Comments on: Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #114

By: macsnafu

macsnafu — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:34:52 +0000

@John Seavy, The Flinstones were originally targeted to adults, not kids. It was a prime-time animated show, not a Saturday morning cartoon. It wasn’t until the third season that they decided to make the Flintstones more kid-friendly, and the cigarette ad was done before this decision.

And darn it, I wrote a song called “In the Matrix” before the movie ever came out. If I had been more industrious, I suppose I might have done something with the song, instead of letting it languish on cassette. Ah, missed opportunities!

By: Riccardo

Riccardo — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:47:01 +0000

When these strips were reprinted in Italy in the mid ’70, the Disney licensee had a strict no-death-in-stories policy (that still holds, AFAIK). Surprisingly enough, since Mickey did not succeed in his attemtps, they were OK for the editors and made through the print: it has to be said that they were reprinted in adult/teen oriented classic reprints book, NOT in standard comic books.
I was pretty young, then, but an eager reader of Disney comics: I was amazed to discover an older reprint (late fifties, maybe) that also had this sequence, but with an unbelievably rewritten dialogue. Mickey was actually blank shooting himself for the sake of getting a “shock”, diving in the river for “cooling himself down”, using gas for “sleeping and relax” and so on. I was a kid, not dumb and I figured out I had just discovered (dull) censorship in comics.

Thank you for bringing this back!

By: Keith Bowden

Keith Bowden — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:12:34 +0000

@ Joseph Lacy – Do you mean the Gold Key Disney Digests? Those are hard to come by, but show up on eBay now and then. I have a bunch, including my favorite, #40 with Mickey Mouse in 3 Gottfredson stories (that as I understand it were virtually line-for-line redrawn by Paul Murray for reprinting in the comic books in the ’40s & ’50s).

By: joseph lacy

joseph lacy — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:11:42 +0000

i have some old small disney comic strip books from the 60′s to the 80′s i dont know what they are called and can not find anything like them anywhere…could you help me

By: Sandra

Sandra — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:02:58 +0000

Gibson used the term Matrix in his mid eighties short story, Burning Chrome (which I coincidentally just reread on the train yesterday). Certainly not first.

Oh, I had a beautiful, oversized collection of those earliest Gottfredson strips when I was a young girl; there was a sequence in it about dangerous men hiding under the bed that totally freaked me out for a long time.

I hadn’t seen that Wrightson Frankenstein; he manages to make it look genuinely scary. I always thought the DeNiro Frankenstein was sympathetic and of course Elsa Lanchester is gorgeus.

By: caroline

caroline — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:16:01 +0000

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

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:03:11 +0000

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.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:02:46 +0000

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

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

By: Tim Mitchell

Tim Mitchell — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:49:07 +0000

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.

By: Tinner

Tinner — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:13:10 +0000

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.

By: John Baker

John Baker — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:39:48 +0000

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.

By: Ununnilium

Ununnilium — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:55:45 +0000

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.

By: Thenodrin

Thenodrin — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 04:13:43 +0000

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

By: Willie Lumpkin

Willie Lumpkin — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:49:10 +0000

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

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 02:55:40 +0000

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.

By: FunkyGreenJerusalem

FunkyGreenJerusalem — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 23:48:25 +0000

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.

By: jmacleodpc19

jmacleodpc19 — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:37:30 +0000

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

By: J-Man

J-Man — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:05:09 +0000

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.

By: Scott Clements

Scott Clements — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 21:56:09 +0000

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.

By: tolworthy

tolworthy — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 19:31:40 +0000

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.