and Ferdie. In March 1935's "Editor-in-Grief",
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#17328588625855766-421: The new strip were approved by the syndicate. The comic strip launched on January 13, 1930, written by Disney himself, with art by Ub Iwerks. The strip begins with young Mickey as an optimistic, imaginative young mouse living on a farm, and dreaming of becoming a great aviator like his hero, Charles Lindbergh . In a sequence based on the 1928 short Plane Crazy , Mickey puts together a homemade plane, and takes
5859-495: The next year with Alice in Wonderland . Judged a success, the experiment was turned into an ongoing feature in 1952— Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales —beginning with The Story of Robin Hood . The Sunday strip ran for thirty-five years, from July 13, 1952, to February 15, 1987. The animated features adapted for the strip include Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1958), The Sword in
5952-487: The occasional multi-week story, with an especially long four-month continuity from March to July 1940, "The Photographic Exhibition." The final Sunday story, "The Professor's Experiment", ran from November 1943 to March 1944. (This also happened to be the last appearance of Mickey's nephew Ferdie in the strip; from 1944 on, Ferdie's twin Morty always appeared alone.) At its peak the Sunday strip, "... appeared in 120 newspapers around
6045-594: The retirement of Manuel Gonzales in 1981, Daan Jippes took over the Sunday strip (May 3, 1981 – January 3, 1982). Mike Royer provided most of the inking. From 1983 to 1990, Arambula took on the art chores of the Sunday strip in addition to the daily. Arambula had occasional fill-in artists, "... which [he] would have told you was not because he ever missed a deadline". These included Manuel Gonzales (1975-1981), Tony Strobl (1975–1981), Steve Steere (1981–1982), Bill Wright (1982–1984), Bill Langley (1984–1987), Jules Coenen (1986–1987) and Larry Mayer (1986–1987). In
6138-583: The rights to the Disney characters. Disney then published Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse with Vernon Holding ; the relatively unsuccessful magazine was renamed Walt Disney's Weekly in 1959 and discontinued in 1961. Non-Disney content was continued in Odhams Press' Zip , a 1958 weekly which merged into Swift in 1959. The first British Disney serial published in Mickey Mouse Weekly was The De(f)tective Agency — actually "The Defective Agency", but with
6231-532: The scripts whenever he thought it would improve a story. There were a variety of inkers on the strip through the years; inkers for the Sunday strips included Al Taliaferro (1932–1938) and Ted Thwaites (1932-1940), and Manuel Gonzales until 1981; Taliaferro also inked daily strips. Gottfredson returned to inking daily strips himself in February 1947; Frank Reilly took over as head of the Comic Strip Department, and Gottfredson had more time to devote to
6324-527: The sequel led King Features to pass on it. The Disney comic strip department closed in January 1990. The last two strips, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck , continued to be supervised by King Features. The Donald strip was drawn by Larry Knighton with King Features staffers writing it. The Donald strip was discontinued in the mid-1990s. In this period the Mickey strip had Floyd Norman as the writer and art rotating between Rick Hoover and Alex Howell. Norman convinced
6417-409: The series after the first story, which was continued as Donald and Mac , Donald Duck and Donald Duck with Mac for the next three years, ending in issue #222 (4 May 1940). The Donald Duck strip itself continued until the magazine's closure in 1957. Shuffled Symphonies was an early illustrated text feature by Basil Reynolds, which initially paired a character from the Mickey Mouse cartoons with
6510-538: The strip was a standalone half-page, not strictly a topper for the Mickey Sunday. The strip was initially titled Silly Symphonies ; after two years, the name was changed to Silly Symphony . The switch happened in the February 18, 1934, strip, just three weeks before Bucky Bug would be replaced with a new storyline, "Birds of a Feather". The complete rundown of Silly Symphony strips, from 1932 to 1945: The Silly Symphony Sunday strip ended on October 7, 1945, and
6603-425: The strip was written by Del Connell (1968–1988), Floyd Norman (1984–1992) and Colette Bezio (1991–1995). Roman Arambula was the principal artist on the daily strip from 1975 to early 1990 (and even lettered it). Writer Mark Evanier described Arambula's work habits on the strip thus: "He would draw two weeks worth of the strip every other week and in the weeks he wasn't working on that, he drew comics for me." Upon
6696-409: The strip. Gottfredson plotted the continuities until Bill Walsh started writing the strip in 1943. Around that time, Dick Moores inked the strip for two years. Starting in the 1950s, Gottfredson and writer Bill Walsh were instructed to drop the storylines and do only daily gags. Gottfredson continued illustrating the daily strip until his retirement on October 1, 1975. After Gottfredson retired,
6789-479: The strips from "Bucky Bug" (1932) to "Cookieland" (1935). Volume 2, published in 2017, includes "Three Little Kittens" (1935) to "Timid Elmer" (1939). Volume 3, published in 2018, includes "Pluto the Pup" (1939) to "Little Hiawatha" (1942). The fourth volume, published in 2019, concludes the series with "Bambi" (1942) through Panchito" (1945). Donald Duck made his first comics appearance in the Silly Symphony adaptation of
6882-462: The strips, took over the pencilling as well with the February 10th strip. Smith left the studio in April after a fight with Disney, who wanted him to take over writing the strip. As a "temporary replacement", Disney asked a young inbetweener at the studio named Floyd Gottfredson to fill in. Gottfredson's first strip was published on May 5, and he took over the scripting two weeks later. He would continue as
6975-424: The syndicate to allow him to drop the gag-a-day format in favor of adventure continuities of up to four weeks, much in the style of the classic Gottfredson era. By 1994 the strip was running in only 30 newspapers and by mutual agreement of Disney and King Features it ended. Both strips continued with reprints. In recent years Creators Syndicate has offered reprints of the Donald Duck , Mickey Mouse and Winnie
7068-440: The title as Disney Comics and Stories . IDW lost Disney comics rights in the 2020s and the comic book license for Disney properties passed to Marvel Comics . When Walt Disney's Comics and Stories launched in 1940 as a partnership between Dell Comics and Western Publishing , the comic only reprinted existing Mickey Mouse , Donald Duck and Silly Symphony comic strips, rather than creating original stories specifically for
7161-792: The trial, conviction, and near-execution of Horace Horsecollar -- who is falsely accused of the theft -- and Mickey's progress in tracking down the villains. The first Sunday page appeared on January 10, 1932, and was aimed at a younger audience, as most Sunday comic strips were at the time. In September 1932, Mrs. Fieldmouse saddled Mickey with baby-sitting her two pesky twins, Morty and Ferdie , who kept his house in an uproar for two months' worth of strips. They called him "Unca' Mickey", although they didn't seem to be actual relations, but when they returned in March 1935 for another Sunday continuity, they were indeed Mickey's nephews. Other memorable early-1930s storylines include 1932-33's "Blaggard Castle", in which Mickey and Horace are captured and hypnotized by
7254-605: The war, he returned to the weekly in 1947, contributing off and on until 1954. A card game called Shuffled Symphonies was produced in 1939 by Pepys Games, based on the title of this weekly feature. The cards featured full-colour images of the Mickey Mouse , Silly Symphony and Snow White cast. Mickey Mouse Weekly had an annual 64-page December supplement for the first four years – Mickey Mouse Holiday Special in 1936, 1937 and 1938, and Mickey Mouse Christmas Special in 1939. Disney comics The first Disney comics were newspaper strips appearing from 1930 on, starting with
7347-489: The world with a collective circulation of more than 20 million readers each week." Gottfredson stopped plotting the strip in June 1943, passing it on to Disney press agent Bill Walsh , who wrote the strip for the next twenty years. Walsh's first two stories were about fighting the Axis ; the second one, Mickey Mouse on a Secret Mission , enraged Adolf Hitler so much that he demanded Benito Mussolini stop Italians from publishing
7440-550: Was Pluto Saves the Ship , published in Dell Comics' Large Feature Comics #7 in July 1942. The story was written by Disney animators Carl Barks , Jack Hannah and Nick George; it was Barks's first comic book work. Four Color relaunched with a new numbering system in 1942, and in October, Dell published " Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold " as issue #9 of the second series. This 64-page story
7533-474: Was a strange creature from five hundred years in the future, a highly evolved human who understood future technology and possessed mysterious powers. He had a strange future accent that added a P to the beginning of most words: "I pdon't pthink so!" He was joined in February by his pet Pflip the Thnuckle-Booh, and became Mickey's sidekick for the next few years, returning to his home in the future in July 1950, at
7626-937: Was a success, and Dell followed up the next year with Walt Disney's Vacation Parade #1 (July 1950) and Christmas Parade #2 (Nov 1950). Dell also introduced Bugs Bunny's Christmas Funnies in 1950, and soon all of Dell's top-selling characters had regular annuals and giant issues. Christmas Parade ran for ten issues from 1949 to 1959, and was followed by Walt Disney's Merry Christmas (Dec 1960) and Donald Duck Merry Christmas (Dec 1961). Vacation Parade ran for five annual issues from 1950 to 1954, before being retitled Picnic Party from 1955 to 1957, Mickey Mouse Summer Fun (1958), Walt Disney's Summer Fun (1959), Daisy Duck and Uncle Scrooge Picnic Time (1960) and Mickey and Donald in Vacationland (1961). There were also six annual issues of Donald Duck Beach Party from 1954 to 1959. Mickey Mouse (comic strip) Mickey Mouse
7719-747: Was created by Kay Kamen , a Disney merchandiser. There were three versions of the title: two promotional giveaway magazines published from 1933 to 1935, and a newsstand magazine published from 1935 to 1940. The publication gradually evolved from a 16-page booklet of illustrated text stories and single-page comic panels into a 64-page comic book featuring reprints of the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic strips. In October 1940, Western rebranded Mickey Mouse Magazine as Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, an anthology comic book series featuring an assortment of Disney characters, including Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck , Mickey Mouse, Chip 'n Dale , Li'l Bad Wolf , Scamp , Bucky Bug , Grandma Duck , Brer Rabbit , Winnie
7812-518: Was created by Ward Greene , a King Features Syndicate editor who wrote the original magazine story, Happy Dan, the Whistling Dog, and Miss Patsy, the Beautiful Spaniel , which inspired the film. Greene and artist Dick Moores produced the strip for eight months as a continuing story. Starting in May 1956, other creators took over, and the strip moved to a gag-a-day format. Beginning in 1960,
7905-399: Was initially written by Walt Disney with art by Ub Iwerks and Win Smith. Beginning with the May 5, 1930, installment the art chores were taken up by Floyd Gottfredson (often aided by various inkers), who also either wrote or supervised the story continuities (relying on various writers to flesh out his plots). Gottfredson continued with the strip until 1975. By 1931, the Mickey Mouse strip
7998-457: Was issue #386 (March 1952). Scamp also began as a Four Color one-shot with issue #703 (May 1956), which turned into a series in 1958. When they each "graduated" to their own comic books, Dell continued their numbering as if they had been part of a series all along. There were many other Disney characters featured in issues of Four Color . This list shows the first issue for each character: Donald Duck (1942–2017) first appeared as part of
8091-428: Was originally published by Dell Comics (1940–1962), and there have been many revivals over the years, continuing the same legacy numbering. The revivals have been published by Gold Key Comics (1962–1984), Gladstone Publishing (1986–1990), Disney Comics (1990–1993), back to Gladstone Publishing (1993–1999), Gemstone Publishing (2003–2008), Boom! Studios (2009–2011) and IDW Publishing (2015–2020). IDW relaunched
8184-423: Was published in 60 newspapers in the United States, as well as papers in twenty other countries. From the beginning, the strips were parts of long continuing stories. These introduced characters such as the Phantom Blot , Eega Beeva , and the Bat Bandit , which Gottfredson created; Disney created Eli Squinch , Mickey's nephews, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse , and Sylvester Shyster , which were also introduced in
8277-562: Was replaced by Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit . Three of the Silly Symphony stories inspired long-running features in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories . Original Bucky Bug stories first appeared in issue #39 (Dec 1943) and appeared every month for seven years, wrapping up with issue #120 (Sept 1950). "The Three Little Pigs" feature inspired the creation of Li'l Bad Wolf , the Big Bad Wolf's errant son, who wants to be friends with
8370-414: Was replaced by Bill Wright from 1942 to 1946. There were seven more Sunday storylines under Gonzales and Wright's tenure: Following "The Professor's Experiment", the Sunday strip shifted completely to the gag-a-week format. Over the years, some loosely connected sequences of strips were also published: In 1949, Gonzales and writer Bill Walsh introduced Ellsworth to the Sunday strips. From 1949 to 1959,
8463-508: Was revived in 1992 as Disney Holiday Story to publicize contemporary Disney feature animated films. In 2017, the Christmas stories were collected in a hardback volume, Disney's Christmas Classics , published by IDW Publishing . The collection includes all of the Christmas stories except for 1986's story based on Song of the South . Disney created a Winnie the Pooh comic strip for King Features Syndicate starting June 19, 1978. Based on
8556-454: Was suggested by Joseph Connolly, the president of King Features Syndicate, in a July 24, 1929 letter to Disney animator Ub Iwerks: "I think your mouse animation is one of the funniest features I have ever seen in the movies. Please consider producing one in comic strip form for newspapers. If you can find time to do one, I shall be very interested in seeing some specimens." The Disney team was busy producing new cartoons, but by November, samples of
8649-420: Was the first Donald Duck story drawn (but not yet written) by Barks. Four Color went on to produce more than 1,000 issues from 1942 to 1962, and the major ongoing Disney comics series were all launched as individual issues of the Four Color series. "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold" eventually became the first Donald Duck comic, Mickey Mouse began as issue #27 (1943), and the first Uncle Scrooge comic
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