Mickey Mouse (comics)

Mickey Mouse
Cover of Mickey Mouse and Friends #296 (September 2009), "Cover A"
Publication information
Publisher	Dell Comics, Gold Key Comics, Whitman, Gladstone Publishing, Gemstone Publishing, Boom Kids! (Boom! Studios), IDW Publishing
Schedule	Currently monthly.
Format	Ongoing series
Publication date	1941 – 2011
Main character(s)	Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse (titled Mickey Mouse and Friends from issues #257–303) was a comic book series that has a long-running history, first appearing in 1941 as part of the Four Color one-shot series. It received its own numbering system with issue #28 (1953), and was published by IDW Publishing.

The book emphasizes stories with Mickey and his supporting cast: Goofy, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Pluto and Mickey's nephews Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse. Mickey's perpetual rival is the criminal Peg-Leg Pete (sometimes "Black Pete", "Sneaky Pete" or "Big Bad Pete"). Other adversaries have included Emil Eagle, Eli Squinch, Sylvester Shyster, the team of Dangerous Dan McBoo and Idjit the Midget, and the Phantom Blot. Two major artistic influences on the appearance of Mickey in comics are Floyd Gottfredson, who drew the Mickey Mouse daily newspaper strip from 1930 to 1975, and comic book artist Paul Murry, who drew Mickey stories from 1950 to 1984.

In the mid 1930s original Mickey comic book stories were being produced in Italy and the United Kingdom for local consumption. Publishing Mickey comic book stories in the United States was pioneered by the third Mickey Mouse Magazine series (1935–1940). Initially published by Hal Horne, it had artwork by John Stanley and text pieces by Irving Brecher. By mid-1936, Horne turned over the magazine to Kay Kamen who oversaw merchandising for Disney. Kamen the following year recruited Western Publishing to handle production and publication. Western added reprinted Disney comic strips to the book's lineup beginning with the July 1937 issue; these included Gottfredson's Mickey daily strips re-formatted and colored for serialized magazine publication. In the words of historian Michael Barrier "Reprinted newspaper comics were never more than a minor part of its lineup until the very last issue, dated September 1940, when they suddenly took up half the pages." But Barrier has also judged the strip reprints "stood out by virtue of their crisp professionalism". The successor title, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories (WDC&S), described by Barrier as a true comic book, began publication with the Oct. 1940 issue and had the Gottfredson serials as a prominent feature.