Mickey Mouse Actually Had a Personality... In the Comics!
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- Опубліковано 9 чер 2024
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Floyd Gottfredson was the artist and writer on Mickey Mouse comics from 1930 until 1975. And in the 30s and 40s, Mickey was quite an adventurer! This takes a look at the differences in the world building of the Mickey Mouse comics versus the early animated shorts as well as Floyd Gottfredson's career and history with Disney. - Розваги
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 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 🙂
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.
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?)?
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?
The original Popeye in his comic strip remarked often on his attraction for women, his sense of justice and his willingness to bop anyone on the nose for it. Mickey liked to drink beer. The more popular they became, the greater the pressure to make them for all ages. Sometimes I think only Bugs Bunny escaped this fate.
Not really. Bugs might have dodged the worst of it but he hasn't come into the new era unscathed.
Wow. You uploaded at the exact moment I searched for a Comic Tropes video. That's service!
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.
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?
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."
This is another case of where the IP has evolved into something more than when it was in its creators original hands. I have read a few of Mickey's Adventure Comics which to me felt like early Ducktales, but it was cool to see the mouse doing something outside of just being an ambassador for his company, or being a good natured guy! Mickey pretty much was your average Joe character, that when push comes to shove, he isn't taking anything down and was more than willing to fight for what he believes in! Thank you for revisiting Mickey and reminding us that he used to be more than just a happy go lucky character. Also, last time I ever saw a Mickey with a gun was the animated shorts where he was hosting a orchestra band( with broken instruments thanks to Goofy) and he forced Donald to get back to playing the drums! It was hysterical!
I love Gottfredson's art. In a weird way, it felt more authentic than the animations Disney was producing. Glad his designs have entered public domain so we can breathe some attention to the way he's impacted countless.
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.
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...
Another great episode! You've probably covered it, but how about Buck Rogers, and how wildly popular it was, and how the knock off (Flash Gordon) was better drawn, and seems to have longer lasting impact? Maybe an episode about comic book 'clubs' promoting comics, decoder rings, and other ephemera? Have you thought about converting your best viewed scripts into a book? (you've already done the research)
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.
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
Mickey still has a personality in the European comics, even if he isn't as nuanced of a character as Donald Duck. Mickey's more of a generic good guy character with no major personality flaws so he isn't as interesting by himself as Donald. But he still has a lot of good stories where he goes on an adventure or faces off against a villain (in a lot of his stories Mickey is either a reporter or a detective, which provides good opportunities to have him travel to different locations and interact with different characters). Mickey is a character whose stories are defined by the people and places he interacts with, in contrast to Donald who, while also having stories like that, he a lot of stories driven by his personality (specifically, his personality flaws, like being hot-tempered and having a tendency to let things go to his head whenever he succeeds in something, leading to him inevitably messing up).
So in other words, Mickey is kind of like the Tintin archetype.
@@AlkisenSuper yes general good, but a quite blank personality so the reader can project himself on him.
Yeah. And just like Tintin has Captain Haddock, Asterix has Obelix, Spirou has Fantasio, etc, Mickey has Goofy.:) @@AlkisenSuper
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!
Slight correction, the fantagraphics release only collects up until 1955, after which it became entirely gag a day instead of the earlier 50s mix of gag a day and adventure strips. Gottferdson went up until 1970, but these last 15 years were not collected
*I never realized that Mickey had such a personality.* 😊
Characters in the 30s (or, as certain politicians would have you believe, the good ol' days) were always trying to save an orphanage. This was such a common trope, I'm not sure which is worse, the fact there were so many orphans or that the orphanages were always on the verge of being foreclosed on.
Ha! Good point!
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.
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
Really appreciate that you highlight these more obsucre corners of comic history! Ive learned so much more about the art forms history and interconnected nature than I ever thought
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.
We had a phrase in the 90s that wed use to help those who were maybe a bit too sensitive to things...
"Buy a helmet".
Please please please make a video about Calvin and Hobbs
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
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!
I disagree that Mickey in Steamboat Willie is generically nice. He's definitely generic, but I'd say he leans towards selfish. He only cares about entertaining some girl, and is willing to assault a bunch of animals, and shirk his boat duties, to do so.
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
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 love that you're exploring the deeper history of comics, particularly the era of the strips. I think there's some fascinating parallels between the formats of the daily or weekly comic strips from the invention of the form to the development of the comic book that mirror developments and formats in webcomics over the past 20 years and into today, and I wonder about what we can glean for the future by examining the past. I look forward to seeing what you hit next!
1) 3:06 - I think "Animal Comics" is where the strip "Pogo (by Walt Kelly)" got it's start, *before* appearing in newspapers...
2) I'd start by balancing Mickey from the cartoons (of the era) and the comic books, to create the basis for Modern Mickey...
3) I *definitely need to get these books...
One of my favorite comic stories growing up was a Mickey Mouse story called "The Gleam" in some issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories my dad had, featuring Mickey having to catch a jewel thief while being presented with mounting evidence that Minnie is his accomplice. This even though it took me several years to finally get the third and final part of the story.
15:06
Mickey does the "I'm outta here" from sonic cd.
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!
Not cruel or meanspirited, perhaps, definitely thoughtless, insensitive, and othering.
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.
Haven't watched yet but...
HAD?!
Pretty sure he STILL have a personality in the comics;
He's infinitely more interesting there
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.
This was great! I would love to see Carl Barks get the Comic Tropes treatment some day!
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!
Believe it or not, Walt Disney himself was the one who suggested the suicide plot line.
Thank you for covering this work...I have the Fantagraphics hardcovers and was collecting these strips through Gladstone Comics years ago. Lifelong love for this strip.
Glad to see Mickey going public domain is leading to people discovering some of the more obscure aspects of the series
Love the gottfredson Mickey comics faves are the bat bandit and 7 haunts
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
*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.
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.
You should cover the phantom comic strips...I always found the legacy character concept to be an interesting one 0:56
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 !
The 2013 shorts also gave Mickey a personality
Wow. I enjoyed that much much more than I thought I would. Thanks again!
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.
I think Mickey has a personality especially Wayne Allwine’s Mickey, Kingdom Hearts, Three Musketeers, and the 2013 Mickey series in my opinion.
“I’ll try not to get demonetized.”
Says that same man casually showing the swastika without censoring it first.
Thanks for shedding light on these strips. Seem like fun and worth the purchase.
Friendship ended with Horace. Now Goofy is my best friend.
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.
Thank you for this great episode. I am a big fan of early Disney comics.
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.
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've been away bc I was more driven into politic content to try and educate myself. I was just reminded of how cool is your content.
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.
Great content as always! Those CBC Awards are looking good, too. 🙂👍👍👊
Love this, Chris! Well done!
"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
Loving the shelf this time around. All copies of your vampirella cover 😂
The cover looks great
You know a comic that I really enjoyed when I was a kid? When Donald duck was a superhero. Donald was Superduck! At least that's how he was known in those covers. The story depicted a Donald that was far more intelligent than anybody gave him credit for and one that secretly worked using gadgets invented by Gyro Gearloose, who also modified Donald's car and was kind of a Lucius Fox to him. The story changed lore in the two comics I read as a kid, but I remember that in one, Superduck is believed to be a ghost by the public (and known as Fantomius), and Donald uses his alter ego to get even with Scrooge McDuck and Gladstone Gander. I hope you can find those comics and get the chance to talk about them in a future video.
I believe that nowadays his American name is The Duck Avenger, some of his classic stories were printed for the first time in America during IDW's run of Donlad Duck comics, and his some of his 1990's series was also brought over here for the first time. I believe there was also a comic published by BOOM Comics translating stories about Donald's super hero alter ego, along with with the heroic personas of several other characters, going on adventures called "Disney's Hero Squad: Ultraheroes".
The first American printing of that 1969 story that introduced The Duck Acenger, the one in which he gets even with Scrooge McDuck and Gladstone Gander, was in IDW's Donald Duck issues 5-6 (372-373).
Awesome episode, Chris! Now I want to read the Fantagraphics books.
Chris, Thank you so much for this episode, it was wonderful, and I love Mickey Mouse -> sharing his adventure stories with my sons these days!
Would love to see an episode about Hanna Barbera crossover into Comics (jonny quest etc.) and/or Alex Toth. Also, you mentioned Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watson, that would be amazing! And every time you’ve brought up Donald Duck, I get excited for the potential ComicTropes episode exclusively on Carl barks and all the world-building of Duckburg! Can’t wait to find out who the mystery bizarre golden age comic book hero is next episode and until then keep up the great comic !
Love love love your delightful history lessons!
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.
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!
"Now I'm gonna break you with my naked hands." - Mickey muthafuckin Mouse
Great episode!
Thanks Chris
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.
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.
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)
fun episode! thanks chris
Why is it that Print and Black and White Books can get away with the Craziest and Edgiest developments and spectacles?!?
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.
Great video as always! Me and my friend are actually planning to make our own Mickey Mouse series someday where we bring him back to his roots where he's a globe trotting adventurer.
Great episode Chris ! I will surely look that up. What about an episode on Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon ?
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!
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!
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!)
4:34 i never knew that the famous Hollywood letters once spelled out Hollywood Land.
Yeah, the newer Mickey Mouse shorts by Paul Rudish give Mickey so much personality that he turned into Chaos Mickey
Floyd Gottfredson was a genius as great as Carl Barks, actually Carl Baks was first influenced by FG
I loved reading uncle Scrooge comics when I was a kid and would sometimes pick up Mickey and Donald as well. Not sure which era I read but I don’t remeber the Mickey stuff being super memorable. The Donald and Scrooge ones were always more adventure based from my memory
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
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
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!
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.