When you refer to Pluto's internal monologue in the comics, do you mean first-person spoken dialog in word balloons like Tabby has in the Kinney/Hubbard comics ("Mickey's going to be really upset at what I did"), or his inner thoughts narrated to the reader ("Mickey's going to be really upset at what I did", thinks Pluto). The former would put him unquestionably in the MEAS-1B category, but the latter might still be a 1A. I can think of a few examples of the latter, but not the former; do you remember any offhand?
I remember ONE case of Pluto having an internal monologue Tabby-style; The Great Bone Hunt, I think. But this can be considered one of the "few aberrant instances of Pluto".
Last Edit: Sept 23, 2019 17:21:16 GMT by crazycatlord
Post by drakeborough on Sept 23, 2019 18:00:24 GMT
I don't know. It may be because artist Luciano Bottaro was drawing them for the first time and so he didn't have experience in drawing worried expressions for them. They are not among the characters who emote most anyway due to their designs.
Here they look at bit more worried though:
And Donald doesn't say anymore that he doesn't care. When his nephews say that these poor fellas would die out of cold and desperation, he says "I'd be glad for that! And now let me work!" So he cares here, but in the opposite way...
Last Edit: Sept 23, 2019 18:05:52 GMT by drakeborough
When you refer to Pluto's internal monologue in the comics, do you mean first-person spoken dialog in word balloons like Tabby has in the Kinney/Hubbard comics ("Mickey's going to be really upset at what I did"), or his inner thoughts narrated to the reader ("Mickey's going to be really upset at what I did", thinks Pluto). The former would put him unquestionably in the MEAS-1B category, but the latter might still be a 1A. I can think of a few examples of the latter, but not the former; do you remember any offhand?
I mean it's really ambiguous sometimes.
Like this could equally be interpreted as thoughts or words.
There's one story by Byron Erickson (A Mouse and His Dog) where he gained the ability to talk in a magic place:
Generally in stories where he's only a supporting character Pluto's basically treated like a normal dog, but in stories that focus on him he's portrayed as being a speech impaired human level intelligence character in the vein of Scooby Doo or Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Speaking of off-putting things: why is Mickey wearing an hybrid of his old and new clothes in the panels from the message above?
Because that story is from the transitional period in the 90s after Egmont had decided to revitalize the 1930s Gottfredson Mickey in their comics. During that time, there were a number of Mickey stories where he had the classic red trousers but still sported a sweater of shirt on the upper half of his body. Pretty soon, though, all of Egmont's stories used Mickey's red trousers outfit in its original form.
I think Pluto also has internal monologues in this Guido Martina story, though I don't have it at hand to check it.
I see that it doesn't matter if I have the story here or not, since Pluto has a thought bubble as early as the first page of one of the story's chapters, meaning I can rely on Inducks scans:
If I remember correctly, there are more thought bubbles for Pluto later in the chapter.
In "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck", Hortense the horse also has a thought bubble:
The same thing frequently happens with Tabby the cat in the Kinney/Hubbard stories:
Speaking of off-putting things: why is Mickey wearing an hybrid of his old and new clothes in the panels from the message above?
Because that story is from the transitional period in the 90s after Egmont had decided to revitalize the 1930s Gottfredson Mickey in their comics. During that time, there were a number of Mickey stories where he had the classic red trousers but still sported a sweater of shirt on the upper half of his body. Pretty soon, though, all of Egmont's stories used Mickey's red trousers outfit in its original form.
Yeah, I knew about Egmont bringing back the red shorts (which in my opinion was a bad idea), but I didn't know there were stories in which he wore "hybrid" clothes (which seem even worse to me). At any rate, it's good to see that Egmont gave Mickey his full clothes back in recent years.
Last Edit: Oct 27, 2019 17:03:32 GMT by drakeborough
Because that story is from the transitional period in the 90s after Egmont had decided to revitalize the 1930s Gottfredson Mickey in their comics. During that time, there were a number of Mickey stories where he had the classic red trousers but still sported a sweater of shirt on the upper half of his body. Pretty soon, though, all of Egmont's stories used Mickey's red trousers outfit in its original form.
Yeah, I knew about Egmont bringing back the red shorts (which in my opinion was a bad idea), but I didn't know there were stories in which he wore "hybrid" clothes (which seem even worse to me). At any rate, it's good to see that Egmont gave Mickey his full clothes back in recent years.
If you don't like the shorts you might THINK that was a good thing... but along with the full clothes coming back, so did much of Mickey's conservative, boring personality from the later Paul Murry era. It would be one thing if Egmont tried to do something like the classic Scarpa version (50s/60s), the way Casty is doing today. But they're not. The characterization of Mickey in the very few stories Egmont bothers to produce with him these days is pretty unappealing.
Yeah, I knew about Egmont bringing back the red shorts (which in my opinion was a bad idea), but I didn't know there were stories in which he wore "hybrid" clothes (which seem even worse to me). At any rate, it's good to see that Egmont gave Mickey his full clothes back in recent years.
If you don't like the shorts you might THINK that was a good thing... but along with the full clothes coming back, so did much of Mickey's conservative, boring personality from the later Paul Murry era. It would be one thing if Egmont tried to do something like the classic Scarpa version (50s/60s), the way Casty is doing today. But they're not. The characterization of Mickey in the very few stories Egmont bothers to produce with him these days is pretty unappealing.
It's not that I don't like the shorts, it's just that Gottfredson's choice of removing them was a sign of character development (or so I think, I don't know if he ever discussed them in an interview). Mickey was growing from a teenager into an adult in the strip, so it was good to give a visual sign of that change, and thus I dislike the fact that after half a century of fully-clothed Mickey they randomly changed him back without an apparent reason. It's as if they were removing all the character development that came after and cutting down his age. If you say they are now portraying him as boring, that's too bad. In my opinion they could write a Mickey who is an adult and yet is interesting.
If you don't like the shorts you might THINK that was a good thing... but along with the full clothes coming back, so did much of Mickey's conservative, boring personality from the later Paul Murry era. It would be one thing if Egmont tried to do something like the classic Scarpa version (50s/60s), the way Casty is doing today. But they're not. The characterization of Mickey in the very few stories Egmont bothers to produce with him these days is pretty unappealing.
It's not that I don't like the shorts, it's just that Gottfredson's choice of removing them was a sign of character development (or so I think, I don't know if he ever discussed them in an interview). Mickey was growing from a teenager into an adult in the strip, so it was good to give a visual sign of that change, and thus I dislike the fact that after half a century of fully-clothed Mickey they randomly changed him back without an apparent reason. It's as if they were removing all the character development that came after and cutting down his age. If you say they are now portraying him as boring, that's too bad. In my opinion they could write a Mickey who is an adult and yet is interesting.
The sad part is, when Egmont took Mickey back to the fully-clothed version, it felt like a clear sign that they were more or less giving up on the character. They drastically cut down the number of stories they were producing with Mickey (it probably didn't help that the multi-part stories went out of production around the same time). These days, Mickey is almost never the main character of any stories in the weekly. In a way, the situation is back to what almost happened in the early 90s: Egmont contemplating to drop Mickey from the weekly magazine altogether due to the character - in his Murry-inspired iteraton of the time - becoming less and less popular. That's why the decision was made (under Byron Erickson et al) to revert Mickey back towards the Gottfredson persona.
I'm not sure it was Gottfredson's choice first and foremost to remove the shorts. By the time it happened in the strip, the writing was completely in the hands of Bill Walsh, and Mickey's costume change actually first occurred as a plot point at the start of Walsh's story "The World of Tomorrow" (1943). In the daily from August 3, 1943, Mickey puts on an "invisible cloak" to help him access a futuristic world, and the cloak turns out to be an attire of pants, a shirt and fancy-looking shoes which look pretty close to what would become Mickey's standard clothes. He wears this outfit throughout the story. In the next story, though he no longer has the cloak, Mickey is wearing pants and a shirt together with his normal shoes. No mention is ever made of the costume change.
I agree with you, to an extent, that making Mickey younger and dressing him up in the red shorts again all those years later can feel a bit forced. My thoughts on the Egmont-produced stories with Mickey in the red shorts could vary a lot -- some of them I really liked. But it often felt like they were pushing a little too hard to make Mickey almost exactly like he was back in the 30s. Casty's modern-day Mickey feels more natural.
The sad part is, when Egmont took Mickey back to the fully-clothed version, it felt like a clear sign that they were more or less giving up on the character. They drastically cut down the number of stories they were producing with Mickey (it probably didn't help that the multi-part stories went out of production around the same time). These days, Mickey is almost never the main character of any stories in the weekly. In a way, the situation is back to what almost happened in the early 90s: Egmont contemplating to drop Mickey from the weekly magazine altogether due to the character - in his Murry-inspired iteraton of the time - becoming less and less popular. That's why the decision was made (under Byron Erickson et al) to revert Mickey back towards the Gottfredson persona.
It's bad to hear that. I certainly think the duck universe is much more interesting than the mouse universe, however it would be a loss if no stories of the latter were produced. To think that in Italy people complained in the rare cases in which the weekly Topolino didn't contain a Mickey story a few years ago...
The scarcity of Egmont multi-part stories wouldn't be a big deal if they allowed their creators to create longer single-part stories. The problem was already there when Don Rosa was active.
I'm not sure it was Gottfredson's choice first and foremost to remove the shorts. By the time it happened in the strip, the writing was completely in the hands of Bill Walsh, and Mickey's costume change actually first occurred as a plot point at the start of Walsh's story "The World of Tomorrow" (1943). In the daily from August 3, 1943, Mickey puts on an "invisible cloak" to help him access a futuristic world, and the cloak turns out to be an attire of pants, a shirt and fancy-looking shoes which look pretty close to what would become Mickey's standard clothes. He wears this outfit throughout the story. In the next story, though he no longer has the cloak, Mickey is wearing pants and a shirt together with his normal shoes. No mention is ever made of the costume change.
Indeed, like you said "The World of Tomorrow" gives Mickey an "invisible cloak" which is basically identical to his modern clothes. However, that story is from 1944, not 1943. And although the August 3 strip describes the cloak, Mickey is first seen wearing it in the August 4 strip.
Here are the fourth, fifth and sixth strips of the series from August 3, 4 and 5, 1944:
Since we are taking about a well-known story from 75 years ago, I guess it doesn't count as a spoiler if I say that the last strip reveals the whole story, except the first panel, is all a dream. In the only panel where we see Mickey after he awakes, his body can be barely seen, since it's hidden by the blanket. However, it seems that he is not wearing his shirt, which makes sense since he never really got any "cloak" except in his dream:
I quickly glanced through the articles of the Gottfredson Library in search of some article that talked about this important design change, but all I could find was an offhand mention in Thomas Andrae's article at the beginning of volume 8:
I wonder if Walsh really meant for the "invisible cloak" to be a full attire, or if he thought of it as an actual cloak and Gottfredson drew a full attire instead. At any rate, like you said and like Andrae said, he has a similar attire from then on, starting with the very next story, "The House of Mystery " (1944-45), though here it's a bit different:
This time I think the choice was made by Gottfredson rather than Walsh since the clothes are not important to the plot.
There is also the fact that Mickey wore full clothes even in the story that preceded "The World of Tomorrow". I am talking about "The Pirate Ghostship " (1944):
Of course, there are a few standalone strips inbetween "The Pirate Ghostship" and "The World of Tomorrow", and Mickey is still wearing his shorts in these, just like at the beginning of "The World of Tomorrow".
I wonder if there was an influence from the animated shorts: I now that at some point they gave Mickey full clothes, but I don't remember which year it happened or even if these clothes resembled the ones from the comics. At any rate, I don't like the fact that in modern animation, and in various forms of merchandise, they still give him the red shorts.
I agree with you, to an extent, that making Mickey younger and dressing him up in the red shorts again all those years later can feel a bit forced.
Espeacially as creators you have mentioned, like Scarpa and Casty, showed that you don't need to make him younger and giving him back his anachronistic shorts to make him interesting.
That's an interesting discussion, too bad we are off-topic.