The Definitive Mickey Mouse

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      Dear Folks,

      Mark Semich spoke of the letter column in the new DM: "The best era 
for the mouse characters is the 1930's ... [that's when] the definitive (and 
best!) forms of all the characters" were used.  But Gladstone had 
said "something about 'Paul Murray creating the definitive Mickey' or 
something like that 'decades after Barks created the definitive 
Ducks.'"  Well, I agree with you about the 1930s.  But...
      Gladstone isn't actually implying that Paul Murry's Mickey was 
the best.  Let me explain.  For the first 8 years of WDC&S, 
Gottfredson MM stuff was used.  But it was dropped then.  And NONE of 
the Four-Color One Shots, save two, had FG material.  And Paul Murry 
didn't begin doing stuff regularly until 1953.  Until then, a whole 
variety of scripters and artists worked on the original comic-book 
stories with Mickey that Dell made.  What I'm saying is, okay, FG DID 
do an excellent range of newspaper stories.  But when it came to 
COMIC BOOK stories, there was no solid, competitive Mickey team or 
single artist as there was Barks for the Ducks.  Even Bill Wright 
worked with so many scripters that though his work looked the same, 
it never felt consistent unless he was also writing the stories 
(which didn't always occur).  The one-pagers that appear often in DM 
are examples of Dell constantly trying to find someone good to do MM 
COMIC-BOOK stories (as opposed to NEWSPAPER stories).
      What Gladstone was saying is that when a definitive COMIC-BOOK
Mickey did come along -- and like it or not, Murry's Mouse WAS 
clearly this 'standard' for everyone but the Italians, at least until 
the late 1980s -- it came when Barks had already spent ten years 
building Donald (and his own creation, Scrooge) a fan following.  
Even if Murry had been as good as Barks or Gottfredson, Barks would 
still have had ten years' seniority at molding duck fandom, and thus 
the ducks were more popular.  As Barks built fandom from 1942-1953, 
Mickey readers would have found no consistent style or conception of 
Mickey in the MM solo comics.  And beginning in 1948 -- 
cooincidentally, right when Barks hit his golden age -- they wouldn't 
have found a consistent Mickey in WDC&S, either.  Even though I don't 
like to think about it, (A) Murry's MM was THE definitive comic-book MM 
for many years, and (B) no matter how good Murry could have gotten, 
as a result of Whitman's inability to find any consistent MM creators 
prior to 1953, he could never have built an audience for Mickey like 
Barks had created already with the ducks.

      Whitman could have solved their problems, of course, if they 
had continued to use FG material in WDC&S after 1948 -- and perhaps 
hired someone who'd once scripted the MM strip to write their MM 
comic-book stories.  But they decided it was too much work to 
reformat FG into comic-book pages after 1948, and they also, it 
seemed, looked no further than their own offices when it came to 
finding writers for Mickey.

      The Italians did everything right.  They did not stop using FG 
material in 1948, and then, when they began expanding to produce 
their own stories in the early 1950s, they found someone who could 
mimic him very closely (Scarpa).  And this person was so prolific 
that when Gottfredson stopped doing the stories, there was merely a 
gentle click as Scarpa took EVERYTHING over.  And at that same time, 
earlier FG stories began to be reprinted, just as CB's work went into 
reprints after he retired.  The Italians treated Gottfredson as canon 
and modelled their own work after his (of course, maintaining some 
originality as they did).  And Italy is a country where Mickey IS 
STILL EVERY BIT AS POPULAR AS THE DUCKS.  Any questions?

      In my own opinion, that long column from Gary Gabner in DM was 
mainly excellent.  I see why Gladstone didn't want to resort to Murry 
in DM (and I'm glad they didn't, even if an occasional one from him, 
as in DM 26, is okay by me).  But their decision to use what they 
have used up until now is, as far as I'm concerned, a big mistake.
      (Not that they could use Scarpa.  Believe it or not, the stuff 
they used already seem to be the shortest Scarpa stories I've found 
here in Europe.  Also, the ones they chose are better than the others 
I've read here, save one -- ONE with 72 pages, which could never 
possibly be used unless MM's own title came back.)
      As far as I'm concerned, Gladstone could do well to use some 
Egmont MM stories, now that they're being done better than has been 
the case up until now.  I can understand why they didn't use Egmont 
MMs before good ones were available.  But now I'm hoping things will 
get better.
      Egmont is already doing well.  I have found many more shops 
that sell the Fleetway MM by this time, and they've been selling out 
in the last few weeks (which isn't usually the case).  On which 
issues?  The ones that had GOOD MM stories.  (And since the British 
comics run the MM story FIRST, it's gotta be good if it's gonna 
sell...)

      David Gerstein
      "Ding Dong Bell!  Kat Nipp's in the well?  And who threw him 
in?  MICKEY MOUSE!  I'll tell th' world!"
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>