Comic Book Resources

This is actually the one-hundred and fourteenth in a series of examinations of comic book urban legends and whether they are true or false.

And I was so careful with the other stuff. Thanks, Michael!

Those Mickey Mouse things are the most terrifyingly bizarre treatments of a kiddie property I’ve ever seen–and I didn’t think anything would top Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble advertising cigarettes.

The Mickey Mouse stuff is bizarre, but when you read it in context with other stuff at the time it’s not so much– the very early Mickey Mouse cartoons are kind of cheerfully demented. Steamboat Bill has a lengthy sequence about chewing tobacco that seems right out of South Park, not a Disney cartoon.

Yes, I suppose it is more a commentary on how the present sanitizes the past than anything else–if someone did a cartoon adaptation of this today at Disney, they’d be lambasted for perverting the innocent spirit of the classic Disney characters, and someone would probably claim “Walt Disney is spinning in his grave”…

…which he would be, but only because he’d be irritated at not getting credit for suggesting it.

I’m very pleased to be in the same entry as those creepy Mickey Mouse strips. The sequence actually goes on for a long time. The final, silent panel in that first strip, where Mickey’s just reaching for the shotgun, always sends a chill up me. (There are some very racist strips early on, too.)

And I’d never heard the Matrix/Shadowrun theory until now. Funny!

How can one see the rest of the suicide strips along with the racist ones? I’m guessing Disney’s never going to officially release them. I’d like to see them.

Those Mickey Mouse things are the most terrifyingly bizarre treatments of a kiddie property I’ve ever seen…

Thing is, Mickey et al *weren’t* a kiddie property back then, any more than were the Looney Tunes gang or Tom & Jerry or any of the other classic characters. There was simply no context for age-appropriateness.

Early animated shorts were intended to be shown with whatever film that studio had in production at the time (as Chuck Jones once commented wryly, the Warner Bros shorts backed ‘Scarface’, ‘Public Enemy’ and similar wholesome family fare.)

Graeme,

the MM cartoon is Steamboat Willie. Steamboat Bill is a Buster Keaton movie.

the MM cartoon is Steamboat Willie. Steamboat Bill is a Buster Keaton movie.

and yet Disney actively attacks anyone who tries to use any part of THEIR work, despite being built on that foundation…

Excellent stuff, as always. I’d not heard the Shadowrun legend before, but seeing as (to the best of my knowledge) William Gibson coined the term ‘Matrix’ for a global computer network, it’d be hard to see how FASA could have any right to complain.

I’m very pleased to be in the same entry as those creepy Mickey Mouse strips. The sequence actually goes on for a long time. The final, silent panel in that first strip, where Mickey’s just reaching for the shotgun, always sends a chill up me. (There are some very racist strips early on, too.)

Definitely good company!

Thanks again for the help, Stuart!

Excellent stuff, as always. I’d not heard the Shadowrun legend before, but seeing as (to the best of my knowledge) William Gibson coined the term ‘Matrix’ for a global computer network, it’d be hard to see how FASA could have any right to complain.

Thanks!

With trademark, it doesn’t REALLY matter who originally coins the term (I mean, it has SOME impact, just not a lot), but mostly, it depends on who establishes the term in business (hence the term - trademark, meaning literally using the mark in trade). So Gibson could have invented the term and even used the term in books, but if he wasn’t using it as a title or in ads, etc., then he wouldn’t be able to get a trademark on it, while Shadowrun might have.

the MM cartoon is Steamboat Willie. Steamboat Bill is a Buster Keaton movie.

Always mixing them up! Thanks!

When would Gibson have coined the term? I know that a master computer system where people’s minds were stored was a part of the DOCTOR WHO mythos; the system showed up as early as 1976 or 1977; The Wikipedia entry on it (at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(Doctor_Who)) would seem to indicate that it predates Gibson’s usage.

Yeah, I have no idea if Gibson DID coin the term. Just saying that if he DID, he wouldn’t necessarily have any trademark rights to the term.

Like how the term “grifter” was used for years before Wildcats, but it is still a trademark.

Brian: You can probably make a follow up to the Mickey Mouse bit by doing one on the Uncensored Mouse comics from the 80s.

Brian: You can probably make a follow up to the Mickey Mouse bit by doing one on the Uncensored Mouse comics from the 80s.

Oooh…I DO like follow-ups!! Less work! Cheers, Jamie.

These Mickey Mouse strips must be the ones that AMAZING HEROES reported on way back. They said some small print house was going to put out a collection of bizarre and surreal 1930s MM newspaper strips which were definitely in the public domain, but Disney filed suit anyway. It was obvious that, even though the big corporation didn’t have a legal leg to stand on, fighting the suit was beyond the little publisher’s resources, and the project was dropped. Again, all this was according to AH.

Ssssshhh…Ted, you’re spilling the beans on the follow-up.

Those Mickey Mouse strips are FUCKINGAWESOME.

Agreed - I just had an opportunity to read them closely, and they’re absolutely hilarious. Great example of the surrealistic anarchy that prevailed in the very early years of animation.

Thank God Wrightson figured that out…what a terrible loss that would have been!

I have also read in a book, Disney approved a story line in the 40’s or 50’s(I think), in which Minny started dating, one Mortamor Mouse and as a result Mickey was going to commit suicide. Supposedly, the public was outraged and it never happened.

Nail polish, huh?
Great.
Now all he has to worry about is nail polish fumes…

Geez…can’t win for trying…lol.

The Mickey Mouse comics look hilarious.

What is that Frankenstein book by Wrightson? The artwork is Gorgeous.

Kudos to whoever scanned those Mickey strips — I knew about the films they want to remain out of public memory (including the original, very anti-semitic version of “The Three Little Pigs”) but not the comic strips. Too bad we have to wait until this extension of their original copyrights is over before they can be published/released from the public domain: it shows a much different view of ‘Uncle’ Walt and his creations that should be out there!

That first MM strip is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

That Frankenstein art is amazing, and I am surprised that those Mickey Mouse strips are real. What was Walt Disney thinking about at that time?

Real bizarre stuff, that Mickey strip. Now, I don’t agree with the current paranoia of shielding kids from any material that could contain “strong” themes, but the one thing I’d never give a kid would be a comic strip showing a popular character trying out various suicide methods. Jeez!

Though I also have to say, most worrisome adults forget that kids just see things differently. I have distinct memories of reading bits of Watchmen as a young child, and a scene that would horrify a worrying mother (the Comedian raping Sally), just caused me slight puzzlement that I quickly got over. Lacking the maturity to understand the concepts involved in rape, the scene just rolled off me like water off a duck’s back. I was much more interested in how Dr. Manhattan was blue…

I’ve seen a very old “Felix the Cat” cartoon that ends with Felix getting his girlfriend pregnant and sticking a gas pipe in his mouth.

“I remember, at the time, being sure that years later I’d go to the theater and they’d have changed the movie’s title to ‘THE LATTICE,’ or something. That would have been too much.”

As the story goes, the second “Star Trek” movie was originally supposed to be called “The Vengeance of Khan,” but the studio insisted upon changing it because of its similarity to the just-announced title of the third “Star Wars” movie: “Revenge of the Jedi.” And we all know how that turned out…

Here’s one I don’t think was touched on, was it?

When MEGO started producing their action-figure dolls of Superman, Batman, Spiderman etc. in the early ’70s they trademarked the name “WORLD’S GREATEST SUPER-HEROES”. Both DC & MARVEL objected to MEGO’s ownership of this phrase (mostly because they hadn’t thought of it themselves), and threatened to pull out their heroes from use unless MEGO turned over the title to them.

MEGO complied in order to keep the successful line going, and now DC & MARVEL jointly own the “World’s Greatest Heroes” name.

As far as I know, Walt Disney okayed those suicide attempt strips, when Floyd Gottfredson asked him. Suicide attempt humor wasn’t uncommon in the thirties’ comic strips. Felix the Cat had a similar sequence.

I think that first Mickey Mouse strip is absolute comedy-gold, if you read it as ending in the silent panel with him reaching for the shotgun.

On Micky Mouse, nobody has mentioned the cartoon where Dnald Duck is on stage and fires a machine gun into the audience. I don’t remember much more about the cartoon than that (except it was color, probably 1940s, and I think Mickey was on stage too) but that scene stuck in my mind.

In the UK there is a ‘monthly’ comic for ‘grown-ups’ called Viz. One character that has been featured in said comic was Suicidal Sid. He would decide to end his own life in every story, fail each time and eventually decide that life was, in fact, worth living. At this point he would die in a freak accident.

I don’t know if the Mickey strips were inspiration for that though.

The Mickey strips are actually a ripoff (or perhaps an homage, if you’re feeling charitable) of what is generally considered to be the first example of the comic strip form. It’s old as hell, and it’s from 1700s France. In it, a man continues to try to win the affections of a (very fat) woman with whom he is hopelessly in love. Unfortunately, she doesn’t reciprocate, and he resolves to kill himself. Over and over, he attempts to commit suicide, and even thinks he succeeds each time, only to wake up awhile later and realize that he is not, in fact, dead. Very dark, funny stuff.

The Mickey strips come straight out of that old strip. For more on the strip, and other fascinating bits of comics history, as well as some fine cutting-edge comix, check out the comix edition, Issue 13, of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Which, I might add, is one of the finest and most innovative publications currently on the market.

Are those Mickey Mouse strips the ones that Eternity reprinted as ‘Uncensored Mouse’ back in 1989?

I’m surprised the Matrix/Helix change managed to get a false rumour going - I remember at the time DC said it was because of an upcoming film from WB.
I even think they had a house ad explaining it.

Oh man, that is killer. Mickey trying to take his own life. Killer? I meant depressing and bizarre.

Today, it might be a strip of Mickey and Minnie going threw a building lobby shooting everyone is in sight in order to save Morpheu… I mean Donald Duck.

HOw come agents can’t anything unless it’s right in front of them or a helicopter? Just asking.

I noticed they got away with that Superman stuff in the Matrix sequels due to it being WB.

How about the story behind the Human Fly? My brother loved that book when we were kids. Was he a real guy?

I think that Doctor Who was the first to use the term “Matrix” to refer to a giant body of information. But, FASA did trademark “MATRIX” in the first release of the first Shadowrun rulebook.

I’ve always wondered if Warner Brothers had a deal with FASA to use the term, or if FASA was just too small to worry about.

Theno

Possibly, it didn’t matter, because although they had the trademark in pencil-and-paper RPGs, they didn’t have the trademark in movies. After all, you only get the trademark for the area in which you use the word/phrase/whatnot.

I had to read “Frankenstein” for a literature class in the early 90s and — being a cheap college student — I decided to get a copy at the library. Having just read a funny Hulk/Thing graphic novel by Wrightson and Jim Starlin, the Wrightson-illustrated Frankenstein novel jumped out at me (note: the art was on one side of the page and the full text of the novel was on the other).

I was absolutely floored by the art, as were my professor and fellow students. It caught the actual mood of the book so damn well it was scary.

If you do some digging, the Matrix movies paid fees to FASA for use of the term Matrix. So if the comics changed for the movie, and the movie changed for the game, then indirectly, the comics changed for the game.

One thing to note is that the Mickey Mouse suicide strips are pretty dark, but they are also pretty funny.

Is Gottfredson the unsung Carl Barks? (I’m speaking from ignorance here. I’m familiar with Iwerks and Disney, but not Gottfredson.)

At any rate, thank you. “The Floyd Gottfredson Library” is now just in time to make my Christmas list.

Yeah, Tim, Gottfredson is very highly regarded as a comic creator.

Maybe not to the level of Barks, but in the same vicinity.

If you do some digging, the Matrix movies paid fees to FASA for use of the term Matrix. So if the comics changed for the movie, and the movie changed for the game, then indirectly, the comics changed for the game.

Thanks, Tinner!

That’s quite interesting.

cool!hey, where can I find any more mickey’s comics on the WEB?
please write back
thank you