Be welcome to the World of Mickey Mouse. It should be remembered that a proper "canon" to the stories has not been established yet, although connections over stories can be traced quite often. Despite this, it should be remembered that the stories are not set in the same universe as the cartoons, if the connection is not explicit or somewhat clear, and that the connections usually stay into national boundaries (United States authors usually reference other United States authors' works, Italian authors reference Italians' works, and others, which are a minority usually follow the same rule). One of the most notable artists working on the strip was
Below is a list of Mickey Mouse-related publications, with short descriptions and some recommended readings mentioned:
American publications
Early works
Mickey comic strips started to appear on newspapers by 13 January 1930, with the first episode of "Lost on a Desert Island", written by Walt Disney himself and arted by Ub Iwerks. The story, which proved quite successful, saw print for sixty-seven issues until 30 March. It is one of Mickey's most memorable stories, and should be read by every aficionado. It is easy to retrieve, since it was reprinted various times over the years, notably in the two-issues-long The Uncensored Mouse (1989) by Eternity Comics. The comic strip seeing Mickey and his friends as protagonists went on to be published on American newspapers until it concluded on 29 July 1995, with the twenty-fourth episode of "Mickey & Goofy in Itsybitsia". One of the most notable artists to work on the strip was Floyd Gottfredson, who entered Disney as an apprentice and authored various episodes of the second storyline, "Mickey in the Death Valley". Gottfredson introduced various characters of geat importance in the Mickey Universe, including Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, the Phantom Blot, Sylvester Shyster and the already-existing Peg-Leg Pete. Gottfredson's daily and Sunday masterpieces, as well as "Lost on a Desert Island", are collected in the 2011-2018 publication Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse by Fantagraphics, also referred to as "The Floyd Gottfredson Library".
Mickey's first dedicated publication was the "one-shot" Mickey Mouse Book (November 1930), published by Bilbo & Lang. The book is very uncommon by today and is very sought-after, but has not been reprinted to date.
Mickey Mouse Magazine (1933-1940)
Volume 1 (1933)
Mickey's first ongoing series was the first version of Mickey Mouse Magazine, which started as a promotional giveaway magaze published by "Kamen-Blair" (Disney's Merchandising representative Kay Kamen and his partner Streeter Blair). It was launched in January 1933, and the first two issues of the promotional digest-sized magazine (every issue was sixteen-pages-long) were cover-priced 5 cents, although they must have been distributed for free, since the price ceased to appear with issue #3. The ninth and final issue was published in September of the same year, after that, the series's issue count was zeroed to prepare for a new format of magazine.
These comics are little-known today and hard to find and their stories are written with the purpose of publicising Disney's cartoons, however, they have got a great historical importance as Mickey Mouse's first ongoing title to ever be published.
Volume 2 (1933-1935)
Two months after the end of the first series, a second similarly-titled magazine was launched, still as a promotional product, but sponsorised by various different American dairy products companies, depending on the issue. The comic book was very similar to the preceding version, although it had the name of the dairy companies printed on the cover, and was distributed for free by door-to-door milk delivery drivers. The stories were also very milk-centered due to the publicitary purpose of the magazine. The series, edited by Hal Horne, Director of publicity and advertising of then-Disney distributor company United Artists, was known due to it purportedly using Horne's gag archive, a huge archive of jokes and gags written on small paper cards, categorised and stored in filing cabinets in 1931. The number of these joke cards was purportedly six millions and comedians and actors were said to go buy them from Horne.
The Horne series went on to be published for twenty-four issues, from November 1933 to October 1935. It is notable for an early appearance of Donald Duck, months after his comics debut, delivering a line to Mickey as part of a joke in issue #12 (November 1934), and also for possibly being the first instance in which Goofy was identified as "Goofie" rather than "Dippy Dawg", for an unidentified 1934 issue.
Horne contacted Kamen in 1935 to discuss the idea of a standard version of Mickey Mouse Magazine to be sold together with other comic titles in newsstands. Horne left UA to work on this idea as Editor and Publisher as part of Hal Horne, Inc.. The first 44-page issue was released with a cover date of "June-August 1935", although there is little information on the precise release date, and featured a full-color centerfold, several stories, as well as puzzles, coloring, jokes, riddles, as well as an "Horacescope" oroscope. The second issue established the schedule as monthly rather than seasonal, and the comic turned out to be a success, although there were many unsold magazines due to the unexpectedly high demand the sellers were expecting. Horne's time in his position continued until issue #9 (June 1936), when he asked Kamen to "buy him out" due to financial difficulties, which Kamen reluctantly did. Kamen, publishing the magazine as "Kay Kamen Ltd" started a plan with Horne both to compensate the title's terrible losses and help Horne with his troubles by reselling early unsold issues abroad and having Disney purchase Horne's joke archive.
Kamen made numerous modifications to the title, including changing the cover title itself in issue #15 (December 1936) to "Mickey Mouse in a Magazine" and to "Mickey Mouse in a Magazine with COMICS" in issue #16 (January 1937), a title which endured up to issue #24 (September 1937). Kamen also introduced some of his staff to the magazine, including artists John Stanley and Otto Messmer, as well as introduced reprints of Sunday strips and even non-Disney stories to the title. In 1937, Kamen also entered a partnership with Edward Wadwitz, founder of Western Publishing (then editor of the Big Little Books), and the two started to print the title as "K.K. Publications", starting with issue #21, the first to have half of the pages in color. The title's "K.K." format started to have a considerable number of non-Disney Western characters and stories, as well as actuate a strategy of promoting Disney's cinematographic productions. Issues #27-31 (December 1937-April 1938), for example, adapted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was meanwhile being distributed, as did issues #51-53 (December 1939-March 1940) with Pinocchio. Meanwhile, more and more stories featuring Donald Duck and other Disney and non-Disney characters started to outgrow Mickey's in popularity and focus.
In 1938, with Superman's debut and the beginning of the Golden Age, attempts started to be made to convert Mickey Mouse Magazine into a "traditional" American comic book or, at least, try to achieve competitivity, by reprinting Mickey Mouse newspaper stories (starting with "Mighty Whale Hunter" in issue #41, February 1939), starting to print fully in color (in issue #48, September 1939), shrinking to a standard comic book size (issue #57, June 1940) and, finally, with the title's sixtieth and final issue (September 1940), doubling the pages to sixty-four, of which thirty-four were strip reprints.
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