Vintage Funnies

Not long ago I got this collection of Vintage Funnies pictured above. Or the lot actually consists of Favorite Funnies 1-12, Golden Funnies 1-15 and Vintage Funnies 16-60, but they are all basically the same thing. Favorite Funnies and Golden Funnies were two different series published at the same time, while Vintage Funnies is just a new name for Golden Funnies. The name changed after #15 and according to comics.org the series lasted up to #100.

Favorite Funnies #1 and Golden Funnies #1

Golden Funnies #15 and Vintage Funnies #16 after the name changed

This newspaper sized series from the 70's reprints old newspaper comic and has everything from Superman to Krazy Kat inside. And from Vintage Funnies #29 the series also has Disney comics.
 

Sunday pages and daily strips in Vintage Funnies

The first three issues had one page with some randomly chosen Sunday pages with Silly Symphony and Mickey Mouse. But after that Vintage Funnies started printing Mickey Mouse daily strips in chronological order, usually with 6 strips (Monday to Saturday) in each issue. The source looks like are newspaper clippings probably from private collections, so the reprint quality is not that good.
 

Editorial text in Vintage Funnies #29

From the editorial text in #29, it sounds like the plan was to reprint the Mickey Mouse daily strips from the beginning, but that didn't happen. The daily strips start in the middle of "Death Valley" with the first half of July 14th, 1930 strip as an introduction and then with the strips chronologically from July 7th, 1930 and onwards. I'm glad I got this print of the introduction strip (at least half of it) because the size is huge compared to the reprint in the Floyd Gottfredson library! There you can barely read the text.

 

Vintage Funnies #32 and the Floyd Gottredson library vol.1

This might only be for people with a special interest, but I made an index of all daily strips up to issue #60. I know the strip continued after this too (if anyone knows for how long please tell)

I used the inducks way to code the different strips, so:

ZS = Silly Symphony Sunday page
ZM = Mickey Mouse Sunday page
YM = Mickey Mouse daily strip

32-07-10 = 1932-July-10th

Issue	Content
29	ZS 32-07-10,ZM 32-07-10
30	ZS 34-01-14,ZM 34-01-14
31	ZS 34-03-25,ZM 34-03-25
32	YM 30-07-14 (first half as intro),YM 30-07-07,YM 30-07-08,YM 30-07-09,YM 30-07-10
33	YM 30-07-11,YM 30-07-12,YM 30-07-16,YM 30-07-17,YM 30-07-18,YM 30-07-19 (half of YM 30-07-14 used as intro in last issue, YM 30-07-15 missing)
34	YM 30-07-21,YM 30-07-22,YM 30-07-23,YM 30-07-24,YM 30-07-25,YM 30-07-26
35	YM 30-07-28,YM 30-07-29,YM 30-07-30,YM 30-07-31,YM 30-08-01,YM 30-08-02
36	YM 30-08-04,YM 30-08-05,YM 30-08-06,YM 30-08-07,YM 30-08-08,YM 30-08-09
37	YM 30-08-11,YM 30-08-12,YM 30-08-13,YM 30-08-14,YM 30-08-15,YM 30-08-16
38	YM 30-08-18,YM 30-08-19,YM 30-08-20,YM 30-08-21,YM 30-08-22,YM 30-08-23
39	YM 30-08-25,YM 30-08-26,YM 30-08-27,YM 30-08-28,YM 30-08-29,YM 30-08-30
40	YM 30-09-01,YM 30-09-02,YM 30-09-03,YM 30-09-04,YM 30-09-05,YM 30-09-06
41	YM 30-09-08,YM 30-09-09,YM 30-09-10,YM 30-09-11,YM 30-09-12,YM 30-09-13
42	YM 30-09-15,YM 30-09-16,YM 30-09-17,YM 30-09-18,YM 30-09-19,YM 30-09-20
43	YM 30-09-22,YM 30-09-23,YM 30-09-24,YM 30-09-25,YM 30-09-26,YM 30-09-27
44	YM 30-09-29,YM 30-09-30,YM 30-10-01,YM 30-10-02,YM 30-10-03,YM 30-10-04
45	YM 30-10-06,YM 30-10-07,YM 30-10-08,YM 30-10-09,YM 30-10-10,YM 30-10-11
46	YM 30-10-13,YM 30-10-14,YM 30-10-15,YM 30-10-16,YM 30-10-17,YM 30-10-18
47	YM 30-10-20,YM 30-10-21,YM 30-10-22,YM 30-10-23,YM 30-10-24,YM 30-10-25
48	YM 30-10-27,YM 30-10-28,YM 30-10-29,YM 30-10-30,YM 30-10-31,YM 30-11-01
49	YM 30-11-03,YM 30-11-04,YM 30-11-05,YM 30-11-06,YM 30-11-07,YM 30-11-08 (part of panel missing)
50	YM 30-11-10,YM 30-11-11,YM 30-11-12,YM 30-11-13,YM 30-11-15 (YM 30-11-14 missing)
51	YM 30-11-17,YM 30-11-18,YM 30-11-19,YM 30-11-20,YM 30-11-21,YM 30-11-22
52	YM 30-11-24,YM 30-11-25,YM 30-11-26,YM 30-11-27,YM 30-11-28,YM 30-11-29
53	YM 30-12-01,YM 30-12-02,YM 30-12-03,YM 30-12-04,YM 30-12-05,YM 30-12-06
54	YM 30-12-08,YM 30-12-09,YM 30-12-10,YM 30-12-11,YM 30-12-12,YM 30-12-13
55	YM 30-12-15,YM 30-12-16,YM 30-12-17,YM 30-12-18,YM 30-12-19,YM 30-12-20
56	YM 30-12-23,YM 30-12-24,YM 30-12-25,YM 30-12-26,YM 30-12-27 (YM 30-12-22 missing)
57	YM 31-01-05,YM 31-01-06,YM 31-01-07,YM 31-01-08,YM 31-01-09,YM 31-01-10 (worng order, should have been printed in next issue)
58	YM 30-12-29,YM 30-12-30,YM 30-12-31,YM 31-01-01,YM 31-01-02,YM 31-01-03 (worng order, should have been printed in the previous issue)
59	YM 31-01-12,YM 31-01-13,YM 31-01-14,YM 31-01-15,YM 31-01-16,YM 31-01-17
60	YM 31-01-19,YM 31-01-20,YM 31-01-21,YM 31-01-22,YM 31-01-23,YM 31-01-24

As you can see there are some strips missing in-between, and it looks like one of the source clippings had a tear. So in addition to the bad reproduction quality this is not the collection to get if you want to read a full run of the strips. For that I recommend the Floyd Gottfredson library published by Fantagraphics.

YM 30-11-14 missing in #50 (not the 13th as the note say)

YM 30-12-22 missing in #56

Part of the panel is missing in the source used in #49

 

When making the index I actually used the Fantagraphics book as a guide to easily spot if something was missing. And by doing that I noticed something interesting that was missing in the book too! The end caption panel in the YM 30-12-06 strip is actually missing in the Fantagraphics collection.
 

YM 30-12-06 in the Floyd Gottfredson library vol.1 (top) and Vintage Funnies #53 (bottom)

To get the strip the same size as the rest it looks like the entire strip is scaled in width, so the proportion in the book is all wrong too compared to the original. It's easier to notice this by comparing the first two panels to the strip the day before. They should be about the same size, but as you can see in the picture above they are not in the Fantagraphics book.

I've seen scans from the German "Comic Buch Club" edition and I have the same strip in the British Disney Mirror #149. Both have the missing caption panel, so it couldn't have been that hard to find a source with it when compiling the book.

How the YM 30-12-06 strip originally looked (clickt to enlarge)

Collection of Mickey Mouse strips from Club Anni Trenta

On a Norwegian auction site I recently saw the book pictured above as part of a lot. Only the blue cover with "Mickey Mouse" was shown with no additional details, so I had no idea what book this was. When trying to find out my curiosity grew more and more, and in the end I just had to make a bid! Well, now I have the book in my hands and can solve the mystery.

Illustration in the beginning of the book

I half suspected it was a privately bound book or hoping it was one of the early rare bound edition of the German Floyd Gottfredson collection (from before the Comic Buch Club portfolio edition). It turned out to be something else, but it’s still a rare book I believe.

First page with comics

Last page with comics

The book is a collection of all 1932 daily strips with Mickey Mouse except the Blaggard Castle ones starting Nov. 12 and onwards. All strips have the original English dialogue, but the book is published by the Italian Club "Anni Trenta" probably in 1971.

Copyright text, click image to enlarge

On the copyright page we can read:

Copie in tiratura limitatissima, strettamente riservate ai Soci che se ne ripartiscono le spese, di cui è vietata la vendita in edicola e librerie.

I’m not going to even try my own translation, by this is the exact text google translate say:

In limited edition copies, strictly reserved to the shareholders that they share the expenses, which are prohibited from sale in newsstands and bookstores.

So it sounds like the book is only published and distributed to the members of the club, and was not for sale in any bookshops.

Inside the book

Searching the web I found some more information. According to a forum post on papersera.net a softcover edition with a white cover and the cover title "Mickey Mouse 1932" also exist.

And according to a post on another forum some copies have a stamp inside (my copy does not).

Image from the Collezionismo Fumetti forum

Image from an eBay listing

I think the stamp say something about this being an edition out of print, a free copy (not for sale) and it’s for educational purpose, almost like the text on the copyright page.

It’s a really nice book, and the printing quality is good too. And the strips are printed a lot larger than in the Fantagraphics collection.
 

Fantagrapics' Floyd Gottfredson collection vol.2 (top) and the Club "Anni Trenta" book (bottom)

The Floyd Gottfredson Library volume 7 & 8

I like to get the box sets of the Floyd Gottfredson Library from Fantagraphics, and usually I get them in the mail right before Christmas. This year however I didn’t get them until after I got home from the holiday vacation, so I still haven’t found the time to read all of it. But from what I’ve read so far I have just one thing to say; you need to get these books now!
 
The 4th box set collects all the daily Mickey strips from May 1942 to July 1946, and as usual the books are packed with articles and bonus material.
 
The highlight from what I’ve read so far are the rare gag-a-day strips made for British newspapers. I had no idea they even existed! As the British newspapers ran the daily strips seven days a week instead of 6 days a week, 11 filler strips were made. They re-used art from previous adventure strips to make new gag stories, and it’s a lot of fun trying to compare the art.
 
Here is one example. The following two panels are from the British filler strip, published July 13, 1930.

 

The art is from 3 different panels in "Mickey Mouse In Death Valley” (found in Floyd Gottfredson library vol.1)

Among all the goodies in this box set is an "Appreciation by Casty" article.  The article is illustrated with two great covers made for the Norwegian "Mikke Mus & Langbein" ("Mickey Mouse & Goofy") Christmas comics.

 

But the cover for "The Black Crow Mystery" printed in the book is actually not the version used in Norway! As you can see on the picture of the two comics in question, in the published cover the crow holds a club, while in the illustration used in the book he has a bomb instead.

 

Norwegian Christmas comics with Casty covers

I might come back to this box set in a future blogpost. But I’ll end this one with a side note.

There’s also an "Appreciation by Cavazzano" article in volume 8, illustrated with a cover drawing from Topolino.

But did you know that this cover was almost used for an American comic too? The planned but canceled Walt Disney’s Comics #720 from Boom! was supposed to have the cover and the story "Topolino e il surreale viaggio nel destino" (featuring Walt Disney and Salvador Dali). According to the article the English title is "The Persistence of Mickey", but as far as I know no English translation has been published yet. If any archival editors (hint hint) read this, I hope we get to see it some day!

Planned but canceled issue of Walt Disney's Comics

Mickey's birthday in the daily newspaper strips

Today is Mickey’s birthday, isn’t it? Well, now days the birthday is considered to be November 18, 1928, the day of the "Steamboat Willie" premiere. But according to the daily newspaper strips in 1935, September 28 is the big day!

The event starts with an ad in the newspapers a few days before:

The ad is accompanied with a short article, telling us there will be a birthday party in the comic strip September 28th. And then the article goes on with a lot of bragging, so this is probably written by Disney’s publicity department. The scans below are from Sarasota Herald, September 26, 1935.

From Sarasota Herald, September 26, 1935

From Sarasota Herald, September 26, 1935

The birthday party is made as an epilog of the Gottfredson story "Race for Riches" (found in the Floyd Gottfredson Library vol.3). The story pretty much ends September 26., and the next strip takes place sometime later when Mickey & Co. is back home again. We can see Mickey hinting about his party at the end of the September 27 strip.

Mickey Mouse daily strip, September 27, 1935 - drawn by Floyd Gottfredson

And then on September 28, we finally get the big party.

Mickey Mouse daily strip, September 28, 1935 - drawn by Floyd Gottfredson

I’ve tried to do a little research into why they used this date. Is it a story behind, or did they just randomly choose one. Maybe it’s simply because "Race for Riches" ended at this point, and a comic strip celebration could be done in-between the next daily strip serial.

I got some clues in "A Mickey Mouse Reader", which I bought earlier this year. It’s a great collection of essays about Mickey Mouse, and highly recommended!

"A Mickey Mouse Reader" (2014), edited by Garry Apgar

On pg.4 we can read "Animation on Steamboat Willie was completed by late August 1928. The soundtrack was recorded on September 30^th. Which is why, throughout the 1930s, the studio fêted Mickey’s birthday on or about October 1st. In the 1970s, The Walt Disney Company began celebrating the event on November 18^th, since it was on that date in 1928 that Willie premiered […]"

On pg.128 in the same book, there’s a transcript from an article by Cholly Wood titled "Mickey Mouse is 7 Years Old Today". It was originally printed in Bridgeport Sunday Herald, September 29, 1935. I.e. the day after the birthday comic strip. 

About Mickey Mouse, the article say "The earth-spanning sprite was born—a few bold, humorous strokes on a sheet of clean paper—out of the imagination of Walt Disney, on Sept. 28, 1929"

I don’t know if 1929 is a typo in the transcript or in the original article, but it should probably be 1928. Or Mickey would be 6 years and not 7 as the title says. But still, we know that this is not true. Work on Plane Crazy (with Mickey) was done in the early 1928, and according to various Walt Disney biographies, he got the idea for Mickey during a train ride in 1927. And who actually did the character design for Mickey Mouse has been the subject for debate, some sources suggest it was mostly Ub Iwerks. But I’m not going to go more into that here. It would be interesting to know what source Cholly Wood had for the date "September 28" though. But I suspect it's just from a 1935 press release similar to the piece that was printed in Sarasota Herald.

Also, while doing some searching in online newspaper archives I found this article in The Ledger, September 10, 1978. Up to this date Nevada Library had been celebrating the birthday on September 19th.

From "The Ledger", September 10, 1978

If anyone know more about this, or can point me to sources for information about the celebration of Mickey’s birthday, please make a comment!

Update October 4, 2015

Mickey's 7th birthday was not only celebrated in the USA and in the newspaper strip. The British magazine Person's Weekly had a two page article about Mickey's birtdhay in the October 5, 1935 issue.

Person's Weekly No.2358, October 5, 1935

The most interesting part is the introduction:

The most famous mouse in the world celebrates his seventh birthday on September 28. In this country it is being held on October 1st. Mickey programmes will be shown in many cinemas; several firms selling Mickey Mouse products are conducting campaigns; and the B.B.C. is broadcasting a Mickey programme.

So it sounds like a big celebration was held in the U.K. October 1st, 1935. I wonder if a surviving recording of the BBC program exists, that would be fun to hear!

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

"Reform and Void" in Mickey Mouse #312

IDW's Mickey Mouse #3 (312), regular and subscription cover

I just picked up Mickey Mouse #312 (IDW’s #3). And this time it features one of a series of stories I’ve been waiting for a long time!

After decades of simple gag strips in the daily newspapers, they finally started making serialized Mickey Mouse stories again in the early 90’s. A few are remakes of old Gottfredson stories, but most are new originals. Equal for all is that they are really hard to find! Most are not reprinted in any comic books, at least not in English, and even in the newspapers they are a rare find. I've read most of them as bad newspaper scans found in online newspaper archives, but I’ve been waiting a long time for proper high quality reprint in a comic book. And even if I prefer reading the 30’s and 40’s Gottfredson serials in black and white, the ones from the 90’s looks a lot better colored I think.

One of these stories are printed in Mickey Mouse #312. It’s titled "Reform and Void" and were originally serialized in the newspapers from December 26, 1994 to January 14, 1995.

The story starts with Mickey making a reference to when he used the hypnotic ray on Ecks and Doublex (and Triplex) in "Blaggard Castle".
 

Here is that scene as seen in the original (daily strip December 1, 1933), the remake (daily strip February 15, 1994) and in a summary story in a 1993 Nabisco giveaway.

As in "Reform and Void" Professor Triplex does not appear in the 1994 remake of "Blaggard Castle".

So.. what are the reformed professors up to in this  new story? Well, I’m not going to spoil the entire story in this blog post, so you should go get a copy of Mickey Mouse #312 :) And if you are unfamiliar with the mad professors, go get the Floyd Gottredson Library vol.2 from Fantagraphics too.  That’s a series of books I can highly recommend!

Now, even if I really enjoyed reading "Reform and Void" I do have a little complaint. Personally I think this kind of irregular layout looks really messy. But I definitively would not want the panels to be completely remounted to fit the width of the comic. With the old newspaper strips I guess there’s no other alternative other than printing them other way like Gladstone used to do. But the 90’s strip could fit without having to break up the original strips over several rows, or make them too tiny. They need to be printed a little bit smaller and with a larger gap between each row, but I still think that would look a lot better than the current way of doing it:

To the lef: How IDW did the layout. To the right: How I'd prefer it was done.

  

Also, then they don’t need to cut or change the art at the end to make it fit, like was done this time

To the left: The original panel. To the right: IDW's edit.

 

***

A few bonus notes.

The setting of "Reform and Void" is a bit inconsistent with the other sequel to "Blaggard Castle". In "The Perils of Mickey" printed over several Disney Adventures magazines in 1993 and reprinted in the Floyd Gottfredson Library vol 2., the Phantom Blot has a slightly different story about what happened to the professors.

Ecks, Doublex and Triplex are not widely used in Dinsey comcis, and Gottfredson only used them once. Most of the (few) Egmont stories that features the professors already got printed in the USA by Gemstone, but a couple are still only printed in Europe. Here is a sample from the last one printed in Europe, where the professors kidnap Doc Static in a plot to make a robot army.

From a Swedish print of D 2007-413 (En skruv lös)

 One of the other rare newspaper serials from the 90’s features Doctor Doublecross, as seen in “The Riddle of the Runaway Sphinx” (Mickey Mouse Adventures #2, 1990). I really hope we get to see this one and some of the other Mickey serials from the 90’s in future IDW issues!

Daily strip, September 25, 1991