As these panels from WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES # 211 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: April, 1958) clearly show, it doesn't take very much to turn Mickey Mouse into a GHOST!
Just remove his CAP, and have the colorist neglect to color his RED PANTS...
...And, PRESTO! Instant GHOST!
Simple, eh?
Illustrations are from "The Castaways of Whale Bay" (1958) written and drawn by the classic team of Carl Fallberg and Paul Murry!
BOO!
8 comments:
Welp I’ve been gone for awhile but the state of the world has left me needing a lil chuckle from your back issues.
I wonder if the reason Mickey has the green visor in the comics was to create additional contrast from the background? Did Mickey wear the visor in any of the cartoons or comic strips or was this a Western publishing design?
It’s never about how long you’ve “been gone”, Clapton… It’s more about your welcome return!
And, if I can provide anything to all of you (myself included), from a “li’l chuckle” to a hearty guffaw, this crazy world is just that much better for it!
The cap (I wouldn’t say “visor” because it has a top to it – as is seen in the panel where it is hanging), was one of two standard “modes of dress” Mickey had under Paul Murry’s classic (and remarkably consistent) design for the Dell and Gold Key comic books.
Depending on the nature of the story, he was either dressed as you see him here, in what I call “Casual Mickey” – green cap, open white shirt, and red slacks, or “Detective Mickey – green fedora hat, white shirt with tie, and a red suit!
I wouldn’t call it a “Western Publishing design”, but more of a “ Paul Murry design”, as other artists tended to outfit him to their own tastes – but still in a somewhat similar fashion. The coloring wasn’t Murry’s, as he worked exclusively in black and white. But, since the coloring was very consistent over the decades of Murry’s work, we CAN attribute that aspect of the overall design to Western Publishing.
…As can we similarly attribute the coloring omission that temporarily transformed him into a ghost!
I read "The Castaways of Whale Bay" when it was reprinted in a digest in the late 1960s. I don't recall offhand if the coloring goof was corrected or not. If Mickey's pants were still the wrong color, either I didn't notice, or maybe I did and just accepted it as the obvious mistake that it was.
Fun fact (and speaking of "detective Mickey"): the US Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory uses an image of Mickey Mouse (wearing a trench coat and a Sherlock Holmes-type deerstalker cap, and holding a magnifying glass) as its official logo. They paid Walt Disney a token licensing fee of one dollar, and their website includes a letter from Disney granting permission to use the character.
When asked about it in an interview for a magazine article, the commanding general of the Criminal Investigation Division explained that, in many comic book stories, Mickey and his sidekick Goofy acted as detectives and solved mysteries.
TC:
I also read "The Castaways of Whale Bay" in WALT DISNEY COMICS DIGEST # 26 (December, 1970), 2-3 decades before I got my copy of WDC&S # 211 as a dealer’s back issue. The coloring goof was corrected in the digest printing. Then again, all those reprints we recolored – so why not? I didn’t even think to look there.
I wonder if it will be corrected in the upcoming Fantagraphics “Disney Masters Paul Murry” printing of the story? Researching to write the text-outro for that volume is how I even noticed the “ghost-goof” in the first place!
Oddly, for what it’s worth, I *first* read "The Castaways of Whale Bay" in a much more unlikely source… (as GCD lists it) “A Whitman Comic Book # 8 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck", as seen HERE!
This was a 1962 series of hardcover 6” x 8.25” books (140-plus pages) which published their content in black and white, with only a small dash of color in the opening splash panels. There were eight volumes in all, with later 1950s Dell WDC&S reprints in “Donald Duck”, later 1950s Dell Bugs Bunny reprints in “Bugs Bunny”… and British (!) Hanna-Barbera character reprints in volumes devoted to “Huckleberry Hound”, “Yogi Bear”, “The Flintstones” “Jinks [sic – not “Mr. Jinks”] and Pixie and Dixie”, Snooper and Blabber and Quick Draw McGraw”, and “Augie Doggie and Loopy DeLoop” – those last two books sharing features.
Being in black and white, NONE of Mickey’s clothes had any color to them… but, if HE looked like a ghost in that printing… then EVERYONE looked like a ghost!
I was fortunate enough to get each one of them at the time in the toy department of a local department store. I have rarely seen them for sale via dealers since. Still have my originals, though a little tattered, today!
I read a few Donald, Mickey, Chip ‘n’ Dale, Scamp, and Bugs Bunny stories there first – that I later read in 1970s Gold Key reprints, and still later purchases of the originals.
Since my favorite depiction of the comic book Mickey Mouse is as a “detective”, you know I loved learning that “Fun Fact”!
…But “only a DOLLAR for licensing”! We must be discussing ancient history here! :-)
The agreement between Disney and the CID was made in 1943. It was during WWII, and everyone, including Disney, was eager to help with the war effort.
Later, when the Criminal Investigation Division changed its name to the Criminal Investigation Command, Disney sent them a letter assuring them that the original license was still valid.
That’s pretty much what I figured, TC.
Disney, at that time and for a good while thereafter, put on a face (we’ll never really know how true, but I’d like to believe it was) of patriotism and a spirit of what’s good about America.
That very likely faded in the later 1960s, as such feelings generally began fading from our culture.
And, after a period of “virtual dormancy” throughout the 1970s, it reemerged in the 1980s with a nice outward sheen and a core of corporate greed and rapaciousness that has only gotten worse and worse to this day! Then again, it only mirrored the selfish, mean-spirited, “me-first, you’re on your own” society in which it presently exists!
Oddly (or alas, perhaps NOT so oddly) that strategy of “consume, rather than create” (Star Wars, Muppets, Marvel Comics, ABC television, ESPN) has worked for them better than any hint of the “old goodness” ever did!
Though I wonder how different things would have been if, in the beginning, (Walt) Disney chose to purchase (consume) Felix the Cat or Bosko, rather than create Mickey Mouse! I think we’d be looking at a VERY different entertainment and media landscape today!
…Certainly not one where Mr. Disney’s VERY NAME has been removed from the frail and ghostly shadow of what was once WALT DISNEY’S COMICS AND STORIES – formerly the best-selling comics title in America… ya know, back in those days that have long-faded-away!
"…Certainly not one where Mr. Disney’s VERY NAME has been removed from the frail and ghostly shadow of what was once WALT DISNEY’S COMICS AND STORIES – formerly the best-selling comics title in America… ya know, back in those days that have long-faded-away!"
Wow, that is lame. Part of a larger, long-running trend at what's still known as The Walt Disney Company, but especially lame in this case, given the Walt Disney's Comics and Stories is the *name* of a classic, incredibly long-running title (far longer-running the aforementioned long-running trend of dropping the use of Walt Disney's first name). Guess it's part of their effort to make their comics "fresh and modern." Whoopee!... Not.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Sergio!
I guess the “de-Walt-ification” of things is calculated to raise the concept of the corporate-collective higher than the creator.
As I say, it’s sure working for them – and, to some in certain positions, that’s all that matters! But, did it really need to reach down as far as changing the name of a (admittedly very minor) magazine that has been a part of the American cultural landscape since 1940?
But, that’s "fresh and modern" for you!
One more funny thing, by this time, the slap-across-the-face-to-our-talented-and-dedicated-creative-team that is "fresh and modern", would probably not even be recognized by those who created it… but, it would seem that *I*, and this humble platform from which I communicate, have personally and single-handedly kept it alive… as a symbol of what things have become in our piddly little corner of devotion to characters and creators!
Thank you all for your support of it!
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