First Russian Mickey Mouse, international distribution?

[That Duckfan]

In 1989, Egmont-Gutenberghus acquired the license to publish Disney comics in Russia, bringing the first Disney comics to the Soviet Union. There was quite a bit of media buzz about Disney coming to Russia around this time, but I've never been able find out much about the comic push. The first issue seems to have been distributed in many other countries as well, as can be seen in this 1990 limited edition with the US Disney Comics publisher logo, and this Dutch limited collector's edition with a special leaflet by the Dutch editor. (The latter looks suspiciously similar to the one I have in my own collection, which I acquired at a comic con a few years back.) There also seems to be a German one with a special paper wrapper.

Was there some kind of coordinated effort going on, or was this just a coincidence of a few publishers coming up with a similar idea? Did other countries also distribute the Russian Mickey Mouse? Does anybody remember or know more about this?

And should the collector's items get their own INDUCKS entry?

 

[That Duckfan]

Here you can find some pictures I took from my issue. I can translate the Dutch flyer (which dates this promotion to 1992), but I can't make heads or tails from cyrillic.

[caballero]

Wow, this is a pretty interesting topic! Quite funny that western publishers imported that first Russian issue for collectors.

[That Duckfan]

Aug 5, 2021 17:38:03 GMT caballero said:

Wow, this is a pretty interesting topic! Quite funny that western publishers imported that first Russian issue for collectors.

I find the whole thing extremely ironic. That's the only reason why I have the issue in the first place. I mean, how cynical can you be to sell the first official Mickey Mouse comic distributed under a communist regime as a collector's item? And yet, it's a persuasive argument. There are certainly many more "collector's items" from that period that aren't worth the cover price!

Here's a blog post (in German) that I found about Mickey Mouse in the USSR.

[timoro]

Aug 6, 2021 13:16:24 GMT That Duckfan said:

That 1930's Mickey is not Russian, it's Bulgarian.
In Soviet-era Estonia one collection of Disney comics was published in 1972, Piilupart, Miki ja teised. I think it was first Disney comic published in Soviet region. I wrote about it on my blog (sadly only in Finnish but perhaps you can read it by using automatic translator).

Timo

[Anastasios]

Aug 6, 2021 13:16:24 GMT That Duckfan said:

Aug 5, 2021 17:38:03 GMT caballero said:

Wow, this is a pretty interesting topic! Quite funny that western publishers imported that first Russian issue for collectors.

I find the whole thing extremely ironic. That's the only reason why I have the issue in the first place. I mean, how cynical can you be to sell the first official Mickey Mouse comic distributed under a communist regime as a collector's item? And yet, it's a persuasive argument. There are certainly many more "collector's items" from that period that aren't worth the cover price!

Here's a blog post (in German) that I found about Mickey Mouse in the USSR.

Good point! Wonder when we'll see the special "Micky Mouse: First Taliban Issue Collector's Edition"...oh wait...

[That Duckfan]

Sept 2, 2021 13:20:20 GMT Anastasios said:

Aug 6, 2021 13:16:24 GMT That Duckfan said:

I find the whole thing extremely ironic. That's the only reason why I have the issue in the first place. I mean, how cynical can you be to sell the first official Mickey Mouse comic distributed under a communist regime as a collector's item? And yet, it's a persuasive argument. There are certainly many more "collector's items" from that period that aren't worth the cover price!

Here's a blog post (in German) that I found about Mickey Mouse in the USSR.

Good point! Wonder when we'll see the special "Micky Mouse: First Taliban Issue Collector's Edition"...oh wait...

I find that joke to be in rather bad taste, Anastasios. Expected better from you.

[Anastasios]

Sept 2, 2021 15:37:27 GMT That Duckfan said:

Sept 2, 2021 13:20:20 GMT Anastasios said:

Good point! Wonder when we'll see the special "Micky Mouse: First Taliban Issue Collector's Edition"...oh wait...

I find that joke to be in rather bad taste, Anastasios. Expected better from you.

You expected better from me? I never understand when someone on the Internet says something like that to a virtual stranger. If my father, my priest, or my boss said that to me, I would accept the criticism and consider if I am in the wrong, but when a stranger says it, it comes across as pedantic and judgmental.

I often deal with difficult things going on in the world with dark humor. I'm not going to apologize for who I am. I don't like that I offended you, to be clear--I hate upsetting people--but in this case, I don't think the joke was bad enough to warrant your response. I respect that you feel differently, though.

That being said, the Soviet Regime was a far more murderous, evil government than the Taliban could ever hope to be. The fact that European publishers did this, and that Disney allowed its products to be exported with the vile hammer and sickle--a symbol of the death of 10s of millions of people*--is to me in far worst taste than my Taliban joke. And that is exactly why I made the joke.

(* I'm an Orthodox Christian; the Bolsheviks killed 95% of our priests and nuns within 2 years of taking power, and demolished about 10,000 churches in Russia).

[cacou]

Aug 8, 2021 20:45:06 GMT timoro said:

Aug 6, 2021 13:16:24 GMT That Duckfan said:

That 1930's Mickey is not Russian, it's Bulgarian.
In Soviet-era Estonia one collection of Disney comics was published in 1972, Piilupart, Miki ja teised. I think it was first Disney comic published in Soviet region. I wrote about it on my blog (sadly only in Finnish but perhaps you can read it by using automatic translator).

Timo

Hi Timo

An obscure Hungarian magazine also has published Disney strips in the 1960s

inducks.org/issue.php?c=hu%2FOV1960-28

Did they also publish Disney comics during WWII?

It would be interesting to translate the following piece of text:

kepregenymuzeum.blog.hu/2012/09/25/miki_eger_az_unnepben?token=8b8fa2b1969798a8b18d5aebca7269c9

 

[That Duckfan]

Sept 7, 2021 21:05:54 GMT cacou said:

Aug 8, 2021 20:45:06 GMT timoro said:

That 1930's Mickey is not Russian, it's Bulgarian.
In Soviet-era Estonia one collection of Disney comics was published in 1972, Piilupart, Miki ja teised. I think it was first Disney comic published in Soviet region. I wrote about it on my blog (sadly only in Finnish but perhaps you can read it by using automatic translator).

Timo

Hi Timo

An obscure Hungarian magazine also has published Disney strips in the 1960s

inducks.org/issue.php?c=hu%2FOV1960-28

Did they also publish Disney comics during WWII?

It would be interesting to translate the following piece of text:

kepregenymuzeum.blog.hu/2012/09/25/miki_eger_az_unnepben?token=8b8fa2b1969798a8b18d5aebca7269c9

A translation by DeepL gives us the following:

I found a special treat on the "Canadian Hungarians" forum. The following comics were published in a weekly newspaper called Ünnep in 1943 and 1944. One of their peculiarities is that the paper published (could have published?) these Walt Disney comics despite the fact that Hungary was then at war with the United States, and it is fairly well known that American comics disappeared from the newspapers of all countries allied with or occupied by the Axis powers during this period. In any case, it is suspicious that, unlike the comics 'quoted' from the Fairy Fair, the name of the intermediary agency is not given here, and the original date of publication (1935) suggests that the material may have been 'previously splashed'.

The narrative of the second story is quite unique. In Hungary (and in other countries too, let's be fair), many editorial staffs subscribed to the principle that the word bubble was something very bad, and so American comics were re-edited, the bubbles were deleted and replaced with captions. But to keep the bubbles - which, if you read them, you can follow the story perfectly - and even add interpretative captions, and in the form of a poem, well, I've never seen anything like it anywhere else.

The stories were originally published simultaneously in several American newspapers in 1935 - on 27 January and 7 July - by Ted Osborne and illustrated by Floyd Gottfredson.

Further reasons for suspicion: I tracked down some issues of Ünnep on eBay from the years 1942 and 1943, and not only is there no Mickey Mouse to be found, all the pages are in black-and-white. Evidently, the scans seem to be from another publication --- presumably from just before the war.

The discussion on the Canadian Hungarians forum seems to be gone, so we haven't got much to go on...

[That Duckfan]

Another comic book from Soviet times: Piilupart, Miki ja teised from 1972 Estonia. Interesting that some Disney managed to slip past the censors. INDUCKS also lists an "illegal publication" from 1980s China. There's got to be a good story behind that. China actually published a bunch of legitimate (Egmont-looking) Disney publications in the 2000s and 2010s, including Don Rosa and Gottfredson libraries, but they seem to be drying up again. I still find it a little hard to imagine, to be honest!

[timoro]

Sept 29, 2021 22:27:01 GMT That Duckfan said:

Another comic book from Soviet times: Piilupart, Miki ja teised from 1972 Estonia. Interesting that some Disney managed to slip past the censors. 

There were few few (more or less) instances when children's pioneermagazines published some Disney comics in late 1960's early 1970's (below pioneer mag "Säde" from 1972), and very odd Pildivihik comic book, that got few awkwardly re-drawn Disney comics in 1990. Blog entry (again in Finnish only, sorry) 

[That Duckfan]

Nov 26, 2021 19:46:26 GMT timoro said:

Sept 29, 2021 22:27:01 GMT That Duckfan said:

Another comic book from Soviet times: Piilupart, Miki ja teised from 1972 Estonia. Interesting that some Disney managed to slip past the censors. 

There were few few (more or less) instances when children's pioneermagazines published some Disney comics in late 1960's early 1970's (below pioneer mag "Säde" from 1972), and very odd Pildivihik comic book, that got few awkwardly re-drawn Disney comics in 1990. Blog entry (again in Finnish only, sorry) 

Very interesting stuff, and cutting-edge. I hope we'll learn more about this in the future. Isn't it fascinating what far corners of the world Disney comics got to? That's the first I know of a Disney comic in the Karelian language, too.

[cacou]

Aug 5, 2021 9:44:39 GMT That Duckfan said:

And should the collector's items get their own INDUCKS entry?

Isn't it indexed already?

inducks.org/issue.php?c=ru%2FMM1989-01

[Ramapith]

Dec 10, 2021 0:29:48 GMT cacou said:

Isn't it indexed already?

inducks.org/issue.php?c=ru%2FMM1989-01

Strikingly, it actually isn't the first glasnost-era Russian Disney comic—that would be this one year earlier, which seems to come from a different publisher but emerges from a similar source (like the later series, the contents are Egmont's or prepared by Egmont, including some Egmont remounts of Gottfredson Sunday strips).