Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse: “High Noon at Inferno Gulch” (DISNEY MICKEY MOUSE HC)

This really is a wonderful time to live in for fans of classic comic strips. There seems to be an endless stream of collections with the premier editions coming from Fantagraphics. In my opinion Fantagraphics is tops in terms of presentation quality and Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse is one of the best. Fantagraphics tends to get very creative with its binding, some are a bit of a miss as with the Popeye collection which are so massive they become a challenge to put on a book shelf and I wasn't a huge fan of the die cut on the cover. Not the case with Mickey. The physical size of the book is just about perfect with tight binding and a lovely design. This is a book that you can proudly put in a bookcase for others to see. The Mickey Mouse collections are a nice balance of interesting and informative essays without going overboard and squeezing out the comics themselves.The stories here are boilerplate for the era. Mickey at sea (twice). Mickey out west (twice). Mickey battling a mysterious phantom villain. Mickey battling mobsters. These storylines have even been done by Gottfredson in previous volumes but they never get boring even if they are somewhat derivative. "A Race for Riches" is a near carbon copy of Gottfredson's first Mickey story "Race to Death Valley" except that the story here is much better, in fact just about everything about his writing, character development and art have improved. I loved when Peg Leg Pete was strafing Mickey and Horsecollar from above shouting, "Hugs and Kisses, Haw Haw". This kind of lightness and humor is a far cry from the stale jokes Mickey was spewing in the earlier story. Another funny thing is the whole pecking order of the animals in Mickey's world. There's the classic case of a mouse owning a dog as a pet but in "Pluto the Race Dog" several mobsters try to fix the dog racing and the mobsters are in fact anthropomorphic dogs. But the best has to be Horsecollar the horse riding a horse. At some level Gottfredson must have recognized the weirdness of this situation.Minnie Mouse has a much larger role traveling with Mickey in many of the adventures. It's kind of funny that when Minnie isn't in her dress and hat she is pretty much indistinguishable from Mickey and when the two were out west in their cowboy clothing I had a terrible time telling them apart. Peg Leg Pete is the villain in about half the stories and we get our first look at Eli Squinch who gives Mickey fits in an earlier story and returns to team up with Pete in "A Race for Riches". There is a mixture of high adventure stories as in Mickey's travel to Umbrellestan (think middle east) as well as stories taking place back home in Mouseton. I have a soft spot for the smaller scale stories like when Mickey ends up caring for a baby elephant and when he enters Pluto in a dog race. The 1930's were a time of great transition in the U.S. with a growing disparity between small town life and the hustle and bustle of the big city and global travel and Gottfredson gave his readers a little of both. In fact Mouseton itself seems to have suddenly grown from a little town to a booming metropolis in just a few years. This volume is more about famous lasts than famous first. The last time Donald is drawn with a stork bill, the last time Dippy Dawg (Goofy) is drawn without pants and sadly the end of Horsecollar's adventures with Mickey.When I think of a great artist like E.C. Segar it saddens me that the world only got 9 years of his talent drawing and writing Popeye but in the case of Gottfredson we are blessed to have 40 years of stories. Gottfredson's art is absolutely amazing and the quintessential 1930's funny animal comic. There is some unfortunate racial stereotype characters including the cringe worthy "Chinky" but that kind of character is so common in the 1930's that it's almost unavoidable. At the cover price of $30 this collection is well priced but at Amazon's price of $17.87 it is an absolute steal. This collection is such a treasure you could buy it for children and adults and it will likely be enjoyed for years to come. Back in 1978 I bought a collection of colorized Gottfredson stories that included four stories included in this volume and have loved that book for over 30 years. This collection is superior in that it doesn't include the unnecessary colorization and is complete rather than including selections. Now having said that I have to backtrack and mention that unlike the Popeye collection these do not include the self contained Sunday comics. The inclusion of the Sunday comics likely accounted for the massive size of the Popeye volumes. I hope that Fantagraphics is planning on eventually putting out the Sunday Mickey Mouse comics to complete the series.

One of the world's most recognizable pop-culture icons, Walt Disney's unstoppable breadwinner Mickey Mouse has a wild past of which many fans are blissfully and unenviably unaware. It's safe to say that no other mouse has experienced more daredevil action or comic thrills than the classic comic-strip Mickey, who returns in Volume 3 of this priceless hardcover series with awesome adventures of epic proportions. With help from scripters Ted Osborne and Merrill de Maris and inker Ted Thwaites, artist-plotter Floyd Gottfredson, who anonymously guided the strip for 45 years, takes our big-eared champion through saber-rattling suspense in Middle-Eastern Umbrellastan and dusty shoot-em-ups in treacherous Texas, where those who only know the later-milquetoast Mickey might be surprised to see him packing a six-shooter. It's here that Horace Horsecollar plays the partner-in-adventure for the last time before Dippy Dawg (the later Goofy) lopes his way to primary-sidekick status. Barely taking a breath, Mickey and Dippy return to Mouseton, where they and Donald Duck (in an extended cameo) face down mobsters who want to wreck their crime-fighting newspaper. The valiant rodent deals with the adorable but trouble-prone "Bobo the Elephant," meets the malicious miser Eli Squinch, and takes on the well-developed threat of Dr. Vulter with the help of his "Pirate Submarine." Plus, the slovenly sidekick Pegleg Pete steps out of evil lawyer Sylvester Shyster's shadow to become Mickey's main villain. The superbly packaged Volume 3 includes over 50 pages of special features and is a joy to read.

My Husband loved his book and is happy with it. It came in good condition and he was pleased. The time in which it arrive was alot faster than. Originally said. So all in all he is one happy Husband.

Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey is a greater hero than any tight-wearing pantywaist that Marvel or DC ever put out. He's a little guy, but he's unstoppable! Whether Mickey's battling a two-faced bandit, a crooked gambling ring, racketeers and corrupt government officials, terrorists intent on conquering the world or the dirty dog who's about to throw Clarabelle out of her home, he always wins! Some of the bad guys (notably Peg Leg Pete) don't learn the lesson that good triumphs over evil, but Mickey grits his teeth and cheerfully beats 'em again. He's not one of these morose, angst-ridden whiners and he doesn't depend on any freakish super powers. That's why Mickey's adventures are as relevant today as when Gottfredson wrote them in the Thirties.

These stories are from a different time, no doubt about that. You need to adjust your perceptions.I very much appreciate the KIndle format. I hope all these old stories show up in Kindle format.

This is classic Mickey Mouse. This is the Mickey Mouse I grew up with (I'm older than dirt). Like Carl Barks, Floyd Gottfredson was a master story teller and though some of his early work appears less sleek than the later Mickeys; it was very good for the times and the stories hold up very well whether you are 4 or 94. Floyd did Mickey for 40 or so years, his art style changed and improved. Gottfredson's stories are amoung the very best Mickey Mouse stories produced at Disney. You won't go wrong buying any art and stories by Gottfredson. He is to Mickey Mouse like Carl Barks is to the Disney Ducks. Highly recommended

Gave as gift to grandson and he loved it

This whole series of books reprint the masterful Mickey comic strips by the great Floyd Gottfredson. There has never been, nor ever will be, another cartoonist who could capture the inner workings of this American icon; with drawings that bring the stories and characters to life. This is as good as it could get. There was no room for improvement. And I happily repeat that there will NEVER be a Mickey Mouse comic strip of this consistant high quality ever again. This is INDEED a 'must' for ANY fan of Mickey, or for that matter, any comic strip lover.

Una colección divina para el lector adulto y los niños

In Italia sono uscite innumerevoli antologie e raccolte cronologiche delle strisce di Mickey Mouse/Topolino, dalle raccolte in volume ai paperbacks, dalla pubbilcazione su quotidiani ai periodici della Disney. Rarissime, paradossalmente, sono invece le ristampe in USA. Questa collana, che si spera continui, rappresenta quindi un'occasione quasi unica per poter leggere le strisce di Floyd Gottfredson in lingua originale, senza tagli, censure e modifiche dovute alle traduzioni e all'evoluzione della morale e dei costumi, oltre che dalle esigenze editoriali.Edizione pregiatissima per qualità di stampa e di pubblicazione, è arrichita da numerosi articoli originali e ristampati nonché da illustrazioni e rarità; alcuni curatori dell'opera sono italiani, forse proprio in virtù di quanto detto sopra. Rispetto al prezzo di copertina, un'opera di questo livello è, a mio avviso, imperdibile.Le strisce sono in bianco e nero, come originariamente concepite, ma gli inserti e le storie aggiuntive sono, quando previsto, a colori. Unica "pecca": mancano, per scelta editoriale, le tavole domenicali.

Fantástica edición de la obra de Floyd. Sin pega alguna.