And now — Mickey Mouse meets Julius the Cat!

[Scrooge MacDuck]

I think most of you are aware of those awkwardly-drawn Mickey knockoffs that Italy had in place of an official Topolino back in the 1930's. Some of you may also know that these comics occasionally offered the surreal sight of Mickey facing against Julius the Cat, Disney's first cartoon star before even Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who appeared in Laugh-o-Gram Films and Alice Comedies as early as 1922.

So here's the thing, I managed to find a high-quality scan of the first of these in the original Italian (it was apparently printed in America once but in very small size and with the weirdest coloring in recent history I mean who the hell thought coloring Julius green was a good idea?!?) and I scanlated it for your reading pleasure. The original was in rhyme, but mine is only tenuously rhymish. 

Here goes:



My two cents on this from a critical standpoint: the art is what it is, but what I'll say is that it's odd that Julius would take the "rival for Minnie's affection" role usually devoted to Peg-Leg Pete (or, in a less antagonistic way, Mortimer Mouse), seeing how Julius got married in one of the episodes of Alice Comedies. Oh well. 

[squeakyboots]

That cat looks more like Felix the Cat than Julius though I suppose the two look pretty similar.

[Orora]

So can we consider this the first Mickey and Felix crossover?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

INDUCKS seems to consider this is Julius, not Felix. 

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Oct 29, 2017 12:22:52 GMT squeakyboots said:

That cat looks more like Felix the Cat than Julius though I suppose the two look pretty similar.

Julius was actually conceived from day one as a rip-off of Felix, by request of producer Margaret Winkler, who thought she knew better than friggin' Ub Iwerks how to make a successful cartoon star. 

[hex]

The story actually have English text in the "Mickey and the Gang" book too. From the first panel:

Mickey sings for Minnie’s sake
An aria sweet as chocolate cake.
While Minnie, poised in window, rests
And dream of love’s togetherness.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Oct 29, 2017 16:21:38 GMT hex said:

The story actually have English text in the "Mickey and the Gang" book too. From the first panel:

Mickey sings for Minnie’s sake
An aria sweet as chocolate cake.
While Minnie, poised in window, rests
And dream of love’s togetherness.

Oh. Why the heck was Julius green though? 

[RobbK1]

Oct 29, 2017 14:34:09 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Oct 29, 2017 12:22:52 GMT squeakyboots said:

That cat looks more like Felix the Cat than Julius though I suppose the two look pretty similar.

Julius was actually conceived from day one as a rip-off of Felix, by request of producer Margaret Winkler, who thought she knew better than friggin' Ub Iwerks how to make a successful cartoon star. 

That is the spitting image of Felix The Cat.  Margaret Winkler was setting up her partnership for losing a key lawsuit.  If they were going to try to grap some Felix fans and not suffer for it, they should have made the character's design more different.

[Ramapith]

The original Italian version of that strip names the cat "Mio Miao," which was then Felix's name in Italy, so it's safe to say the character was on some level intended as Felix.

But why "on some level," and why even cross "Felix" over with Mickey? Almost certainly because Disney was also well known as the producer of the Alice Comedies, which in 1931 were actively being reissued with sound around the world. Audiences often perceived Julius as Felix, promoting the impression that Felix was also a Disney creation and that Felix and Mickey thus existed in a shared milieu. So even if the cat appearing with Mickey in the Italian comics was called Mio Miao, he was almost certainly there because of Julius—in essence, because Felix was perceived as Julius, just as Julius was perceived as Felix.

We couldn't call the character Felix in an authorized Disney publication today, so for the Good Housekeeping book we called him Julius—because in light of the above, it was technically correct! (Disney also asked us to color him as little like Felix as possible, which is why he's got the weird colors.)

Interestingly, these Italian comics by Guglielmo Guastaveglia were licensed products subcontracted by King Features' Italian representative. At the time, King represented Felix and the Pat Sullivan Studio, too. Perhaps that's why Felix/Julius is only in the first two of Guasta's strips; it appears that King noticed what its licensee was doing and pushed Guasta to come into line. (When Felix/Julius disappears, Kat Nipp takes his place and Guasta begins visibly imitating Gottfredson's style...)

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Oct 29, 2017 17:16:22 GMT Ramapith said:

The original Italian version of that strip names the cat "Mio Miao," which was then Felix's name in Italy, so it's safe to say the character was on some level intended as Felix.

But why "on some level," and why even cross "Felix" over with Mickey? Almost certainly because Disney was also well known as the producer of the Alice Comedies, which in 1931 were actively being reissued with sound around the world. Audiences often perceived Julius as Felix, promoting the impression that Felix was also a Disney creation and that Felix and Mickey thus existed in a shared milieu. So even if the cat appearing with Mickey in the Italian comics was called Mio Miao, he was almost certainly there because of Julius—in essence, because Felix was perceived as Julius, just as Julius was perceived as Felix.

We couldn't call the character Felix in an authorized Disney publication today, so for the Good Housekeeping book we called him Julius—because in light of the above, it was technically correct! (Disney also asked us to color him as little like Felix as possible, which is why he's got the weird colors.)

Interestingly, these Italian comics by Guglielmo Guastaveglia were licensed products subcontracted by King Features' Italian representative. At the time, King represented Felix and the Pat Sullivan Studio, too. Perhaps that's why Felix/Julius is only in the first two of Guasta's strips; it appears that King noticed what its licensee was doing and pushed Guasta to come into line. (When Felix/Julius disappears, Kat Nipp takes his place and Guasta begins visibly imitating Gottfredson's style...)

Fascinating stuff, Ramapith! This sort of thing is why you really ought to resurrect that old blog of yours whenever you find the time. 

[Ramapith]

Oct 29, 2017 17:00:47 GMT RobbK1 said:

Oct 29, 2017 14:34:09 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Julius was actually conceived from day one as a rip-off of Felix, by request of producer Margaret Winkler, who thought she knew better than friggin' Ub Iwerks how to make a successful cartoon star. 

That is the spitting image of Felix The Cat.  Margaret Winkler was setting up her partnership for losing a key lawsuit.  If they were going to try to grap some Felix fans and not suffer for it, they should have made the character's design more different.

Winkler was the distributor of both Disney's cartoons and Pat Sullivan's Felix shorts in 1924-25.

Julius wasn't a Felix ripoff from day one; in the earlier Laugh-O-grams, and the first few Alice shorts, he looks a little more distinct. But Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz, demanded he be drawn more like Felix—over Walt's objections.

But there was ostensibly a good reason. Winkler and Mintz viewed Sullivan as a loose cannon who was likely to leave them for another distributor. Winkler and Mintz insisted a Felixlike cat be Walt's Alice lead as a kind of threat: "if you leave us," this strategy was meant to tell Sullivan, "we'll still have a popular black cat star in our stable whom we can build up as more serious competition for you." As part of the strategy, Disney was forced to function as a tool to keep Sullivan with Winkler.

This isn't to say the strategy was smart. In late 1925, Sullivan left Winkler anyway.

[Ramapith]

Oct 29, 2017 17:25:14 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Fascinating stuff, Ramapith! This sort of thing is why you really ought to resurrect that old blog of yours whenever you find the time. 

TIME? What's THAT? 

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Still though. Green. Couldn't they make him, I don't know, orange? 

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Oct 29, 2017 17:25:14 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Oct 29, 2017 17:16:22 GMT Ramapith said:

Fascinating stuff, Ramapith! This sort of thing is why you really ought to resurrect that old blog of yours whenever you find the time. 

Or putting everything he knows more systematically in a (biblical) book! Which would take him even more time, yes, but we  can wait, more or less like this:







 

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Oct 29, 2017 17:34:04 GMT Ramapith said:

Oct 29, 2017 17:25:14 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Fascinating stuff, Ramapith! This sort of thing is why you really ought to resurrect that old blog of yours whenever you find the time. 

TIME? What's THAT? 

…I dunno, ask Professor Zapotec. He's the expert.

Also, since you're our most eminent authority on this ninety-year-old one-pager, how would you entitle it? It doesn't seem to have a title in the printing we were discussing, and obviously didn't have one in Italian. And a title would be much handier for the wiki…