The infamous Air Pirates Funnies issues 1 and 2, underground comcis that were published in 1971 and led to a lawsuit by Disney: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Pirates Both issues can be found on libgen.is/
Is anyone aware of any others? I have recently located another one that is only two pages but should be interesting. Someone will send me photos of them in the coming days, I will post them here too.
The infamous Air Pirates Funnies issues 1 and 2, underground comcis that were published in 1971 and led to a lawsuit by Disney: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Pirates Both issues can be found on libgen.is/
Is anyone aware of any others? I have recently located another one that is only two pages but should be interesting. Someone will send me photos of them in the coming days, I will post them here too.
Are you the author of the Disney Comics Randomness blog? It’s an interesting and informative blog I read whenever new posts come up. Thank you for the details on these. Other then the Air Pirates I hadn’t heard of these. Is their somewhere I can read the Rosa ones?
The infamous Air Pirates Funnies issues 1 and 2, underground comcis that were published in 1971 and led to a lawsuit by Disney: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Pirates Both issues can be found on libgen.is/
Is anyone aware of any others? I have recently located another one that is only two pages but should be interesting. Someone will send me photos of them in the coming days, I will post them here too.
Are you the author of the Disney Comics Randomness blog? It’s an interesting and informative blog I read whenever new posts come up. Thank you for the details on these. Other then the Air Pirates I hadn’t heard of these. Is their somewhere I can read the Rosa ones?
jmbarnes101 No, I'm not the author of the Disney Comics Randomness blog. You can reed the speedskating story here and the Return to Duckburg place story was posted here in the official Don Rosa facebook group (you have to join it to be able to see the post).
Snippet from a 2015 2-pager by the great Al Columbia, released in issue 23 of Smoke Signal. The two main characters are wearing Mickey and Minnie outfits for Halloween for most of the story:
Another one is The Uncensored Mouse, a short-lived (only 2 issues) bootleg comic book from 1989. Unlike the previous examples, this contained genuine Disney comics (early Gottfredson). From wikipedia:
"The series reprinted Mickey Mouse comic strip stories from the 1930s, though the strips were published without Disney's permission. As result of this, Eternity Comics printed the comic with totally black covers, bag and boarded (to prevent casual buyers from flipping through the comic), and the inside of the comic had a printed notice "Mickey Mouse is a registered trademark of Walt Disney Productions" so as not to confuse the market that it was an authorized Disney production. However, Eternity Comics had not violated any copyrights as the strips had fallen into public domain. Regardless, Disney brought a lawsuit against the company and the series was cancelled after two issues (a third issue had been planned)."
Another one is The Uncensored Mouse, a short-lived (only 2 issues) bootleg comic book from 1989. Unlike the previous examples, this contained genuine Disney comics (early Gottfredson). From wikipedia:
"[...] Eternity Comics had not violated any copyrights as the strips had fallen into public domain. Regardless, Disney brought a lawsuit against the company and the series was cancelled after two issues (a third issue had been planned)."
Wikipedia simply isn't right about this.
Some of the earliest Mickey strips are technically in the public domain; but the first week of daily strips—January 13-18, 1930—was indeed copyrighted on January 3, 1930 (look for "Mickey Mouse, weekly sheet"), and renewed September 23, 1957 (look for same, this time with the strip dates included).
Furthermore, the April 15 and 17, 1930 strips were copyrighted, apart from their newspaper usage, as part of the second printing of Bibo and Lang's Mickey Mouse Book later in 1930.
Fans have spent years repeating the erroneous legend that The Uncensored Mouse's contents were entirely in the public domain, yet Disney somehow forced Eternity to stop publishing anyway.
The truth is far more prosaic: Eternity did its IP research incompletely; they published some still-protected strips in The Uncensored Mouse; they violated copyright (however unintentionally), and Disney reacted quite realistically to the infringement.
I do a lot of copyright research for classic animation home video releases that I work on with a longtime colleague, Tommy Stathes. It's my major sideline outside of Disney comics work, and it's incredibly important for us to get this kind of IP research right!
Just in case, gonna ask people to remember this forum's overall meant to work as an all-ages space- so while discussing stuff like the Air Pirates is perfectly fine and on-topic, use some thought on the amount of detail or on whether to outright post an image or just a link to it. Not a hard rule, per se, just, take caution.
In Sweden a comic magazine named Elitserien (published 1985) included some Disney parodies, ex. one where Scrooge and Daisy had some kind of sexual relationship. And the cover shows Donald as a refugee run away from East-Germany. Story and art was made by Swedish donaldists but the magazine had to cancelled after just one number due to conflicts with Disney.
In Sweden a comic magazine named Elitserien (published 1985) included some Disney parodies, ex. one where Scrooge and Daisy had some kind of sexual relationship. And the cover shows Donald as a refugee run away from East-Germany. Story and art was made by Swedish donaldists but the magazine had to cancelled after just one number due to conflicts with Disney.
Thank you for the contribution! That is a pretty cool cover. I also found half a page here. Based on the table of contents on comics.org, it seems this comic book contained 9 pages of Donald Duck comics (a one-pager and a comic 8 pages long) and the rest were non-Disney material. Can you confirm if you have the magazine?
Some of the earliest Mickey strips are technically in the public domain; but the first week of daily strips—January 13-18, 1930—was indeed copyrighted on January 3, 1930 (look for "Mickey Mouse, weekly sheet"), and renewed September 23, 1957 (look for same, this time with the strip dates included).
Would that be the strips drawn by Win Smith (d. 1941)? Cause those were still written by Disney/Gottfredson (who died after 1945), which means they wouldn't be technically in the public domain for a while yet.
Just checking, I've always heard that some of the earliest Mickey short cartoons are in technically in the public domain by that token (but can't be released because the Mickey Mouse trademark lasts forever), and I wondered if that was the reason.
The newspaper strips were written in contract to a company, so they obey the 95 years after print rule, not the 75 after creator death. They'll be in the public domain if they didn't get renewed copyright in the 50s-60s back when you still had to renew copyright, which sounds like is exactly what happened- same reason there's Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, Van Beuren shorts in the public domain despite not being 95 years since creation, yet.
I do a lot of copyright research for classic animation home video releases that I work on with a longtime colleague, Tommy Stathes. It's my major sideline outside of Disney comics work, and it's incredibly important for us to get this kind of IP research right!
In that case — you might be able to answer a question of mine: what's the copyright status of Pete? Obviously Disney still own the iconic “fat cat” version introduced in the Mickey Mouse cartoons and strips, and I assume (though I might be wrong) that they've trademarked the name "Peg-Leg Pete" somehow. But if one were to go back to the original bearlike Alice/Oswald version, and call him "Bootleg Pete" and everything — could one freely use that character in new productions? And if not, then, to stick closer to the quoted job description — doesn't that cause any issues for potential rereleases of the still-copyrighted post-Disney Oswald shorts that still have Pete in them?
In Sweden a comic magazine named Elitserien (published 1985) included some Disney parodies, ex. one where Scrooge and Daisy had some kind of sexual relationship. And the cover shows Donald as a refugee run away from East-Germany. Story and art was made by Swedish donaldists but the magazine had to cancelled after just one number due to conflicts with Disney.
Thank you for the contribution! That is a pretty cool cover. I also found half a page here. Based on the table of contents on comics.org, it seems this comic book contained 9 pages of Donald Duck comics (a one-pager and a comic 8 pages long) and the rest were non-Disney material. Can you confirm if you have the magazine?
Yes, i have the issue and the description is correct. The one-pager is connected to the cover and can be seen here;