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Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck. The first Disney comics were newspaper strips appearing from 1930 on, starting with the Mickey Mouse comic strip. Mickey Mouse Magazine, the first American newsstand publication with Disney comics, launched in 1935. In 1940, Western Publishing launched the long-running flagship comic book, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, which reached 750 issues in September 2019. Uncle Scrooge, launched in 1952, reached issue #450 in June 2019. In recent decades, Disney comics have seen a decline of popularity in the United States. In the rest of the world Disney comics have remained very successful, especially in Europe, where weekly Disney comics magazines and monthly paperback digests are national best sellers. Disney comics have been the basis for academic theory, cultural criticism, and fan-created databases. U.S. comic strips The first Disney comics appeared in daily newspapers, syndicated by King Features with production done in-house by a Disney comic strip department at the studio. Initially Floyd Gottfredson along with his responsibilities for the Mickey Mouse comic strip oversaw the Disney comic strip department from 1930 to 1945, then Frank Reilly was brought in to administer the burgeoning department from January 1946 to 1975. Greg Crosby headed the department from 1979 to 1989. Mickey Mouse The Mickey Mouse daily comic strip began on January 13, 1930, featuring Mickey as an optimistic, adventure-seeking young mouse. It was initially written by Walt Disney with art by Ub Iwerks and Win Smith. Beginning with the May 5, 1930, installment the art chores were taken up by Floyd Gottfredson (often aided by various inkers), who also either wrote or supervised the story continuities (relying on various writers to flesh out his plots). Gottfredson continued with the strip until 1975. By 1931, the Mickey Mouse strip was published in 60 newspapers in the United States, as well as papers in twenty other countries. From the beginning, the strips were parts of long continuing stories. These introduced characters such as the Phantom Blot, Eega Beeva, and the Bat Bandit, which Gottfredson created; Disney created Eli Squinch, Mickey's nephews, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, and Sylvester Shyster, which were also introduced in the comic. Starting in the 1950s, Gottfredson and writer Bill Walsh were instructed to drop the storylines and do only daily gags. Gottfredson continued illustrating the daily strip until he retired on October 1, 1975. After Gottfredson retired, the strip was written and drawn by many other creators. The Sunday page went into reprints in February 1992, and the daily strip ended on July 29, 1995. In 2011, Fantagraphics Books began the Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse series, a hardback collection of Gottfredson's run on the strip. A total of 14 volumes were published between 2011 and 2018, collecting the entirety of Gottfredson's Sunday color work (two volumes) and all of his serialized story-themed daily strips (12 volumes). The collection doesn't include any of Gottfredson's gag-oriented material from 1955 onwards. Silly Symphony The Mickey Mouse Sunday strip started on January 10, 1932, with a topper Silly Symphony strip.Silly Symphony initially related the adventures of Bucky Bug, the first Disney character to originate in the comics. It went on to print more adaptations of Silly Symphony shorts, often using the characters and setting of the original shorts, but adding new plotlines and incidents. It also went on to print adaptations of the feature films, as well as periods of gag strips featuring Donald Duck and Pluto. By late 1935 the strip was a standalone half-page, not strictly a topper for the Mickey Sunday. The strip was initially titled Silly Symphonies; after two years, the name was changed to Silly Symphony. The switch happened in the February 18, 1934, strip, just three weeks before Bucky Bug would be replaced with a new storyline, "Birds of a Feather". The complete rundown of Silly Symphony strips, from 1932 to 1945: The Silly Symphony Sunday strip ended on October 7, 1945, and was replaced by Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit. Three of the Silly Symphony stories inspired long-running features in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. Original Bucky Bug stories first appeared in issue #39 (Dec 1943) and appeared every month for seven years, wrapping up with issue #120 (Sept 1950). "The Three Little Pigs" feature inspired the creation of Li'l Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf's errant son, who wants to be friends with the Pigs. Li'l Bad Wolf's adventures began in issue #52 (Jan 1945), and he made regular appearances until almost the end of the comic's original run, issue #259 (April 1962). Finally, Little Hiawatha had his own monthly story for two years, from issue #143 (Aug 1952) to #168 (September 1954). The complete strip has been reprinted in four hardcover collections, Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics, published by IDW Publishing's Library of American Comics imprint. The first volume, published in 2016, includes all of the strips from "Bucky Bug" (1932) to "Cookieland" (1935). Volume 2, published in 2017, includes "Three Little Kittens" (1935) to "Timid Elmer" (1939). Volume 3, published in 2018, includes "Pluto the Pup" (1939) to "Little Hiawatha" (1942). The fourth volume, published in 2019, concludes the series with "Bambi" (1942) through Panchito" (1945). Donald Duck Donald Duck made his first comics appearance in the Silly Symphony adaptation of the 1934 Disney short The Wise Little Hen (Sept. 16, 1934-Dec. 16, 1934). As Donald's popularity grew, he became the star of the Silly Symphony strip for an extended run (August 1936 to December 1937), and then got his own daily strip starting on February 7, 1938. A Donald Sunday strip premiered December 10, 1939. Carl Barks, known to fans as "The Duck Man," wrote at least 20 of the strips between 1938 and 1940. Donald Duck ran until May 2005, when it went into reprints. Starting in 2015, IDW Publishing's Library of American Comics imprint has been publishing hardcover collections of the Donald Duck strip. As of 2019, five volumes of Donald Duck: The Complete Daily Newspaper Comics and two volumes of Donald Duck: The Complete Sunday Comics have been released. Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit was launched as a Sunday strip on October 14, 1945, as a preview of the upcoming 1946 film Song of the South. The Uncle Remus strip began, like Silly Symphony, as a topper for the Mickey Mouse strip, but after the first few years, almost always appeared on its own. The previous comic strip adaptations of Disney films lasted for four or five months, but the Uncle Remus strip continued for almost thirty years, telling new stories of Br'er Rabbit and friends, until the strip was discontinued o.... Discover the Phil Torcivia popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Phil Torcivia books.