It’s Mickey Mouse’s 90th birthday, and IDW (with Disney, of course) is celebrating by bringing us a collection of tales from Mickey’s illustrious past.
This new Mickey Mouse 90th Anniversary Collection contains 5 full-length stories, plus a few one-pagers and a foreword by David Gerstein.
The fun starts off big time, with a story from 1931. This one, Mickey Mouse, Boxing Champion, is worth the price of the book by itself. Assembled from the daily Mickey Mouse comic strip panels of 1931, this full-colour story follows Mickey as a boxing coach. He’s been saddled with a lazy, Shakespeare-reading former boxing champion, and needs to prep him for a prize fight. The fighter’s opponent chews nails for breakfast, and Mickey has his hands full with motivating his boxing client.
Written by Floyd Gottfredson, and illustrated by Gottfredson and Earl Duvall, with inking by Duvall and Al Taliaferro, this story is absolutely delightful. It’s packed with fun drawings, hilariously caricatured animals, and witty dialogue.
The Sacred Spring of Seasons Past is from 1959. It’s an adventure to the very north of North America, near the Siberian land bridge, where aboriginals theoretically first crossed into North America following the retreat of the Ice Age. It’s a fun, fact-tinged mystery-adventure tale that kids can enjoy.
The Phantom Blot returns too! In this story from 1964, Mickey is called upon to help solve a mystery. The Phantom Blot, still in jail, seems to be able to escape captivity and commit robberies, yet is still in jail!
Finally, The Eye of Topoltec, from 2005, is newly seen in USA. This tale is from Italian Topolino. This one, written by Andrea Castellan, is full of wonderfully fluid, exaggerated gestures and flexible figures illustrated by Vitale Mangiatordi.
A fun volume of colourful, time-honoured Mickey Mouse stories that will give hours of enjoyable to Mickey fans of any age.
IDW/Disney, Mickey Mouse 90th Anniversary Collection, $24.99 for 188 pages All ages.
Newsdesk