Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Color Sundays "Robin Hood Rides Again": Volume 2 (Vol. 2)

Fantagraphics is currently releasing the works of Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson at nearly the exact same time. The latest two volumes arrived at my house just days apart leaving me in the enviable position of figuring out which to read first. Should I go with Barks amazing interpretation of Donald Duck for Dell Comics or Gottfredson's wonderful Mickey Mouse created for newspapers. As much as I love Barks I have to pick Gottfredson but it's no easy choice. As good as Barks is Gottfredson is basically the template for the look of Disney's funny animal comics. Barks carved out his own distinctive look but if there were an archetype for Disney comics it would be Gottfredson. One of the most amazing things about Gottfredson is that he never cuts corners. Where most artists will often skimp on backgrounds sometimes having nothing but a blank wall Gottfredson includes detail on almost every frame. It's as if it never even occurred to him to slack off.These comics take place in the latter half of the 1930's with a Mickey that's a little more edgy than some might expect. In one story Mickey plays a prank on his rival Mortimer Mouse by betting him $1 he can knock him down without touching him. Mortimer lowers his chin allowing Mickey to deck him with a haymaker. Mickey then tosses him the dollar having lost the bet. I happen to like this Mickey more than the squeaky clean adventure Mickey in the dailies. When it comes to extras Mickey's collection dominates poor Donald. There are essays at the beginning and ending of the book and analysis of the comics starting each chapter. I also am a much bigger fan of the covers of the Gottfredson collection. In fact this series is one of the most gorgeous on my bookshelf.A few things to note; although the book is 280 pages, less than half are Gottfredson Mickey Mouse comics from the 1930's. Besides all the essays, which are always awesome, we also get 12 pages of fill in work that Gottfredson did years after he stopped doing the Sunday comics regularly and even the book admits they aren't that great. I think Gottfredson was trying to emulate another (vastly inferior) artist with disappointing results. There are also 54 pages from Gottfredson's work on the `Treasury of Classic Tales' comics. These comic strips retell some of the classic Disney animations including Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians. It's interesting to see how talented Gottfredson is at simulating others art styles but they still pale compared to his work on Mickey Mouse. I assume Fantagraphics simply ran out of Mickey Mouse material so they had to pack the book with filler.As far as I know this is the first complete collection of Gottfredson comics and everything about it screams quality and the price is extremely reasonable. This is a collection for adults and children alike. My daughters are still too young to pull them off the bookshelf and peruse them but I'll have to train them to be careful because I plan on keeping these in as good a condition as possible. They are that nice. This is a collection you can't go wrong with and I've already preordered vol. 5 with the first appearance of The Phantom Blot.

Once again a terrific balance of comics anthropology and glorious Sunday Color funnies reprints. While some of the narrative in thisvolume suffers from "version of the fairy tale" mundanity, Gottfredson's storyteling and wonderful artwork are top notch. And once again the biggest drawback is the cover price: potential buyers are advised to purchase from the lowest priced seller one can find. With free shipping, of course

Vintage Gottfredson, not much more one can say.Except that Fantagraphics has been doing a great job with the Mickey series and the Barks ducks.

The early Mickey Mouse newspaper strips were really adventure strips and very well done. The book arrived quickly and in nice condition.

He loved it

Growing up I read many Walt Disney Comics. One of my main sources was the great "Walt Disney Comics Digest" put out by Gold Key Comics/Western Publications. I liked many of the comics they reprinted, but among the best were the "duck stories", especially the longer Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge adventures, by Carl Barks (tho like many of us, I would learn who Barks was many years later) and the Mickey Mouse stories by Floyd Gottfredson (tho it was much later that I learned his name as well).I also came to learn that the great Mickey Mouse adventure stories by Gottfredson were actually reprints of the daily and Sunday Mickey Mouse comic strips. But what was frustrating, was that while Carl Barks materials were reprinted completely several times (and now are again being reprinted by Fantagraphics), no one had done a comprehensive reprint of Gottfredson's work. Until now.Fantagraphics started off doing volumes reprinting the dailies. They have done 4 of what should be 15 total (the fifth is on the way). But it seemed there were no plans on doing the Sundays. The attitude seemed to be that the Sundays were only gag strips. Many don't realize that in the early days of comic strips, sometimes dailies and Sundays had different story lines. And for some characters, the Sundays were sometimes standalone gag strips. Only later was it the style to merge dailies and Sundays into a single storyline, but some strips never even did that.However, I had several Mickey Mouse adventure stories taken from the Sundays. So I knew it wasn't true. And while Gottfredson worked on the dailies for many years, he only did the Sundays for about 4 years. Thus the Sundays will be done in 2 volumes.The Sunday volumes follow the same size and format as the dailies. A great introductory essay or two that gives info on the strip and the current set of stories. Then the stories, broken up into distinct storylines with some introductory info on each. Then followed up by a variety of extras: info on the reprinting of the stories (reprinting some of the covers of these collections, which find cool, especially if I've gotten one of them), info on the major secondary characters, other background info, and sometimes bonus material in the form of stuff like sequels done oversees and never seen in the US!Volume 2 has about 3 years of dailies, 1936 to 1938. And because of how they are done, unlike the dailies, we get gag strips intermixed with continuing stories. These are the stories:"Mickey's Rival" has Mickey going up against Mortimer Mouse as a rival."Helpless Helpers" has Mickey being "helped" in his home repairs by Donald and Goofy."The Robin Hood Adventure" is a story I had read in reprint. A fun story were Mickey shows up in the world of Robin Hood."The Ventriloquist" has Mickey learning ventriloquism, with the expected disastrous results."Sheriff of Nugget Gulch" is another story I had read in reprint, and another fun story set in the West. This time the villain is Pegleg Pete."Service with a Smile" has Mickey running a gas station, but not very well."The Brave Little Tailor" is yet another story I had read in reprint, and is another story putting Mickey into a classic tale that is based on a well done Mickey cartoon.To help fill out the volume, we get some later work of Gottfredson. We get a bunch of fill in work by him from the 50s to the 70s, tho the style is more in line with the then current Mickey comic strip.Then we get work he did on the Donald Duck Sunday comic and many the Treasure of Classic Tales strip in the 60s. These included stories with Lambert the Sheepish Lion, the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, and the 101 Dalmatians.Another great volume in this series. Can't wait to get the next volume of dailies.

Great!!