"Topolino e il Fiume del Tempo" (Mickey Mouse and The River of Time) is a story written by Francesco Artibani and Tito Faraci and illustrated by Corrado Mastantuono, first published in 1998 to celebrate the 70th birthday of Mickey Mouse.
The story takes up the setting of the first short film in which the Disney mouse was the protagonist, Steamboat Willie, and is divided into two episodes, both of which had been published for the first time in Topolino magazine #2243.
It all starts one morning when Mickey finds at home Pegleg Pete offering him an adventure to share: recover the mythical steamboat theater of their first adventure. Mickey accepts because he would never refuse to participate in an adventure but also due to old guilty feelings that haunt him (reckons his own responsibility the sinking of the boat). The two get a "new" (it really is in poor conditions) boat and venture on the "river of time" to retrace the old road and rummage through memories. There must be something precious in that river-bottom boat.
Reading the story, we learn of additional details about that old first adventure, such as who was on the boat besides Pete and Mickey, what Pete looks for at the bottom of the sea, how Steamboat Willie sank in 1928, and we also get to know some new interesting characters...
The story has been reprinted many (many) times in Italy and also in a lot of different countries in the world.
This is the magnificent cover, illustrated by the artist of the story, to the latest Italian reprint (last year, for Topolino Limited De Luxe Edition series).
As in most of his Disney covers (see the Disney BIGs for example), Corrado chose to do tight pencils and then apply digital colors (see the published cover in the additional images).
Huge Thanks to Corrado!!!
Paper size: 25 x 35 cm
