It's been too long since we showcased any artwork from our great friend Debbie Anne Perry and, with (one very specific version of) Mickey Mouse in the public domain, Deb has delivered her unique commentary on the subject - along with her wonderful characters FLUFFY AND MERVIN!
GOTTA LOVE THAT!
"Whistle?" "Play 'Turkey in the Straw' on farm animals?" ...YAWN!
Wake me when he becomes a DETECTIVE...
...Or a SPACE EXPLORER...
...Or a SUPER SECRET AGENT...
...Or a PILOT...
...Or a TIME TRAVELER...
...Or DRIVES A GHOST CAR...
...Or becomes an UNDERWATER EXPLORER...
...Or even a (sorta sloppy) LUMBERJACK!
But, especially when he meets THIS GUY!
...Um, "SteamBLOT Willie", anyone?
Until then, Fluffy and Mervin can probably put him to good use...
Perhaps we should wait around until PETE joins Mickey in the public domain...
After all, if "Steamboat Willie" is in the public domain... wouldn't that also apply to PETE (...and, of course, Minnie) - those specific versions, that is! ...And Pete, whatever version, would certainly liven things up!
Right, as usual, Mickey! "There IS only one flaw!" It'll be quite a while until THESE VERSIONS fall into the public domain! ...Pete never figured on that, th' big lummox!
But, hey... If I just tap my foot through another decade or so, will THE PHANTOM BLOT (...OR "The Blot", as he was originally called) be there as well?
...THIS VERSION anyway?
Maybe then, I can REALLY do "SteamBLOT Willie"!
Oh, there's just so much to "unpack" from Steamboat Willie's Steamer Trunk! ...Sorry, couldn't resist.
Let's do so in the Comments Section... and have a great time, as we did so often in those good old days... before they, too, eventually become public domain!
Even if not, Deb's fully in compliance, as we all knew she would be...
REALLY GREAT JOB, DEB!
17 comments:
I have no interest in making Steamboat Willie a permanent part of Fluffy and Mervin’s lives…and the cat and mouse would both thank me for that. Not only that, but you can’t hear whistling or musical farm animals in a soundless medium.
…Which is why Mr. Disney didn’t make that cartoon any sooner than he did! ;-0
And, perhaps why Donald Duck’s song, “The Screaming Cowboy” was best experienced in its “soundless medium”!
But, maybe Steamboat Willie could stick around for an ARC of Fluffy and Mervin! …Then disappear forever… or until another iteration of Mickey goes PD and pays your guys a visit!
Sticking around for an arc…would that be “Mickey’s Arc Lark”?
Love the Fluffy and Mervin strip!! And on music in a soundless medium...I agree that it was for the best that "The Screaming Cowboy" was left to our imagination! I do note that Don Rosa managed to include an entire musical number, the theme song of the Three Caballeros, in a comics story...though that only worked so well because we had all seen and heard it in animated form.
Great comic from Deb! Both the comic and this blog touch on an under-discussed truth regarding 1928 Mickey being in the public domain: as a Disney Comics fan (i.e. Gottfredson and Barks fan) that doesn’t mean squat. I respect Walt and Ub’s work on those classic cartoons but the things I personally find compelling about Mickey, some of which you’ve listed in this post, are not in the public domain. Thankfully, Fantagraphics and the Core Four are officially keeping *our* Mickey alive through the fantastic Disney Masters series.
Now would I like Disney to do more with Mickey? Absolutely:
- I want an animated tv show adapting the Floyd Gottfredson comic strip.
- I want U.S. cartoonists and writers to be allowed to make new official Disney comics with the Gottfredson and Barks’ casts.
- I want a Mickey Mouse video game that takes place in the world of the Gottfredson strip done in the hand-drawn animation style of Cuphead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN-9SQXoi50).
- I’d like a Disney Comics/Sonic the Hedgehog crossover comic primarily written and drawn by Jon Gray: https://www.deviantart.com/jongraywb/art/Sonic-and-Mickey-190090856.
- I want House of Mouse to be released on DVD.
All of the things I listed would require the involvement (and financing!) of the Walt Disney corporation. None are possible with the lil’ sliver of Mickey that’s in the public domain. The fact that Disney is underutilizing Mickey Mouse’s character and over-utilizing him as a generic mascot is a different conversation.
Thus, as a Disney comics fan my reaction to Mickey being in the public domain is indifference. That said, as someone who’s informally interested in copyright law, I think it’s about time that *a* version of Mickey is in the public domain. It’s unfortunate that folks have immediately used this to make exploitative horror schlock… but I am enjoying Mousetrapped. And most importantly we have the real and spectacular Disney Comics you localize ;)
Finally, let me say that SteamBLOT Willie is gold, both as a pun and as potential comic premise. I would love to see Mickey in a Hercule Poirot-esque boat mystery with the phantom blot lurking around the steamer's cabins.
Deb:
You write: “Sticking around for an arc…would that be “Mickey’s Arc Lark”?”
Well, if so, Mickey wouldn’t be the first Disney character to parody that infamous Yogi Bear title! (…and, if you take that link, just look back at all the FUN we used to have – back when IDW CARED about the quality of its Disney comic books, rather than letting them atrophy and die in a whimpering pool of substandard-ness – but I digress!)
Oh, no… wait! This PD Mickey wouldn’t actually BE a “Disney character” as such! If I were indexing Deb’s strips for GCD, I’d have to list him as “Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse of the Fluffy and Mervin Universe!”
How ‘bout that, Deb! You have a UNIVERSE! …Or, at least you would in the (sometimes overly obsessive) world of GCD! And, hey… Aren’t we (again, sometimes) glad for that obsessiveness that makes GCD the most complete and comprehensive comics indexing site in all of existence? …But, again, I digress – and with an excess of adjectives to boot! …I do that a lot, don’t I?
Elaine:
You write: “I do note that Don Rosa managed to include an entire musical number, the theme song of the Three Caballeros, in a comics story...though that only worked so well because we had all seen and heard it in animated form.”
Sure, that would work for folks like us but what about younger readers (…assuming that Don Rosa HAD any “younger readers” in this country), as this story predated any sort of renaissance the Three Caballeros may have had in recent years. Truth to tell, even knowing the song to the extent that I did, I still read it more or less as if it were poetry.
I’d probably call the Mickey in my comic “Public Domain Mouse”.
Ryan:
Completely in agreement with you in that “My Mickey” is not the happy clown of “Steamboat Willie” (that could have also been Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Felix the Cat, Bosko, Foxy, or any number of other cartoon contemporaries), nor is he the happy bandleader of “The Mickey Mouse Club”, nor is he the happy CGI-ed “whatever-he-is” on Disney Junior TV’s “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” (which, alas, is the only way Averi and Cici know him at present – old Yeh-Yeh’s gonna have to change THAT someday!), nor is he the (happy?) corporate symbol, eternally smiling yet devoid of spirit!
No! “My Mickey” is all the things illustrated in this post – and more! “My Mickey” has a lineage legacy from Floyd Gottfredson, through Paul Murry, through Romano Scarpa, through Casty – and has been aided and abetted by the likes of Ted Osborne, Merrill De Maris, Bill Walsh, Carl Fallberg, Bob Ogle, Cecil Beard, Guido Martina (and other great Italian writers), and (dare I say) OUR OWN CORE FOUR!
And, more or less echoing your animated wish, a Mickey series that encompasses all aspects of the Gottfredson/ Murry/Scarpa/Casty continuum of continuity. …And definitely “House of Mouse” on DVD/Blu-ray… I have a bootleg, but an imperfection cuts out a part of “Mickey’s Mountain” – one of the best and funniest modern-day Mickey cartoons ( where he looks like HIMSELF, and not some dreadfully off-model distortion)!
But, I suppose that’s the ultimate tribute to the character of Mickey Mouse (in all his forms) that he can be so many different things to so many different people… and only the tiniest chip of what he is has broken off into the public domain!
Not being a videogame guy, you can have all that stuff (including “Sonic-and-Mickey”), but give Jon Gray “SOMETHING ELSE MICKEY” of his own to showcase his great talents!
Finally, thank you so much for the kind words regarding “the real and spectacular Disney Comics [the Core Four] localize”! We hope to be sending you even more of that stuff over the coming year! …If only there were a venue for me to do “SteamBLOT Willie”…
Deb:
You write: “ I’d probably call the Mickey in my comic ‘Public Domain Mouse’.”
Sure, but you’re not as obsessive as the gang at GCD! (…And thank goodness for that!) You’d show slack-jawed amazement over the minutiae they get into on their private discussion boards! I say that because they give ME more than the maximum daily doses of (all together now) “slack-jawed amazement” allowed by law! …And, given that I DO (Ahem!) tend toward the obsessive myself, as I’m sure you know… that’s a lotta obsessiveness!
…Then again, I suppose all that obsessiveness is what makes GCD so great! "The Devil is in OUR Details!"
"After all, if "Steamboat Willie" is in the public domain... wouldn't that also apply to PETE (...and, of course, Minnie) - those specific versions, that is!"
It had better... or Randy Milholland is gonna be in big trouble!
Great job, Deb! Love the subtle commentary on changing social mores, and on the fact that Mickey is the beloved symbol he is today despite, not because of, "Steamboat Willie."
Don't get me wrong, I personally find "Steamboat Willie" pretty funny, but if Mickey hadn't become all of the things Joe mentions in this post, he'd probably be an obscure "silent clown" like Oswald, Felix, Bosko, or Foxy. And no one would have noticed when "Steamboat Willie" entered the public domain.
I agree with Ryan that SteamBLOT Willie is a very interesting premise. Maybe Disney will do it if they ever make an animated series based on the Floyd Gottfredson strip. Maybe even Disney comics will do it someday.
After all, just because "Steamboat Willie" is in the public domain, doesn't mean Disney can't still revisit the concept. "Steamboat Willie" belongs to everyone now... and that includes Disney! Some things never change.
Sergio:
I *was* wondering about Pete, simply because he never rated a mention in all this PD hoopla despite being a vital Disney character to this day – and not just in comic books, as he was in my young days.
Seeing (some ancient version of) him in “Mousetrapped” made me wonder ever more… particularly since he was not NAMED “Pete”!
My gosh, you can’t copyright the name “Pete”. “Peg-Leg Pete” yes. “Black Pete” (as he was known “back in my – and Paul Murry’s – days”) yes, even though Disney probably wouldn’t care to.
Maybe even the embarrassing “Big Bad Pete”, as he was renamed back in the Disney Interregnum days (Thanks again, Elaine!) – and which I had “one panel of fun with” in “Trapped in the Shadow Dimension”! ...But “Pete”?
You could name anyone, or anything “Pete”, as far as I know. You could even take the newly-public-domained Steamboat Willie Mickey and name HIM “Pete”! …And, after legally sanctioning that idea right here, I’m expecting royalties from anyone who does.
“Steamboat Willie Mickey AKA Pete” © 2024, Joe Torcivia, all rights reserved, and all kinds’a stuff like that there! Nyaah!
…Send the checks in care of this humble Blog!
Steamboat Willie was a wow back in 1928, seeing a cartoon synchronized with sound was a relatively new thing. Steamboat Willie may not have been the first, but certainly it was the one that put the most effort into it. It’s not a bad film, but cartoons have gotten so much more sophisticated now, and what is essentially a tech demo feels a bit dated.
Winnie the Pooh, Sherlock Holmes and other public domain characters offer much more to potential writers and artists because their entire original stories are available to build on, where Mickey has about one or two films in the public domain that really don’t offer much to work with.
Don Rosa probably had younger readers back in 1987 when Gladstone comics were on newsstands and DuckTales was on TV. Nowadays, the Disney Ducks (and especially Rosa’s output) are almost exclusively read by adult fans.
Deb:
“One or two films in the public domain” may not “offer much to work with” but, for some who are taking advantage of the situation, they *don’t need* much “Steamboat Willie” stuff in order to turn even a very specifically delineated black-and-white mouse into Chucky!
“[Steamboat Willie is] not a bad film, but cartoons have gotten so much more sophisticated now, and what is essentially a tech demo feels a bit dated.”
Apropos of (almost) nothing, this week I saw Crusader Rabbit for the first time since (literally) 1959 (!), and Steamboat Willie didn’t seem to be too far left behind!
Don Rosa, and Disney Duck comics in general, did indeed have younger American readers in 1987 and thereabout due to the popularity of DuckTales. (And newsstand availability to a smaller degree!) But, shortly after that, no American kid would have touched them.
I can vouch for all of this because, in just one of the many different things I did over the course of my many and varied life situations, I worked weekend shows for a comics dealer (…somebody ought to write MY “Life and Times” someday!) and, in that capacity, some kids walked up to the booth and asked if I had any DuckTales comics.
Now, this was after the show became a hit, but before Gladstone (or anyone else) published an actual DuckTales comic book… so I said: “No, but I have something even better!”
I handed them a copy of UNCLE SCROOGE – a REPRINT of Carl Barks’ “Land Beneath the Ground” (I would probably been FIRED on the spot, had I handed a trio of kids an ORIGINAL “Land Beneath the Ground”!) selected because that story had been adapted for DuckTales. One of the kids, nowhere near as impressed as I’d thought they’d be, asked: “Where’s Launchpad?”
Can’t really remember my response but, needless to say, no sale was made! …And soon, “no sales” of Duck and Mouse comics, by and large, were made to kids at all!
So, what happened to the kids? …A few years later, kids were only looking for the "hot comics", by hot young artists who couldn’t tell an actual story to save their lives – but loved drawing contorted characters AND IMPOSSIBLY BIG GUNS! (Yeah, I’m looking at YOU, Marvel and Image!) But that didn’t matter, because the kids didn’t read ‘em anyway!
These pint-sized speculators salted ‘em away for the fortunes they would eventually reap based on the higher-than-realistic values they drooled over in “Wizard” (R.I.P – but without the “P”!) When that never happened, pretty much an entire young generation walked away from comics by the end of the ‘90s… but that’s another story (that I’ve already told TOO MUCH of)! Late night keyboard-rambling will do that!
OUCH! I think I’ve just been stabbed by “Chucky Mouse”, aka “Steamboat Fill-et”! …I also think I’ve brought this comment response full circle! OW-WEE! STOP! …Anyone got a bandage?
In a sense, Mickey Mouse has always been in the public domain. If the public had not adored and embraced him on his debut on the world stage back in 1928, there would likely have been no Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and subsequent features, no Disneyland, no Wonderful World of Color, and no Disney franchise comic books. If it weren't for the public'a adoption of Mickey, his viability as a character would have dried up. Which begs the question--who owns Mickey, or any popular character for that matter? Doesn't the public, the buyers who purchase Mickey Mouse dolls or Mickey Mouse watches or Mickey Mouse comic books--own a share of Mickey stock simply by having taken him into their affections? Matters of the heart cannot be regulated, and neither can any one person control another person's feelings regarding a created work. Sure, Mickey belongs to his creators--and if you ask me, I think the Disney Studios should continue to own the character exclusively because unlike other franchises that come and go, Mickey Mouse is still very much alive and very much with us. But at the same time, doesn't Mickey Mouse really belong to every one of his fans, past and present? So in that sense he is and always will be a public domain figure regardless of what the varying copyright laws may dictate.
Scarecrow:
WHEN, OH WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO START A BLOG OF YOUR OWN?! That way I can read great observations like these more often! …I promise that I’d comment there! I daresay others of our group would follow suit!
Yes, I agree that we all “own” a piece of Mickey Mouse… but that’s not dissimilar to “owning” something on streaming. Unlike your ever-reliable physical media collection (… and I STILL owe you a discussion on DVDs – my bad!), it may not be there when you want it, or may be altered in some way to conform to our constantly changing societal parameters – actions taken by the REAL owners in THEIR best political and financial interests, vs. your own entertainment preferences.
But, all that said, I remain of the opinion that the Disney organization (…with which I too often disagree) should remain in complete control of their beloved creation to prevent it from being turned into a “Kinfe-Wielding Chucky Mouse” by misanthropic cretins drunk on their newfound freedoms!
…We’ll have more Public Domain Mickey in a (near) future post!
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