1928-2018
Mickey Mouse is 90 years old.
Created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, this is one of the most iconic characters ever created, recognizable by everyone in the whole world even by his silhouette only, a character that changed the story of Disney who later, in the Disneyland anthology TV series, said: "I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse."
First appeared in the silent short cartoon “Plane Crazy” on May 15, 1928, to a test screening in a theater, then publicly debuted the same year on November 18 (now considered the official birthdate while it has been September 28, when the trademark granting Disney the name Mickey Mouse was issued, for a certain period of time) with the premiere of “Steamboat Willie”, one of the first animated shorts with sound.
He appeared in many animated shorts and movies, voiced by Walt himself, such as “The Band Concert”, “Clockwork Cleaners”, “The Brave Little Taylor” and “Fantasia”, and also a star of comic strips and comic books where many artists defined his world and gave him life throughout all these years, Floyd Gottfredson being here surely the most important one. So, let’s celebrate the great little mouse.
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This is the published cover of Topolino #3234, a celebration of Mickey's 89th birthday and was inspired by a story meant to be published inside that issue, as advertised in 2017 Lucca Comics & Games 2017.
Unfortunately, that story, "Topolino e il Cerchio del Tempo" (ideally a follow up to "Topolino e il Fiume del tempo", from the same creative team of Artibani/Faraci and Mastantuono), was replaced at the very last moment (while they were printing the issue) for reasons unclear to us readers but they published the cover, that was the only real celebration Mickey had in that issue since all the stories were with ducks as main characters.
It was promised this story would have been published in 2018, but it was not, yet.
What do we know about the story? well, it was with today's characters and a lot of flashbacks with the old Mickey and also included a character, CatNip, that appeared in Gottfredson's 30's comic strips and was then forgotten.
I wanted to post the cover with the story published, but, since it looks like its destiny is unclear, I decided to include it in my celebration for Mickey's 90.
I'm not sure we'll be able to see other new published pieces with CatNip, so enjoy this one, with Mastantuono's awesome rendition.
Also included in the additional images the prelim and the published cover.
EDIT: finally, in October 2022, the story "Topolino e il Cerchio del Tempo" was published in a dedicated volume with this very same cover!
Huge thanks, Corrado!!!
Paper size: 25 x 35 cm
