See that book up there? That's Volume One of the new reprinting of the Mickey Mouse newspaper strip by Floyd Gottfredson and a few other people. The folks at Fantagraphics Books, its publisher, were nice enough to send me an advance copy…and they were shrewd. Because they knew there was no way I could get one and not rush here to give it my highest possible rave and recommendation.
This is, first of all, superb material. If you've seen it elsewhere — some of this has been reprinted before but not like this — you know. If you haven't and you hear the name of M. Mouse and think of lightweight committee-produced froth — or if you knew this strip based on its last few decades of gag-a-day funnies — you don't know and need to. Way back when, it had a continuity and some darn good stories, illustrated with dynamic and expressive art. It was everything you could have wanted a newspaper strip to be, including being quite funny at times…and even suspenseful.
The book itself is perfect and by that I mean I can't think of a single way it could have been improved. The reproduction is sharp. The editorial material fills you in nicely about the history of the strip, plus there are articles that discuss its merits and significance. The volume itself is handsome and will look good on your shelf.
But it really was a great strip, way back when. In the eighties when Disney was first getting into TV animation, I was involved in a meeting to discuss which of their classic characters might make the leap to that marketplace. I suggested that they oughta do a show with Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge adapting or writing new episodes in the vein of the classic tales by Carl Barks. As it turned out, I was about the three hundredth person to suggest that. Custodians before me had proposed such a show and sure enough, a year or two later they did Duck Tales. But I may have been the first person to tell a Disney exec there — a man who had never heard the name, "Floyd Gottfredson" — that they oughta consider putting Mickey and Goofy into an adventure format based on the first decade or two of the newspaper strip. I also suggested taking a look at the Mickey Mouse serials that ran in the back of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, the ones drawn mainly by Paul Murry.
Everyone was enthused at the idea and for a few weeks there, it looked like it was going to happen. But then it fell apart and when I asked wha' happened?, I was told that there were simply too many people involved in any decision involving The Mouse. He was such a symbol of the company (and I guess, of Walt) that everybody in the Disney payroll had strident opinions about how Mickey should be depicted…and I don't mean just the folks in the entertainment division. Involved in every Mickey discussion were the merchandising divisions, the theme park operations, the folks who ran the Disney Stores, at least five of the Seven Dwarfs, the robot of Abe Lincoln at the park, past employees who'd been dead less than 25 years, etc. The people I was talking to had soured on the whole idea because of that. They'd realized how complicated it was going to be to do anything with Mickey…and I sure couldn't disagree.
Looking at the early newspaper strips, I sense a vital reason they were so good. Mickey wasn't the corporate icon he is today. I mean, there was lot of commerce centered on him but the folks there didn't play power games and office politics about who'd get to handle the firm's most valuable asset or worry that much about bespoiling his image. The comic strip guys (mainly Floyd) could just do the strip and if there was any disagreement over what was "right" for Mickey, someone could ask Walt and he'd rule and that would be the end of it. The heads of eighty-four different divisions did not get a vote.
I think that shows in the product. If you'd like to pre-order a copy of this splendid book and see how much fun Mickey can be, here's an Amazon link.