The characters have always had more personality in the comics. Though growing up in Norway, our mascot for Disney isn't Mickey Mouse, but rather Donald Duck. Donald duck comics, Donald duck "pocket" (booklets), there were those somewhat mature PK comics, and pretty much everything relating to Mickey Mouse and his stories were folded under the Donald Duck-comic umbrella
The same in The Netherlands. The Donald Duck has been a weekly comic since 1952, featuring Donald, his nephews, Scrooge McDuck, The Beagle Boys, Goofy, Pluto, Mickey & Minnie, and others. It's been one of the most popular magazines for years.
.... Lil Bad Wolf, Scamp (the puppy whose parents are Lady and the Tramp) Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear ... I didn't even know about Song of the South until I was adult. But the stories with Br'er Rabbit were a regular part of the Donald Duck magazine.
Playing devil’s advocate, Disney has actually done a decent job of giving Mickey a personality in the past decade with the new shorts. I feel these comics were heavy inspiration.
The Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics are very popular over here in Europe. (Most of the artists who draw Mickey for comics in these days are probably even European.) The German translations (mainly of Carl Barks stories) by Erika Fuchs even managed to get comics in general a better reputation by implementing many idioms and references to literature and general knowledge.
Hello Sir I was not aware of how much linguistic influence Erika Fuchs had in Germany. In Denmark we Sonja Rindom, with the same large imprint on our launguages. And after have read about Erika on wiki, i can see the the two translatørs, had a simular background and where born only 2 years apart. To the rest of the world, i can tell, that Germany and Denmark er neighbour contries, with different languages
I'm so happy for this episode, covering the much neglected funny animal part of American comics history. Mickey has, of course, continued to be published in comic books here in Europe and still is, and especially in Italy there has been lots of high-action adventure - we Scandinavians preferDonald, for vaguely the same reasons people prefer Batman and Wolverine to Superman and Cyclops. ;) But when I grew up in Sweden, if you had asked me, as a kid, to name the greatest detective in comic books... it would have been Mickey Mouse, not Batman.
In America, at least in my generation, Mickey has been eclipsed by Donald Duck, or at least by Uncle Scrooge and the nephew trio because of the original Duck Tales cartoon and movies.
Yes, Donald was more interesting in the magazines (largely thanks to Carl Barks), but when I discovered a large collection of old Mickey adventures from the 30s and 40s at my local library I was very excited.
@@johnm.withersiv4352 Yeah. Here funny animal comics almost hold the position of superhero comics in the US, so that its perhaps the first thing people think of when you mention 'comics' - and while Donald dominates here as well, Mickey has a big part of comics as well. Basically, the importance of comics vs cartoons are reversed compared to the US. :) Of course, that means that when you did get Ducktales etc here as well, you got an equivalent to comic nerds going "ITS NOT LIKE THE COMICS ITS WROOOOONG!" about Batman or whatecer. XD
That is super interesting. I feel like we in the States just recognize Mickey Mouse as the "mascot" of the company but I don't think he's anyone's favorite (at least more contemporary, I was born in the 80s). I found a bigger fan base in Uncle Scrooge and Goofy among those in my age group.
@@lakrids-pibe As I said, when I grew up most adventures with Mickey Mouse - even the ones from the 60s or 70s - had him as a detective or the like - they were adventure stories. :)
Given the timing of Steamboat Willie entering the public domain, I was hoping you'd spend some time talking about The Uncensored Mouse, when in the 1980s Eternity mistakenly believed that some of the strips had entered the public domain, started reprinting them, and then naturally got sued by Disney.
@@ComicTropes Speaking of Eternity ... how about doing a video on Quality Comics' Kid Eternity, whose suspiciously similar origin to Captain Marvel, jr.'s prompted DC writer/historian E. Nelson Bridwell to write a story in the 1980s revealing that he was Freddy Freeman's long-lost brother Chris "Kit" Freeman ("Kit" Eternity -- get it?)?
You FINALLY covered Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse! Yeah this version of the character really surprised me. He reminds me of belgian comic heroes like Tintin and Spirou. Are you gonna cover E.C.Segar's version of Popeye, one day?
Mikey Mouse and the rest of Disney gang (Donal Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Goofy, etc.) are still so popular in Italy that the weekly "Topolino" magazine features stories written and drawn by Italian authors and characters created by them, such as Paperinik, Donald Duck's ("Paperino" in Italian) superhero alter-ego.
Italian stories and characters are quite popular in german-speaking regions too. I Always loved paperinik (here he's called "Phantomias") and Doubleduck. @@furyomori3896
Donald Duck's superhero alter-ego is called *The Steel Duck* (Stål-anden) in the danish translation. The italian disney books are called "Jumbo Books" in Denmark. The printing format wasn't very common on the danish market when they were introducet. ...speaking of super heroes, did Floyd Gotfredson come up with *Super Goof* ? He first apears in 1965.
One of my big regrets is that I lost my reprint of the Phantom Blot debut. That was a good story. 6:56 Later in that story, Mickey picks up a gun and basically says: "I'll make 100% sure it's a ghost."
The history of early Disney and Mickey Mouse is so fascinating, amazing to finally get an in depth look at that history in terms of the comics and the people that made them.
You said Gottfredson didn't give a supporting cast to Mickey as Barks did to Donald, but it's not true: other than Eega Beeva, his pet Pflip and Morty and Ferdie he created Chief O'Hara, detective Casey, colonel Doberman, Mortimer Mouse, Patricia Pigg, Doctor Einmug and shined in the creation of villains like the Phantom Blot (who is said to be Walt Disney caricature), Joe Piper, the Rhyming Man, Dr. Vulture and Kat Nipp, of course... Mickey needs a static cast of co-stars less than Donald imo because, as an adventurous character as you pointed out, after the first story-arcs of the 30s set in the rural America of the great depression, these became more international: there is sci-fi as you pointed out, but there is also mystery, crimes and travel other than humour, there are criminals, thieves, royalties, spies. Mickey in the comics is more like Tintin, or a movie character played by Jimmy Stewart.
I'm just going to step in to say, Mickey does have a personality in other media, most notably in the 2013 Mickey Mouse cartoons, where he gets angry, jealous, greedy etc. He's still portrayed as a good boy, but that's our Mickey. Also in every single Mickey Mouse special feature I've seen him in (House of Mouse, Three Mousketeers), he was a pretty relatable protagonist. I don't take Mickey slander lying down, not in my clubhouse.
The influence of Gottfredson's work on the European and South American comics is unmeasurable. Here in Italy "Mickey Mouse Reporter" and "Outwits the Phantom Blot" are considered so povotal for the character and his supporting cast that the two canonically accepted jobs for Mickey are detective and journalist. Granted, the modern version of Mickey is quite watered down compared to Gottfredson's work, but it's still far more characterized than the animated version. Two little factoid for you all. 1) The reason why Mickey's comics weren't banned by the Fascist government was, allegedly, that Mussolini's children loved the character. 2) In the 1970s one of the main author that worked on the Italian comics for Mickey and Donald was Jerry Siegel. The story goes that the then director of the weekly magazine Topolino met Siegel during a trip at L.A. Having curated the Italian edition of Superman for a few years, he knew about Siegel and his predicament, so he offered him a chance to go back at writing comics.
Was going to write this! sono cresciuto con Topolino, è un peccato che molti dei capolavori di autori nostrani sono praticamente sconosciuti all' estero.
@@oliverbrownlow5615 apparently he wrote 155 story for the Italian market - alternating between Mickey, Goofy, Donal and Scrooge - and he was instrumental in introducing ecological themes into the story (not to mention a number of really weird high sci-fi concepts).
@@domenicoruoppolo5875 I will check that article out. It is not shocking a ton of mangaka took influence and swipes from American comics back in day. Plus Tezuka is known for his love of Disney and even Carl Barks specifically. Sadly a lot of Japanese comics fans and some scholars like to act like Japanese comics basically sprang fully grown from the head of Zeus with little influence from the west.
It’s interesting how much Mickey evolved from his early years. The most recent I can think of when he had a personality closest to the comics was in the Mickey Mouse shorts from 2013
I have that whole reprint collection! I’ve always loved Floyd Godfredson‘s work and have felt that he has been largely ignored. My favorite tales included the Pirate Submarine, The Foreign Legion, as well as Island in the Sky. And the Bar-None Ranch!
Growing up in India I read a lot of Mickey Mouse comics. They were one of the most common American comic digests alongside Archie and King’s comic characters like Phantom at the time. Mickey Mouse comics were fun! A lot of Western setting from what I remember. It’s kinda sad that Mickey had turned into such a mascot and brand logo that Disney doesn’t even make new shorts.
What do you mean “doesn’t make new shorts”? The most recent one (steamboat silly) came out in July 2023 which was just last year. Do you mean do that they don’t make many? Which is somewhat fair as steamboat silly was the only one for 2023 as far as I can tell though there were several in 2022. Or do you mean something else and I’m just missing it?
@@animasuperfreakgirl i think he just means that Mickey turned into more of a mascot than character, yeah the shorts are pretty cool but they recently just ended and there’s no other good Mickey content besides them, they could do so much more with him considering he’s the most popular cartoon character ever. Yet they just use him as the face of the Disney company with nothing really else to offer
I read tons of Mickey Mouse comics when I lived in Italy. Mickey Mouse is a lot more interesting as Topolino. There he is an adventurer and a spy at times, the stories are adventure based and Goofy is his clumsy sidekick. They are still popular to this day. On a side note, Donald Duck has a super hero persona in Italy, he's Paperinik.
Floyd was born in a town about 20 miles north of Salt Lake. I grew up in the same town Don Bluth is from and these were both local art heroes to me when separate times they came and talked at schools I attended. I def didn't have access to all these old comics but I love the clean artwork.
This character development & universe expansion actually continued into the Walt Disney's Comics & Stories comic books, to differentiate them from the strip, which remained gag-a-day until the Disney Renaissance, which sparked the return of the adventure format, but these strips have almost never gotten reprints. The series ended in July 1995. There's a lot more stuff about the Disney comics that could be fun to cover; the Renaissance brought a few changes for example.
10:48 In 1932, there was a movie "Doctor X," based on the stage play from 1931, might be another influence for Doctors XXX, X, XX, and XXX, but they probably all fall into the "mad scientist" archetype. In the movie, there is a transformation machine that the killer uses to commit his murders unrecognized.
I hate this idea that characters like Mario, Mickey, or other mascot characters in their same vein have “no personality”. Do king, courageous, and mischievous not count as personality traits?? People only seem to make this argument of a character “finally having a personality!!” When it’s a depiction of them that’s cocky, arrogant, or mean. In the very clip before you even claim he’s “generic”, you see Mickey mocking Pete and quickly going stiff when he sees, showing him being a whimsical coward, a pretty distinct trait.
Honestly, I think it's only more recent shorts that make him so generically nice, and even the 2013 series deconstructs it, but early shorts make him very mischievous and occasionally mean. Edit: The silent versions of Plane Crazy and Galloping Gaucho are also public domain.
Great Video Man! I've never read the Floyd Gottfriedson Mickey comics, but I'll definitely check them out. One thing that slightly bothered me though was how you talked down the classic Mickey Mouse cartoons a bit. As someone who's a big Golden Age of Animation fan, I like a lot of the classic Mickey Mouse cartoons. While the early Mickey cartoons from 1928-1931 don't have much plot or character and are more a showcase of synchronized sound, the cartoons from 1932-1938 are actually REALLY GOOD, particularly the B&W cartoons from 32-35. Cartoons like The Klondike Kid (1932), The Mail Pilot (1933), Shanghaied, Gulliver Mickey, and Two-Gun Mickey (all 1934) are action-packed adventures, that feel like animated versions of Gottfriedson's comics. There's also the aforementioned The Mad Doctor (1933) which is such a deliciously dark cartoon, as well as Mickey's Good Deed (1932) a surprisingly touching Depression-era story. There are also some fun ones like Barnyard Olympics, Touchdown Mickey (both 1932), Camping Out (1934) and Mickey's Gala Premier (1933) which is a great time capsule featuring celebrity caricatures of the 30s. In 1935 the Mickey Cartoons went to Colour beginning with The Band Concert - which is probably the best of his classic shorts - and he starred in some really good solo shorts like Thru the Mirror (1936) and Brave Little Tailor (1938) - but the focus of his cartoons began to shift to Donald and Goofy, particularly in the excellent trio shorts like Mickey's Service Station (1935) Moving Day (1936) Clock Cleaners and Lonesome Ghosts (both 1937). I think when people say "Mickey Mouse in Boring," I think they're mostly referring to the cartoons from 1939 and onward (co-insiding around the time Fred Moore redesigned Mickey with his more modern look). Since these cartoons tend to get shown a lot more often than the Black & White cartoons, I think that's damaged the public perception of Mickey. Still I would recommend the above-mentioned cartoons.
Floyd Gottfredson was a fan of Roy Crane's Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy and Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates and portrayed Mickey as a teenaged adventurer even giving Mickey an adult mentor, Captain, later Colonel, Doberman, like the boy heroes of the other newspaper strips.
I don't understand why the Disney company often denies comics, especially where Mickey Mouse and friends are much more represented than in cartoons. If only people somehow knew more about it, especially the Phantom Blot who is Mickey's main rival. It's really sad how Disney turned the main characters into mascots. If only Disney would make animated adaptations of Disney comics, but I highly doubt that will happen. Good analysis.
Great EP as always. As a black reader of golden age comics, when I see the "minstrelized" characters, it causes a few reactions: 1. I feel for any of my people who had to live in a time so openly racist. As bad and regressive as things are today, it's nowhere near as brutal as this! 2. It reflects more on the passive, institutionalized racism of the creators and society. I'm not personally offended; I do not resemble these caricatures, no one I know does. Mickey, himself, is modeled on blackface minstrels and more resembles these racist tropes. And let's not ignore the potentially anti-Semitic "Shyster". It's just a reminder of a shittier era (that could return if we're not careful). It's a lot like being a fan of rock music - a lot of these people were/are real pieces of garbage; you have to separate the art from the artist. Nice "Chris as Paste-Pot Pete" fan art at the end, there!!
"Mickey, himself, is modeled on blackface minstrels and more resembles these racist tropes" He have a white face and you want him to be a back face, you really want to se racism in everything. Black-Pete is mostly a capten/boss/supervisor do that mean that Disney promote black people in leadership positions?
@@MarsHottentot Trigger by what? I did also notice that you did not answer my questions. How can a person who have a white face be a blackface? If that sad persons are "black" Do that make Disney super progressive to have Black-Pete as a captain/boss/supervisor type of character. Avoid the questions, give nonsense answer or make a personal attack, show that you are so institutionalized indoctrinated that you cant answer.
Really good episode, Chris! I think it would be great if you featured more comic strips. There are so many you could be doing a deep dive into; Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Secret Agent X-9, etc. There's so many out there and some great creators that you could talk about. I'm excited to see what you come up with!
Apparently, I already watched the Dick Tracy episode ages ago and liked it! Probably before I knew your channel. But you've got a great back-catalogue, and I'll be going through them when I can.
I am very fascinated by Terry and the Pirates. I've only read some of the stories because I haven't been able to find them all. My local library had the entire collection of reprints at some point and I started reading them end to end... but then they disappeared from the shelves before I was finished. I have no idea if they were stolen or what. Maybe they were removed because someone thinks the series is too problematic. The depictions of Asians is VERY outdated. I'm a great admirer of Milton Caniff and his artwork. His usage of black and white contrasts is legendary. ...but those chinese bandits are a product of the time, there's no way around it. I would still love to read it.
Here in Australia we often had local comics that were reprints of American comics and Mickey was one of those titles. I remember enjoying the many detective Mickey stories and his battles with the Phantom Blot among others. Originally by Floyd they were added to in the comics by Paul Mury. Also fun was the brief super spy era, using a very different realistic style for all the other characters besides Mickey and Goofy.
Mickey Mouse comics (and Donald Duck) were probably the first comics I got as a child, and of course they were much newer but art style was very much based off this guy's work, and although Mikey was not as trigger happy as his past self, there are still was a lot of adventure and mysteries
Wow, thank you for bringing these wonderful strips to my attention. The first thing I did after watching your video was order Fantagraphic's first volume of the dailies.
How can you sit here and say that Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie is "generically nice" when he spends the majority of that cartoon sadistically torturing animals and is constantly seen as being pleased by their squeals, extreme discomfort and suffering as he constantly hits, abuses, and very clearly hurts them to produce pained sounds from them which he's overjoyed at? The way I could describe him in that cartoon is as a psychopathic sadist.
Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey comic strips were pretty fun. I read a bunch of them when I was a little kid and Gladstone comics was republishing them The recolored version of Blaggard Castle looks creepy as hell (the story itself is much more light-hearted) Yoo gotta do an episode on Carl Barks' duck comics!
I am surprised that in this episode you did not mention one of the major influences on the strip and the artist is Roy Crane Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy which started in 1924. Which the artist and historian have mention was a major influence on the artist.
I got a collection from the late 40s which some granny gave me as a kid. Its in a bad shape but I consider restoring it. Mickey does things we'd never see again, its more like Indiana Jones. Like there's that legendary ghost comic where smugglers disguise as ghosts and Mickey friggin fires a gun at them to see if they're fake.
*The Phantom Blot* was one of Floyd Gottfredson characters created in 1939. He was still around in the magazines I read in my childhood. I think I've read most of those old adverntures from the 1930s and 1940s. ...if not all of them. I'm a big fan. "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley", "The Great Orphanage Robbery", Mickey Mouse in the foreign legion, as a whaler, as a farm worker who helps with the grain harvest, and the many stories where he is a pilot. It's all great.
It's about time Mickey was seen as a rebellious teen again since Steamboat Willie became public domain, he's like the 1930s equivalent of Sonic the Hedgehog.
1:18 I actually had an interesting idea about that. I came up for a concept for a Steamboat Willie movie. So it’d be live action taking place in a Victorian era world. The characters are all human and Willie (The Mickey character) is a mischievous, slightly greedy type that gets himself into trouble, he lives on a barge boat with Patrick (Pete from the cartoon) and they basically deliver animals and other random cargo to various places, one day an actress needs to catch the barge before she gets caught by the gangsters pursuing her, her name is Millie (Minnie) and it turns out she stole a mcguffin from the criminals that they murdered her father for. (It might be evidence, a map, an ancient object idk) and basically it’d be like a better version of Dolittle with a ship full of animals as they race to get wherever they’re going. Willie is kind of crazed like Jack Sparrow and for a fun joke reference Patrick says “I’m not even going to tell you what he’s done to the pigs!” But that’s all the ideas I’ve had so far for a concept. I think we could use an adventure film in the same vein as Pirates of The Caribbean or Jumamji The Next Level. Like let’s bring adventure films back! lol 😂(thank you for reading this long idea)
I had no idea Mickey was such a great comc ! I have been reading some now from the 40 s , and its funny as hell, and very entertaining! So you did it again Chris , i learned something that gave me such fun !!!! Thank you Brother !
As a 70's kid we watched a very simplified Popeye on TV, and it was a shock if you managed to find the Segar strips. The only mainstream hint of them was the Robin Williams movie that had so much more character and flavor than the cartoons.
My grandfather had a tonne of old mickey mouse comics. My favourites were The Phantom Blot ones with the death traps he would set to try to kill Mickey. So much fun!
Did you hear that Mickie and Minnie just got divorced? There was a funny moment in court. The judge said "Mickie, I can't grant you a divorce just because you say Minnie is crazy." Mickey replied "Your Honor, you misunderstand. I didn't say she was crazy. I said she was f***ing Goofy!"
Great video as always on Mickeys strip work. As you alluded in the outro comic books are different, but the Mickey in Walt Disney Comics and Stories is much more the dynamic adventurer of the strip than the mouse of animation. WDC&S was a quality book with Barks Donald and adventure Mickey!
In a "Donald Duck Pocket Book" anniversary edition (either Donald Duck's or Goofy's Birthday") They had a small article about how the creation of more characters led to a transformation of Mickey Mouse. The angry world adventurer characteristics shifted to Donald Duck, while his aloof silliness was put onto Goofy. In todays "Lustige Taschenbücher" (Donald Duck Pocket Books) Mickey is usually portrayed as a Private Investigator.
i adore gotfredsons strip and he did a lot for world buiilding let alone he invented the phantom blot and chief o hara both are still used and famous in disney comic today
I feel like people really need to check out the 2013 Micky Mouse shorts and the Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse follow up. Kids these days don't think of Mickey as having no personality. They think he's so nice that it shoots around the moon and becomes funny again.
I got a positively huge book for Christmas one day, it was all Gottfredson stories. It was in French and there was a bit I never understood, thinking back it's probably American slang or some pun that they simply failed to translate properly. IIRC it was Mickey on the Farm, helping out during WWII, when he was too small to be a soldier and is sent to a farm to do his bit for the nation. Many of these stories were printed in Europe, making them extremely popular and we knew about Carl Barks around the end of the 1970's. I have a Dutch Donald Duck 50th anniversary book that mentions all the collaborators who worked on Donald Duck including Barks.
For comic strips, I always remember Prince Valiant being hard to get into because it felt like I had to jump into the middle of a story I had no context for. I had no idea it started like 45 years before I was born.
Mickey Mouse comics and Donald Duck comics were very popular in Mexico when I was a kid (80's). I was more into superheroes but I I remember those Donald and Mickey comics to be very entertaining. Great episode, Chris!
It's also worth mentioning that the creators on the comics were kept secret. They wanted to make it appear like Walt personally did all of them, even having his signature. Carl Barks was known as the Duck man and Flyod Gottfredson was known as the Mouse man. His identity was revealed in the mid 60s by a fan.
“cartoon shorthand” Sincere appreciation for such eloquent articulation. It’s so easy these days to dismissively follow our natural knee-jerk reaction to such images. But it’s unfairly and commonplace to villainize those creators instead of providing any attempt at understanding the cultural context. By adding two simple words, you do so much to elevate this retrospective and help to maintain a measure of credibility for the artists in the ever evolving face of progress. Thank you. Here’s hoping someday Fantagraphics might tackle “Monster Society of Evil”.
I believe another company (Their name escapes me at the moment) has reprinted that story, though it's not restored, just the ray scans you'd find online, we'll still be waiting on a proper rerelease.
@@d-manthecaptain1382 Thanks! And also, there was a proper limited deluxe hardcover (credited to Mike Higgs & “Hawk Books”) released decades ago now; but that’s ridiculously unaffordable at this point.
Holy Crap I didn't know my home state and not to mention near were I live that Floyd was from Kaysville, now that I think about it I think some of his family still lives in Utah but I could be wrong.
I would love an episode about Calvin and Hobbes. I think what Watterson went through with syndication and big businesses breathing down his throat is interesting.
Great episode as always. If you're branching into comic strips, I have to nominate Walt Kelly's Pogo - it's got funny animals, brilliant use of language and dialogue, and was politically important, too. (also Hal Foster's Prince Valiant - just amazing art, and a really fun read, and the Phantom, because he kicks ass!)
I think an argument could be made that it is more accurate to say that they're both inspired by the same song, Steamboat Willie doesn't really carry anything over from Steamboat Bill Jr apart from, well, steamboats.
I read a lot of European Disney Comics over the pandemic with my nephew. I just finished the first two Floyd books and the Christmas themed Carl Barks and company Duck books. I love how action packed so much of this stuff is. Reading Floyd's Mickey I can easily see how much his work influenced all Disney comics that cam after.
Growing up in Germany, we had (and most of us 70s, 80s kids loved) "Lustige Taschenbuecher" (Funny Pocketbooks). These usually presented 5 or 6 adventures within the Mickey Mouse ecosystem or the Duck Universe. These were gangster, crime, sci-fi, and adventure stories. For the most part these were drawn in Italy but occasionally a Barks story showed up too. The art was very consistent and it was my main source of adventure stories as a child. I knew Mickey and DOnald that way before I watched the cartoons. Always preferred the comics.
Mikey Mouse and the rest of Disney gang (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Goofy, etc.) are still so popular in Italy that the weekly "Topolino" magazine features stories written and drawn by Italian authors and characters created by them, such as Paperinik, Donald Duck's ("Paperino" in Italian) superhero alter-ego.
I'd love to see an episode on Carl barks comics too! That stuff is wonderful. I'd recommend the 2013-2023 Mickey shorts, those are great and give Mickey more of a personality too.
Not sure if it was a Dutch/Flemish thing but I did read Mickey's Adventures as a child which was a pocket sized bundle containing a standalone MM Comic but also included Treasure Island amongst others.
What a great episode! Thanks for this, Chris. I'm curious if Mickey's comic adventures changed in the 1950s due, in part, to the rise and popularity of The Mickey Mouse Club and how he was presented to the public through television at the time.
I recently sold my copies of both issues of The Uncensored Mouse. I'm a little surprised you didn't mention The Uncensored Mouse in this video. Until that Fantagraphics volume, it was the only time those early controversial strips had been reprinted in the U.S. And there's an interesting legal history involved too.
win smith also filled in as an artist along with jack king before gottfredson, and even a bit after wards he did a few stories. Win also was an animator at disney
The characters have always had more personality in the comics. Though growing up in Norway, our mascot for Disney isn't Mickey Mouse, but rather Donald Duck.
Donald duck comics, Donald duck "pocket" (booklets), there were those somewhat mature PK comics, and pretty much everything relating to Mickey Mouse and his stories were folded under the Donald Duck-comic umbrella
The same in The Netherlands. The Donald Duck has been a weekly comic since 1952, featuring Donald, his nephews, Scrooge McDuck, The Beagle Boys, Goofy, Pluto, Mickey & Minnie, and others. It's been one of the most popular magazines for years.
.... Lil Bad Wolf, Scamp (the puppy whose parents are Lady and the Tramp) Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear ...
I didn't even know about Song of the South until I was adult. But the stories with Br'er Rabbit were a regular part of the Donald Duck magazine.
Oh cool!
Do you have any Disney Comics recommendations for US goers?
I love Donald, I couldn't give two ducks about Mickey :P LOL
Same here in Sweden 🙂
Playing devil’s advocate, Disney has actually done a decent job of giving Mickey a personality in the past decade with the new shorts. I feel these comics were heavy inspiration.
True, those newer shorts are fun.
nah those recent shorts were cringe
@@cesarzpontu8886coope
@@cesarzpontu8886duality of man
Disney's strenght is buying creative people who do nice things. Disney itself is a garbage corpo.
The Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics are very popular over here in Europe. (Most of the artists who draw Mickey for comics in these days are probably even European.)
The German translations (mainly of Carl Barks stories) by Erika Fuchs even managed to get comics in general a better reputation by implementing many idioms and references to literature and general knowledge.
Hello Sir
I was not aware of how much linguistic influence Erika Fuchs had in Germany. In Denmark we Sonja Rindom, with the same large imprint on our launguages. And after have read about Erika on wiki, i can see the the two translatørs, had a simular background and where born only 2 years apart. To the rest of the world, i can tell, that Germany and Denmark er neighbour contries, with different languages
And in Sweden it was people like PA Westrin!
@@tagelavechristensen7485
I'm so happy for this episode, covering the much neglected funny animal part of American comics history. Mickey has, of course, continued to be published in comic books here in Europe and still is, and especially in Italy there has been lots of high-action adventure - we Scandinavians preferDonald, for vaguely the same reasons people prefer Batman and Wolverine to Superman and Cyclops. ;) But when I grew up in Sweden, if you had asked me, as a kid, to name the greatest detective in comic books... it would have been Mickey Mouse, not Batman.
In America, at least in my generation, Mickey has been eclipsed by Donald Duck, or at least by Uncle Scrooge and the nephew trio because of the original Duck Tales cartoon and movies.
Yes, Donald was more interesting in the magazines (largely thanks to Carl Barks), but when I discovered a large collection of old Mickey adventures from the 30s and 40s at my local library I was very excited.
@@johnm.withersiv4352 Yeah. Here funny animal comics almost hold the position of superhero comics in the US, so that its perhaps the first thing people think of when you mention 'comics' - and while Donald dominates here as well, Mickey has a big part of comics as well. Basically, the importance of comics vs cartoons are reversed compared to the US. :) Of course, that means that when you did get Ducktales etc here as well, you got an equivalent to comic nerds going "ITS NOT LIKE THE COMICS ITS WROOOOONG!" about Batman or whatecer. XD
That is super interesting. I feel like we in the States just recognize Mickey Mouse as the "mascot" of the company but I don't think he's anyone's favorite (at least more contemporary, I was born in the 80s).
I found a bigger fan base in Uncle Scrooge and Goofy among those in my age group.
@@lakrids-pibe As I said, when I grew up most adventures with Mickey Mouse - even the ones from the 60s or 70s - had him as a detective or the like - they were adventure stories. :)
Given the timing of Steamboat Willie entering the public domain, I was hoping you'd spend some time talking about The Uncensored Mouse, when in the 1980s Eternity mistakenly believed that some of the strips had entered the public domain, started reprinting them, and then naturally got sued by Disney.
Someday I’ll do an episode about Eternity which has some crazy history.
@@ComicTropes Speaking of Eternity ... how about doing a video on Quality Comics' Kid Eternity, whose suspiciously similar origin to Captain Marvel, jr.'s prompted DC writer/historian E. Nelson Bridwell to write a story in the 1980s revealing that he was Freddy Freeman's long-lost brother Chris "Kit" Freeman ("Kit" Eternity -- get it?)?
The 2d animated cartoons from just a couple years ago were shockingly great, and Mickey definitely had a personality in them!
Look for “Mickey Shorts” - he even has the old pie eyes!
Was pleasantly surprised by them as well, not masterpieces probably, but very funny and refreshingly not too " sanitized"
@@Eisenwulf666
Sanitized?
You FINALLY covered Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse!
Yeah this version of the character really surprised me. He reminds me of belgian comic heroes like Tintin and Spirou.
Are you gonna cover E.C.Segar's version of Popeye, one day?
I’d like to. With such a long history, gathering the right images across the many decades will take a lot of time.
@@ComicTropes I have four of the six volume reprints. Maybe I can help?
Wow. You uploaded at the exact moment I searched for a Comic Tropes video. That's service!
I would love to see you getting into how Topolino evolved and Italy became the "house" for a lot of Disney comic works.
Mikey Mouse and the rest of Disney gang (Donal Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Goofy, etc.) are still so popular in Italy that the weekly "Topolino" magazine features stories written and drawn by Italian authors and characters created by them, such as Paperinik, Donald Duck's ("Paperino" in Italian) superhero alter-ego.
Italian stories and characters are quite popular in german-speaking regions too.
I Always loved paperinik (here he's called "Phantomias") and Doubleduck. @@furyomori3896
~in the german magazines are stories by artists from many different countries
Donald Duck's superhero alter-ego is called *The Steel Duck* (Stål-anden) in the danish translation.
The italian disney books are called "Jumbo Books" in Denmark. The printing format wasn't very common on the danish market when they were introducet.
...speaking of super heroes, did Floyd Gotfredson come up with *Super Goof* ? He first apears in 1965.
@@lakrids-pibe Nope. Super Goof was created by writer Bob Ogle and legendary creator Paul Murry.
One of my big regrets is that I lost my reprint of the Phantom Blot debut. That was a good story.
6:56 Later in that story, Mickey picks up a gun and basically says: "I'll make 100% sure it's a ghost."
The history of early Disney and Mickey Mouse is so fascinating, amazing to finally get an in depth look at that history in terms of the comics and the people that made them.
After 100 years and a sharp decline it's nice to see that WE are properly looking back on it's history better then Disney themselves...
You said Gottfredson didn't give a supporting cast to Mickey as Barks did to Donald, but it's not true: other than Eega Beeva, his pet Pflip and Morty and Ferdie he created Chief O'Hara, detective Casey, colonel Doberman, Mortimer Mouse, Patricia Pigg, Doctor Einmug and shined in the creation of villains like the Phantom Blot (who is said to be Walt Disney caricature), Joe Piper, the Rhyming Man, Dr. Vulture and Kat Nipp, of course...
Mickey needs a static cast of co-stars less than Donald imo because, as an adventurous character as you pointed out, after the first story-arcs of the 30s set in the rural America of the great depression, these became more international: there is sci-fi as you pointed out, but there is also mystery, crimes and travel other than humour, there are criminals, thieves, royalties, spies. Mickey in the comics is more like Tintin, or a movie character played by Jimmy Stewart.
I'm just going to step in to say, Mickey does have a personality in other media, most notably in the 2013 Mickey Mouse cartoons, where he gets angry, jealous, greedy etc. He's still portrayed as a good boy, but that's our Mickey. Also in every single Mickey Mouse special feature I've seen him in (House of Mouse, Three Mousketeers), he was a pretty relatable protagonist. I don't take Mickey slander lying down, not in my clubhouse.
The influence of Gottfredson's work on the European and South American comics is unmeasurable. Here in Italy "Mickey Mouse Reporter" and "Outwits the Phantom Blot" are considered so povotal for the character and his supporting cast that the two canonically accepted jobs for Mickey are detective and journalist.
Granted, the modern version of Mickey is quite watered down compared to Gottfredson's work, but it's still far more characterized than the animated version.
Two little factoid for you all.
1) The reason why Mickey's comics weren't banned by the Fascist government was, allegedly, that Mussolini's children loved the character.
2) In the 1970s one of the main author that worked on the Italian comics for Mickey and Donald was Jerry Siegel. The story goes that the then director of the weekly magazine Topolino met Siegel during a trip at L.A. Having curated the Italian edition of Superman for a few years, he knew about Siegel and his predicament, so he offered him a chance to go back at writing comics.
Was going to write this! sono cresciuto con Topolino, è un peccato che molti dei capolavori di autori nostrani sono praticamente sconosciuti all' estero.
Siegel's disney stories are wild, he even made a new version of the toyman from superman
I bet many would be interested in a book collecting Siegel's Mickey stories.
@@oliverbrownlow5615 apparently he wrote 155 story for the Italian market - alternating between Mickey, Goofy, Donal and Scrooge - and he was instrumental in introducing ecological themes into the story (not to mention a number of really weird high sci-fi concepts).
@@domenicoruoppolo5875 I will check that article out. It is not shocking a ton of mangaka took influence and swipes from American comics back in day. Plus Tezuka is known for his love of Disney and even Carl Barks specifically. Sadly a lot of Japanese comics fans and some scholars like to act like Japanese comics basically sprang fully grown from the head of Zeus with little influence from the west.
It’s interesting how much Mickey evolved from his early years. The most recent I can think of when he had a personality closest to the comics was in the Mickey Mouse shorts from 2013
I have that whole reprint collection! I’ve always loved Floyd Godfredson‘s work and have felt that he has been largely ignored. My favorite tales included the Pirate Submarine, The Foreign Legion, as well as Island in the Sky. And the Bar-None Ranch!
Growing up in India I read a lot of Mickey Mouse comics. They were one of the most common American comic digests alongside Archie and King’s comic characters like Phantom at the time. Mickey Mouse comics were fun! A lot of Western setting from what I remember.
It’s kinda sad that Mickey had turned into such a mascot and brand logo that Disney doesn’t even make new shorts.
What do you mean “doesn’t make new shorts”? The most recent one (steamboat silly) came out in July 2023 which was just last year. Do you mean do that they don’t make many? Which is somewhat fair as steamboat silly was the only one for 2023 as far as I can tell though there were several in 2022. Or do you mean something else and I’m just missing it?
@@animasuperfreakgirl i think he just means that Mickey turned into more of a mascot than character, yeah the shorts are pretty cool but they recently just ended and there’s no other good Mickey content besides them, they could do so much more with him considering he’s the most popular cartoon character ever. Yet they just use him as the face of the Disney company with nothing really else to offer
I read tons of Mickey Mouse comics when I lived in Italy. Mickey Mouse is a lot more interesting as Topolino. There he is an adventurer and a spy at times, the stories are adventure based and Goofy is his clumsy sidekick. They are still popular to this day. On a side note, Donald Duck has a super hero persona in Italy, he's Paperinik.
Floyd was born in a town about 20 miles north of Salt Lake.
I grew up in the same town Don Bluth is from and these were both local art heroes to me when separate times they came and talked at schools I attended.
I def didn't have access to all these old comics but I love the clean artwork.
It's so cool to live in a era where these works are now easily accessible
This character development & universe expansion actually continued into the Walt Disney's Comics & Stories comic books, to differentiate them from the strip, which remained gag-a-day until the Disney Renaissance, which sparked the return of the adventure format, but these strips have almost never gotten reprints. The series ended in July 1995. There's a lot more stuff about the Disney comics that could be fun to cover; the Renaissance brought a few changes for example.
Not cruel or meanspirited, perhaps, definitely thoughtless, insensitive, and othering.
10:48 In 1932, there was a movie "Doctor X," based on the stage play from 1931, might be another influence for Doctors XXX, X, XX, and XXX, but they probably all fall into the "mad scientist" archetype. In the movie, there is a transformation machine that the killer uses to commit his murders unrecognized.
I hate this idea that characters like Mario, Mickey, or other mascot characters in their same vein have “no personality”. Do king, courageous, and mischievous not count as personality traits?? People only seem to make this argument of a character “finally having a personality!!” When it’s a depiction of them that’s cocky, arrogant, or mean. In the very clip before you even claim he’s “generic”, you see Mickey mocking Pete and quickly going stiff when he sees, showing him being a whimsical coward, a pretty distinct trait.
Learning about and being fascinated by things I’ve only been slightly interested in is the reason I love this channel. Keep up the good work, Chris!
Honestly, I think it's only more recent shorts that make him so generically nice, and even the 2013 series deconstructs it, but early shorts make him very mischievous and occasionally mean.
Edit: The silent versions of Plane Crazy and Galloping Gaucho are also public domain.
Great Video Man! I've never read the Floyd Gottfriedson Mickey comics, but I'll definitely check them out.
One thing that slightly bothered me though was how you talked down the classic Mickey Mouse cartoons a bit. As someone who's a big Golden Age of Animation fan, I like a lot of the classic Mickey Mouse cartoons. While the early Mickey cartoons from 1928-1931 don't have much plot or character and are more a showcase of synchronized sound, the cartoons from 1932-1938 are actually REALLY GOOD, particularly the B&W cartoons from 32-35. Cartoons like The Klondike Kid (1932), The Mail Pilot (1933), Shanghaied, Gulliver Mickey, and Two-Gun Mickey (all 1934) are action-packed adventures, that feel like animated versions of Gottfriedson's comics. There's also the aforementioned The Mad Doctor (1933) which is such a deliciously dark cartoon, as well as Mickey's Good Deed (1932) a surprisingly touching Depression-era story. There are also some fun ones like Barnyard Olympics, Touchdown Mickey (both 1932), Camping Out (1934) and Mickey's Gala Premier (1933) which is a great time capsule featuring celebrity caricatures of the 30s. In 1935 the Mickey Cartoons went to Colour beginning with The Band Concert - which is probably the best of his classic shorts - and he starred in some really good solo shorts like Thru the Mirror (1936) and Brave Little Tailor (1938) - but the focus of his cartoons began to shift to Donald and Goofy, particularly in the excellent trio shorts like Mickey's Service Station (1935) Moving Day (1936) Clock Cleaners and Lonesome Ghosts (both 1937).
I think when people say "Mickey Mouse in Boring," I think they're mostly referring to the cartoons from 1939 and onward (co-insiding around the time Fred Moore redesigned Mickey with his more modern look). Since these cartoons tend to get shown a lot more often than the Black & White cartoons, I think that's damaged the public perception of Mickey. Still I would recommend the above-mentioned cartoons.
Floyd Gottfredson was a fan of Roy Crane's Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy and Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates and portrayed Mickey as a teenaged adventurer even giving Mickey an adult mentor, Captain, later Colonel, Doberman, like the boy heroes of the other newspaper strips.
The Fantagraphics reprints of Floyds work are amazing. Love these meeces to pieces.
Haven't watched yet but...
HAD?!
Pretty sure he STILL have a personality in the comics;
He's infinitely more interesting there
The 2013 shorts also gave Mickey a personality
"Hand over that map or I'll run you so hard you'll wear out eight habeas-corpuses trying to get back!"
Holy fucking cow
“I’ll try not to get demonetized.”
Says that same man casually showing the swastika without censoring it first.
I don't understand why the Disney company often denies comics, especially where Mickey Mouse and friends are much more represented than in cartoons. If only people somehow knew more about it, especially the Phantom Blot who is Mickey's main rival. It's really sad how Disney turned the main characters into mascots. If only Disney would make animated adaptations of Disney comics, but I highly doubt that will happen. Good analysis.
15:06
Mickey does the "I'm outta here" from sonic cd.
"Now I'm gonna break you with my naked hands." - Mickey muthafuckin Mouse
Great EP as always. As a black reader of golden age comics, when I see the "minstrelized" characters, it causes a few reactions:
1. I feel for any of my people who had to live in a time so openly racist. As bad and regressive as things are today, it's nowhere near as brutal as this!
2. It reflects more on the passive, institutionalized racism of the creators and society. I'm not personally offended; I do not resemble these caricatures, no one I know does. Mickey, himself, is modeled on blackface minstrels and more resembles these racist tropes. And let's not ignore the potentially anti-Semitic "Shyster". It's just a reminder of a shittier era (that could return if we're not careful).
It's a lot like being a fan of rock music - a lot of these people were/are real pieces of garbage; you have to separate the art from the artist.
Nice "Chris as Paste-Pot Pete" fan art at the end, there!!
"Mickey, himself, is modeled on blackface minstrels and more resembles these racist tropes" He have a white face and you want him to be a back face, you really want to se racism in everything. Black-Pete is mostly a capten/boss/supervisor do that mean that Disney promote black people in leadership positions?
@@kirgan1000 I'm sorry you're triggered by the realities of American history, but that doesn't make it any less true.
@@MarsHottentot Trigger by what? I did also notice that you did not answer my questions.
How can a person who have a white face be a blackface?
If that sad persons are "black" Do that make Disney super progressive to have Black-Pete as a captain/boss/supervisor type of character.
Avoid the questions, give nonsense answer or make a personal attack, show that you are so institutionalized indoctrinated that you cant answer.
Really good episode, Chris! I think it would be great if you featured more comic strips. There are so many you could be doing a deep dive into; Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Secret Agent X-9, etc. There's so many out there and some great creators that you could talk about. I'm excited to see what you come up with!
I did do a Dick Tracy episode and the others are all possibilities.
@ComicTropes I'll take a look for that episode, Chris. Thanks!
Apparently, I already watched the Dick Tracy episode ages ago and liked it! Probably before I knew your channel. But you've got a great back-catalogue, and I'll be going through them when I can.
I am very fascinated by Terry and the Pirates.
I've only read some of the stories because I haven't been able to find them all. My local library had the entire collection of reprints at some point and I started reading them end to end... but then they disappeared from the shelves before I was finished.
I have no idea if they were stolen or what. Maybe they were removed because someone thinks the series is too problematic. The depictions of Asians is VERY outdated.
I'm a great admirer of Milton Caniff and his artwork. His usage of black and white contrasts is legendary. ...but those chinese bandits are a product of the time, there's no way around it.
I would still love to read it.
@@lakrids-pibe Milton Caniff's work was brilliant!
Floyd Gottfredson was a genius as great as Carl Barks, actually Carl Baks was first influenced by FG
Believe it or not, Walt Disney himself was the one who suggested the suicide plot line.
Love the gottfredson Mickey comics faves are the bat bandit and 7 haunts
Here in Australia we often had local comics that were reprints of American comics and Mickey was one of those titles. I remember enjoying the many detective Mickey stories and his battles with the Phantom Blot among others. Originally by Floyd they were added to in the comics by Paul Mury. Also fun was the brief super spy era, using a very different realistic style for all the other characters besides Mickey and Goofy.
Mickey Mouse comics (and Donald Duck) were probably the first comics I got as a child, and of course they were much newer but art style was very much based off this guy's work, and although Mikey was not as trigger happy as his past self, there are still was a lot of adventure and mysteries
Wow, thank you for bringing these wonderful strips to my attention. The first thing I did after watching your video was order Fantagraphic's first volume of the dailies.
How can you sit here and say that Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie is "generically nice" when he spends the majority of that cartoon sadistically torturing animals and is constantly seen as being pleased by their squeals, extreme discomfort and suffering as he constantly hits, abuses, and very clearly hurts them to produce pained sounds from them which he's overjoyed at? The way I could describe him in that cartoon is as a psychopathic sadist.
This was great! I would love to see Carl Barks get the Comic Tropes treatment some day!
Why is it that Print and Black and White Books can get away with the Craziest and Edgiest developments and spectacles?!?
Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey comic strips were pretty fun. I read a bunch of them when I was a little kid and Gladstone comics was republishing them
The recolored version of Blaggard Castle looks creepy as hell (the story itself is much more light-hearted)
Yoo gotta do an episode on Carl Barks' duck comics!
I am surprised that in this episode you did not mention one of the major influences on the strip and the artist is Roy Crane Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy which started in 1924. Which the artist and historian have mention was a major influence on the artist.
I got a collection from the late 40s which some granny gave me as a kid. Its in a bad shape but I consider restoring it. Mickey does things we'd never see again, its more like Indiana Jones. Like there's that legendary ghost comic where smugglers disguise as ghosts and Mickey friggin fires a gun at them to see if they're fake.
*The Phantom Blot* was one of Floyd Gottfredson characters created in 1939. He was still around in the magazines I read in my childhood.
I think I've read most of those old adverntures from the 1930s and 1940s. ...if not all of them. I'm a big fan.
"Mickey Mouse in Death Valley", "The Great Orphanage Robbery", Mickey Mouse in the foreign legion, as a whaler, as a farm worker who helps with the grain harvest, and the many stories where he is a pilot. It's all great.
It's about time Mickey was seen as a rebellious teen again since Steamboat Willie became public domain, he's like the 1930s equivalent of Sonic the Hedgehog.
1:18 I actually had an interesting idea about that. I came up for a concept for a Steamboat Willie movie. So it’d be live action taking place in a Victorian era world. The characters are all human and Willie (The Mickey character) is a mischievous, slightly greedy type that gets himself into trouble, he lives on a barge boat with Patrick (Pete from the cartoon) and they basically deliver animals and other random cargo to various places, one day an actress needs to catch the barge before she gets caught by the gangsters pursuing her, her name is Millie (Minnie) and it turns out she stole a mcguffin from the criminals that they murdered her father for. (It might be evidence, a map, an ancient object idk) and basically it’d be like a better version of Dolittle with a ship full of animals as they race to get wherever they’re going. Willie is kind of crazed like Jack Sparrow and for a fun joke reference Patrick says “I’m not even going to tell you what he’s done to the pigs!” But that’s all the ideas I’ve had so far for a concept. I think we could use an adventure film in the same vein as Pirates of The Caribbean or Jumamji The Next Level. Like let’s bring adventure films back! lol 😂(thank you for reading this long idea)
In the classic shorts Mickey is a rascal who means well but gets in trouble
I had no idea Mickey was such a great comc ! I have been reading some now from the 40 s , and its funny as hell, and very entertaining! So you did it again Chris , i learned something that gave me such fun !!!! Thank you Brother !
As a 70's kid we watched a very simplified Popeye on TV, and it was a shock if you managed to find the Segar strips. The only mainstream hint of them was the Robin Williams movie that had so much more character and flavor than the cartoons.
My grandfather had a tonne of old mickey mouse comics. My favourites were The Phantom Blot ones with the death traps he would set to try to kill Mickey. So much fun!
I think Mickey has a personality especially Wayne Allwine’s Mickey, Kingdom Hearts, Three Musketeers, and the 2013 Mickey series in my opinion.
Wow. I enjoyed that much much more than I thought I would. Thanks again!
Mickey is still popular in Europe. Was in Netherlands last year and it was the only American comic you can find in their airport. Localized of course.
Did you hear that Mickie and Minnie just got divorced? There was a funny moment in court. The judge said "Mickie, I can't grant you a divorce just because you say Minnie is crazy." Mickey replied "Your Honor, you misunderstand. I didn't say she was crazy. I said she was f***ing Goofy!"
🤣
That's brilliant! 😂
That joke's so old you oughtta hang it up in the museum, instead of sticking it here
@@d-manthecaptain1382that comment's so unnecessary you should call it "home alone 3"
They have not divorced
You should cover the phantom comic strips...I always found the legacy character concept to be an interesting one 0:56
Great video as always on Mickeys strip work.
As you alluded in the outro comic books are different, but the Mickey in Walt Disney Comics and Stories is much more the dynamic adventurer of the strip than the mouse of animation. WDC&S was a quality book with Barks Donald and adventure Mickey!
The idea of Mickey Mouse owning a gun is blowing my mind
In a "Donald Duck Pocket Book" anniversary edition (either Donald Duck's or Goofy's Birthday") They had a small article about how the creation of more characters led to a transformation of Mickey Mouse. The angry world adventurer characteristics shifted to Donald Duck, while his aloof silliness was put onto Goofy. In todays "Lustige Taschenbücher" (Donald Duck Pocket Books) Mickey is usually portrayed as a Private Investigator.
When the Mickey comic where he tries to terminate himself becomes Public Domain, someone please animate that into a short.
Recommendations for future episodes on old comic strips?
_Krazy Kat_ all the way!
yes! i hope we get a Krazy Kat video soon. just bought fantagraphics’ first volume, and i am loving it
i adore gotfredsons strip and he did a lot for world buiilding let alone he invented the phantom blot and chief o hara both are still used and famous in disney comic today
I feel like people really need to check out the 2013 Micky Mouse shorts and the Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse follow up. Kids these days don't think of Mickey as having no personality. They think he's so nice that it shoots around the moon and becomes funny again.
I got a positively huge book for Christmas one day, it was all Gottfredson stories. It was in French and there was a bit I never understood, thinking back it's probably American slang or some pun that they simply failed to translate properly. IIRC it was Mickey on the Farm, helping out during WWII, when he was too small to be a soldier and is sent to a farm to do his bit for the nation.
Many of these stories were printed in Europe, making them extremely popular and we knew about Carl Barks around the end of the 1970's. I have a Dutch Donald Duck 50th anniversary book that mentions all the collaborators who worked on Donald Duck including Barks.
The story you're thinking of is called "The Black Crow Mystery", it's included in volume 7 of The Mickey Mouse Floyd Gottfredson Library.
For comic strips, I always remember Prince Valiant being hard to get into because it felt like I had to jump into the middle of a story I had no context for. I had no idea it started like 45 years before I was born.
Mickey Mouse comics and Donald Duck comics were very popular in Mexico when I was a kid (80's). I was more into superheroes but I I remember those Donald and Mickey comics to be very entertaining. Great episode, Chris!
Thank you for this great episode. I am a big fan of early Disney comics.
It's also worth mentioning that the creators on the comics were kept secret. They wanted to make it appear like Walt personally did all of them, even having his signature. Carl Barks was known as the Duck man and Flyod Gottfredson was known as the Mouse man. His identity was revealed in the mid 60s by a fan.
The Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie was a hitman for the Black Hand.
“cartoon shorthand”
Sincere appreciation for such eloquent articulation. It’s so easy these days to dismissively follow our natural knee-jerk reaction to such images. But it’s unfairly and commonplace to villainize those creators instead of providing any attempt at understanding the cultural context. By adding two simple words, you do so much to elevate this retrospective and help to maintain a measure of credibility for the artists in the ever evolving face of progress.
Thank you.
Here’s hoping someday Fantagraphics might tackle “Monster Society of Evil”.
I believe another company (Their name escapes me at the moment) has reprinted that story, though it's not restored, just the ray scans you'd find online, we'll still be waiting on a proper rerelease.
@@d-manthecaptain1382
Thanks! And also, there was a proper limited deluxe hardcover (credited to Mike Higgs & “Hawk Books”) released decades ago now; but that’s ridiculously unaffordable at this point.
Mickey has some nice guns in those early comic strips. Well depicted.
Holy Crap I didn't know my home state and not to mention near were I live that Floyd was from Kaysville, now that I think about it I think some of his family still lives in Utah but I could be wrong.
I would love an episode about Calvin and Hobbes. I think what Watterson went through with syndication and big businesses breathing down his throat is interesting.
Alot of this feels like if Mickey was a Warner Bros character
Great episode as always. If you're branching into comic strips, I have to nominate Walt Kelly's Pogo - it's got funny animals, brilliant use of language and dialogue, and was politically important, too. (also Hal Foster's Prince Valiant - just amazing art, and a really fun read, and the Phantom, because he kicks ass!)
Steamboat Willie was a parody of another movie from that same year
I think an argument could be made that it is more accurate to say that they're both inspired by the same song, Steamboat Willie doesn't really carry anything over from Steamboat Bill Jr apart from, well, steamboats.
4:34 i never knew that the famous Hollywood letters once spelled out Hollywood Land.
Personal connection here, but my mother went to school with one of Walt Kelly's daughters, so I really think Pogo would be an amazing choice.
If you haven’t done a video on Carl Barks and how he defined Donald and created Scrooge McDuck, that would be a great episode.
I read a lot of European Disney Comics over the pandemic with my nephew. I just finished the first two Floyd books and the Christmas themed Carl Barks and company Duck books. I love how action packed so much of this stuff is. Reading Floyd's Mickey I can easily see how much his work influenced all Disney comics that cam after.
"Generically nice" *Shows clips from steamboat willie where half the comedy is Mickey abusing animals*
Growing up in Germany, we had (and most of us 70s, 80s kids loved) "Lustige Taschenbuecher" (Funny Pocketbooks). These usually presented 5 or 6 adventures within the Mickey Mouse ecosystem or the Duck Universe. These were gangster, crime, sci-fi, and adventure stories. For the most part these were drawn in Italy but occasionally a Barks story showed up too. The art was very consistent and it was my main source of adventure stories as a child. I knew Mickey and DOnald that way before I watched the cartoons. Always preferred the comics.
Mikey Mouse and the rest of Disney gang (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Goofy, etc.) are still so popular in Italy that the weekly "Topolino" magazine features stories written and drawn by Italian authors and characters created by them, such as Paperinik, Donald Duck's ("Paperino" in Italian) superhero alter-ego.
Oh wow, I love these type of comics. It's the stuff I would collect more than Super Heroes.
Definitely want a calvin and hobbs video
As a kid, I had a good quality reprint of Gottfredson's MM story, "The Bat Bandit of Inferno Gulch". I loved it!
I'd love to see an episode on Carl barks comics too! That stuff is wonderful. I'd recommend the 2013-2023 Mickey shorts, those are great and give Mickey more of a personality too.
"mickey mouse is generically nice"
*mickey proceeds to abuse animals to make music*
Not sure if it was a Dutch/Flemish thing but I did read Mickey's Adventures as a child which was a pocket sized bundle containing a standalone MM Comic but also included Treasure Island amongst others.
What a great episode! Thanks for this, Chris. I'm curious if Mickey's comic adventures changed in the 1950s due, in part, to the rise and popularity of The Mickey Mouse Club and how he was presented to the public through television at the time.
I Hope these Comics Inspired more Mickey Mouse Cartoons. This is the True Potential of Disney and Mickey Mouse in Paper!
Mickey Mouse's sci-fi phase sounds so interesting. Have to try to look for those stories.
Another great episode Chris! Have a great 2024, man!
I recently sold my copies of both issues of The Uncensored Mouse. I'm a little surprised you didn't mention The Uncensored Mouse in this video. Until that Fantagraphics volume, it was the only time those early controversial strips had been reprinted in the U.S. And there's an interesting legal history involved too.
YES IM SO GLAD U DID THIS! ub and win and all the staff took care to make this universe definitive
win smith also filled in as an artist along with jack king before gottfredson, and even a bit after wards he did a few stories. Win also was an animator at disney
He had a personality in the old cartoons in the 1920's and early 1930's as well.
He used to be an egotistical creepy jerk. He even sexually assaulted Minnie, twice.