Probably the biggest “classic comics” announcement at SD10 was a new series of reprints of Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse comic strip. Disney is partnering with Fantagraphics for the reprints, which will begin in 2011.
Gottfredson’s Mickey was far from the benign company spokesman we all know and love. Rather he was a bold, dynamic adventurer, fighting real bad guys like the Phantom Blot and Peg-Leg Pete. According to this piece by Douglas Wolk, the deal was cemented at Comic-Con. Jacob Covey will design the series. Like much entertainment of the era, the strip has some racial overtones that are very unfortunate, which have never been reprinted, but according to Gary Groth , this will be unexpurgated:
I think I’ve persuaded them to allow us to reprint it in its original form. There’s some sensitive material–material that would be considered racist today, and should have been but wasn’t considered racist then. My plan and my hope is to reprint it exactly as it was, with some explanatory text for a modern audience. I want to keep it intact.
David Gerstein has a fuller account of the strip’s history and importance here.
Thanks for the link, Heidi.
But I should warn readers that I compiled that document 14 years ago—and it resides today at a site I can’t access, so I can’t update it as I’d really prefer to.
The document includes an error: Gottfredson was not the creator of early arch-enemy Sylvester Shyster (the crooked lawyer was actually created by Walt Disney himself).
I refer in the document to European “artists” who carried Gottfredson’s torch, but should have mentioned writers too.
Scarpa and Noel Van Horn were/are both writers as well as artists; and other talents such as Byron Erickson (writer) and Andrea Castellan (writer/artist) have created notable Gottfredson-inspired stories in recent years.
I love those old Mickey strips and can’t wait to see them in an unedited high quality format.
After Thad K had posted those Michey Mouse scans from Island in the sky, I’ve been praying and hoping that someday there’d be a reprinted collection. I’m very glad this is happening and will definitely be picking them up.