Mark O'Polo by Gottfredson

Picked up these items earlier this year.

As some of you might know that legendary Mickey Mouse artist Floyd Gottfredson had plans for another comic strip of his own called Mark O'Polo. He was influenced by E.C. Segars Popeye and probably also by Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon. (Judging by the surviving concepts and plots.)
The lot included the following items: a sketch of the main character Mark O'Polo, a penciled logotype and a five page plot titled "Baby Elephant Baby-Sitter" stuffed in a envelope.

Has anyone ever seen a finished or even pencilled Mark O'Polo daily?

Dalí, Disney e Don Chisciotte

As a follow up to Michael Barrier's recent "Walt's 110th" post, here's a newspaper photo that I caught on eBay. Enjoy!

And as a "bonus" to this post a 1931 Will's Cigarettes card from their cinema stars set, featuring Walt and Mickey. (Also caught on eBay.)

Same, same ...

... but different.

I believe the WDC cover came first.  New Funnies #94 was published in Dec 1944, a year before WDC 63. The Scandinavian edition of WDC changed the turkey into a goose to fit better with our traditions. (Images courtesy of GCDB.)

Happy holidays to you all!

This piece of Carl Barks art recently surfaced at auction.
A post for those of you who has already seen "everything". :)

Image courtesy of Hake's.
Handwritten text at top “Hi, Mr. Matetsky-We Deeply Appreciate Your Interest In Us Ducks!” with additional text just below scene “-And So Does Carl Barks”. Handwritten text on bottom half reads “Dear Mr. Matetsky-I Wish To Thank You For Your Generous Valuation Of My Duck Paintings. I Try To Make Each One As Good As My Skills Will Permit. You Certainly Make Such Hard Work Worthwhile. Gratefully Yours, Carl Barks”.

Bob Pistella got another nice letter drawing in his comicartfans gallery. Click HERE to see it.

To round off this post, here's a letter + drawing sent to Jim Lowe in 1974:

NF 266

Located a set of black and white proofs for the New Funnies #266 Woody Woodpecker story yesterday.
With the old Western publishing coloring still intact! (On separate sheets.) Sadly the lettering was missing, but all of the nice Paul Murry art was still there.
Here's a sample.

It's nice that stuff like this still turns up now and then, don't ya think?

Coffee break

Just an ordinary day at work at Egmont.

Bamse is having a coffee break, reading the latest issue of his comic book.

That issue got some press coverage in Arbetarbladet.
We happened to do a story about how a giant christmas goat was burned.
And the night after the subscribers got it in the mailbox ...
the christmas goat in Gävle burned.

Well, well ...

Lilla My and a pair of Filifjonkor

I just have to share this scan of a wonderful gouache by Tove Jansson, featuring "Lilla My" and a pair of "Filifjonkor".

1950's? 1960's? Anyone who knows were this was published? I don't think I've seen it before.
It's currently for sale at Seriegalleriet in Stockholm.
If you got 135.000 sek to spare, my advice is that you go ahead and buy it.
I surely would.

Update: The piece is now sold! 
Congratulations to the buyers. It's a real gem!

Barks handwritten script to TDWCtD

Just got a mail from John Lustig with some good news!
The complete handwritten script to "The Duck Who Came to Dinner" by Carl Barks is now posted on his Last Kiss site!
I posted a few images last month, but there are more panels from the story to be seen on Johns site along with background info.
Just click HERE!
Enjoy!

A sample script page by Carl Barks. More to be found on the Last Kiss site.

Lightbox View – #%§∞

You might have noticed that Blogger have switched to a new "Lightbox view" when you click on images.
Like this:

You know the stuff that makes it hard to just drag and drop an image if you want to download it. The thing that doesn't allow you to zoom in on an image?
Does it annoy you? Do you want to get rid of it on your own blog?
Well here's how to do it:

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If you’d like to disable Lightbox on your blog, log in to Blogger and select No next to Lightbox in the Settings | Posts and Comments section (new interface) or the Settings | Formatting section (old interface).
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Feel free to spread the word to other bloggers.

Dick Kinney Fethry scribbles for sale

Update: The pages sold for US $1,007.00!

 Fans of Fethry, Dick Kinney and Disney Comics history:
The complete scribbled script to the very first story featuring Fethry is now for sale on eBay.
Check it out by clicking HERE.

Tom and Jerry artist identification

Calling all Funny Animal experts!
While scanning old Tom & Jerry proofs I came across a story by an artist I couldn't identify.
Anyone who can help? Would be nice to get the credits right.

Edit: The artist is Vic Lockman.
Thanks, Alberto!

Russell Patterson Pin-up girls

Do you like the art of Russell Patterson? Of course you do!
Here's a photo of one of his "Pin-up girls" cartoons from March 28, 1945.
Beautiful brush work as always when it comes to Patterson!  

If you are interested in buying the original art you should mail the owner right away, as it's for sale.  You can reach her at:  dreamfarm2 at aol.com

/Joakim.

A Mickey for Dawn

Ho! Ho! Ho!
X-mas comes early this year with an unpublished watercolor by Floyd Gottfredson.

Mickey watercolor by Gottfredson

This Floyd Gottfredson drawing of Mickey and Minnie surfaced earlier this year.

Watercolors, besides the ones he did for Willits, are not common to see but apparently he did a few with Mickey and Minnie dancing in various costumes. This one was made for John Mass.

Here's a similar one that I posted back in 2009.

Hagar the Fakeable

Would you pay $157.50 for this?

Well, apparently someone did on eBay today.
If the buyer reads this: Send me $100 and I'll do a bunch of re-inked Hagar strips for you. 10 or more and you'll get 'em for $75 each. Deal? :)

A letter from Walt

Are Myklebust sent me this image of a 1959 letter from Walt Disney.
Those of you who enjoyed the previous posts about his visit to Sweden will find this interesting. :)

The Golden Turkeys

The following text about "The Golden Apples" is a rough translation of the last part of a longer text, about Carl Barks re-written Duck stories from the 50's and 60's. Published in Swedish Donaldist fan magazine "NAFS(k)uriren" this year.

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When you read the stories Barks made new versions of in the late 50's and early 60's there's one that stands out and differs from the others. The Terrible Tourist WDC 248 (1961) was in fact a new version of a story that was intended to be published in WDC 64 (1945), but that was rejected by Western Publishing. It was shelved and was first published more than thirty years later. For readers in the 60's, this was not a re-make of an old story but a brand new one.
But what about the other stories that Barks saw disappear into the archives during the 50's? Why didn't he re-write any of them when he was looking for stories to re-work? Well ... Maybe that's just what he did.

In 1952 Barks drew a story that later became known as The Golden Apples. It was shelved and, unfortunately, it has been missing since then. The only thing we know about it are the bits and pieces of information Barks shared over the years.

The Golden Apples story took place during the Duckburg apple festival. There was a a contest where the men in Duckburg would gather golden apples in the woods. Apples that were placed there by the festival queen, inspired by the Greek myth of Atalanta. Donald becomes fond of the festival queen. Something that makes Daisy thoroughly jealous. One of the reasons why the story was never published is said to be that Daisy behaved too "unfeminine" in this story.

When one reads Turkey Trouble in WDC 243 (1960), it is easy to draw parallels between the two stories. Instead of an apple festival, it is a thanksgiving day feast and all men play at being pioneers who captures game and gather fruit in the forest. The main course to be served at the feast is turkey. Whoever captures the most wild turkeys in the woods gets to dine with the queen of the festival.

The basic idea is the same as for the 1952 story! Gladstone Gander appears in the 1960 story, but he was probably not in the golden apples story. Barks often changed the cast of his rewritten stories, and since he never mentioned that Gladstone would have been in the older one, we can probably rule out his involvement.

However, I can imagine that even in the story about the golden apples some crooked cheating took place in the woods. Where Donald is tricked to buy chickens disguised as turkeys, he might have been cheated to buy normal apples painted with gold paint in the old version.

Daisy's temperament that the publisher didn't like has understandably disappeared.
As with most other new versions Barks wrote these years, he retained the storys structure but clothed it in a new suit.
Of course, I'm just speculating. But it's fun to play with the idea that one of the lost Barks stories in a way, still remains. Although the golden apples turned into turkeys.

Sam Register at MIPJunior 2011

Here's something you should check out if you are into animation and WB properties in particular.
Sam Register - Executive Vice President, Creative Affairs, Warner Bros. Animation - discussing the Studio’s current and upcoming projects.
Just click HERE!
Enjoy!

New Barks, Lustig and Jippes story this week!

A brand new Uncle Scrooge story by Carl Barks, John Lustig and Daan Jippes will be published this week!
It's an unfinshed script by Barks, probably from the 60's, that John Lustig now has finished and Daan Jippes has provided the artwork to.
Here are a few samples to wet your appetite.
And for those of you who lives outside scandinavia: you can always bug your editors to pick up "The duck who came for dinner" for publication. The code number is "D 2010-073".  :)
Enjoy!

The original script was sold a few years ago as a part of the Barks Estate auctions on eBay.
This is what it looks like.

Besides the unfinshed script to the Happi Happi story I own and a few one pagers there are at least one more unpublished/unfinished plot out there, that is more than just a story description or an idea. (A plot broken down into pages and panels.) It's labeled as "Gyro's manager plot":

And while I'm at it...
I just wanted to mention this one, dealing with Magica DeSpell.
It seems to be written in the 90's, judging by the handwriting. (There are pages below the top one that looks like they are from a Junior Woodcucks story but the handwriting looks like Barks in his 70's.) Might be a scrapped idea that was written before "Horsing Around with History" or another plot began afterwards. Probably one of his last ones and it would sure be interesting to read it in full.

(If you own unpublished plots like the above samples, please get in touch with me. I'm always interested in trading or buying.)

PS. Here's a screencap from Wikipedia.
I changed it back to just "Carl Barks" since someone obviously pulled a leg here. Pretty funny though, but it shows how unreliable some sources can be...
Thanks to "Sim" on the Disney Comics Forum for observing this!

Was the Simpsons character named after Barks? Hmm...

Spiderwig

My girlfriend Hedvig has been on a Spidey diet for a few days now. Watching the cartoons and re-reading old comic books. And a few minutes ago she sent me this selfportrait. :)

This is what she looks like after watching the 90's cartoons streamed from the net 9 hours non-stop ... :)
More of her stuff can be found here: vixiearts.blogspot.com,
including this image of Emma & Sara. Enjoy!

Walt and Mickey 1948

This piece turned up on eBay a while ago.
Not the original art but on the back of a bird map.
I guess this was made to celebrate Mickeys 20'th birthday.

Anyone who has seen the other half of the piece?
Wich magazine was it published in?

The bird map and the other half of the back of the map:

Scooby-Doo by Dan Spiegle

Just a few words to alert Scandinavian readers of this blog that the new Tom & Jerry pocket is out. Besides T&J it also features reprints of a few Scooby-Doo stories drawn by Dan Spiegle in the 70's. (Some of them written by Mark Evanier!)

The nice thing about these stories is that they have been scanned from old films and re-colored. Personally I think that Spiegle's work on Scooby-Doo never have looked better than now.
Here are a few images so that you can judge for yourself.
The pocket book will be available in stores for another month or so. 

Walt Disney and Ingmar Bergman

Got two more pics from Simon.
Walt Disney meeting Ingmar Bergman in 1959!
Enjoy!

+ An additional Disney item that I first posted back in 2007:


Found this newspaper clipping dated 1936 in the files of comic book artist Rune Andréasson.
The text reads: "The father of Mickey Mouse doesn't have time to draw!" " Walt Disney surrounded by a part of his numerous family."
What I wonder is; from wich publication is this taken? The back of the clipping doesn't give away any information.
And, is it really Walt Disney in the photo?


/Joakim.

PS. One more photo of Walt in Sweden 1959 ... :)