An old series of stories with Mickey as a detective

[Hector]

In those stories, Mickey wears a brown cape and a hat the same color. 23 years ago, when I was a little boy collecting Disney editions,

one time, my younger brother bought, for whatever reason (I don't think he ever read it), a magazine that featured exclusively stories

of this series. Back then, I didn't feel like reading it; it probably looked too adult like for my taste back then. And so, it remained in

my possession for 23 years without me ever bothering with it.

A few days ago, I decided to read it. Just like that. They're stories which I would classify as T rated and give off a sense of noir films

from older eras. Fairly good. Has anybody read them?

[gadgetphile]

Sounds like Mickey Mysteries. Haven't read them myself but I do remember I had a read/hear book (or whatever they're called) with a similar theme where Mickey was on a train (The Orient Express?).

[Deleted]

I read some of these in German „Ein Fall für Micky“.
They are quite good and I liked guessing who did the crime.

[Spectrus]

Ah, those ("Micky Mystery" is the series title in Inducks, confusing because MMMM is called this in German!)... some were good, some not so. I often thought they could have done with better artists. Miguel doesn't exactly float my boat.

[Antulis]

I remember this series of Mickey Mystery, even though, in my country, only one issue was published, probably due to low sales.

I liked the overall atmosphere of the series and the stories were pretty good, but I agree with an idea that if better artists were picked to draw them, they could have been even better.

I wonder if some kind of English publication will see the daylight at some point? Even though, as I understand, Mickey's detective stories are less popular here. Being Murry less appreciated as well, even if it sells quite well as Ramapith stated.

As for me, I didn't get a chance to read Murry stories until now, as they're being reprinted by Fantagraphics. Since I grew up mostly with Egmont production of the late '80s and '90s, so I got reading stories produced mostly by Tello Art for Mickey and Goofy. There were some good stories, even if they were based on Murry's formula and some are very predictable.

I wonder, as Josep Tello Gonzalez and Antoni Bancells Pujadas were the most productive and probably the best successors of Murry's work, how come they never received any appreciation (a publication dedicated to their work) as Daniel Branca or Vicar did for their Duck stories (if talking about Egmont's production) as successors to Carl Barks work. Is it because Murry's work is less appreciated overall? Or is it just simply the case of Mickey being a less popular character?

[bats]

Apr 2, 2019 21:30:10 GMT gadgetphile said:

Sounds like Mickey Mysteries. Haven't read them myself but I do remember I had a read/hear book (or whatever they're called) with a similar theme where Mickey was on a train (The Orient Express?).

Oh, I had that!

It's "Robbery on the Overland Express: A Whodunnit Mickey Mystery". Doesn't seem to be on Inducks, but here's the Amazon entry.
www.amazon.com/Robbery-Overland-Express-Secret-Decoder/dp/1557234892

It's very much NOT in the same tone and style as Mickey Mysteries.

Sept 16, 2021 21:49:05 GMT Antulis said:

I wonder, as Josep Tello Gonzalez and Antoni Bancells Pujadas were the most productive and probably the best successors of Murry's work, how come they never received any appreciation (a publication dedicated to their work) as Daniel Branca or Vicar did for their Duck stories (if talking about Egmont's production) as successors to Carl Barks work. Is it because Murry's work is less appreciated overall? Or is it just simply the case of Mickey being a less popular character?

The Tello Team does have its fans among those who grew up on them, but in general these stories were always considered pretty second rate back in their days compared to Murry, who got reprinted a fair bit alongside their new stories. The big Egmont "reboot" of Mickey largely happened because readers considered Tello and the other Murry-derivative stuff to be very boring and uninspired.

[Spectrus]

bats nailed it. I actually quite like early Bancells (RIP as was mentioned in another thread), when he was still very much following in Murry's footsteps, but it was suited to fit a formula, and the plots were often criticized (even by writers like Byron Erickson or David Gerstein) for being banal. However, I still prefer those comics to what happened in the pocketbooks (!) when 1) the younger American writers (Kinney/Petrucha, the Gilberts, McGreals and so on) took over Mickey and 2) Mickey's presence was reduced so essentially the Egmont productions had kicked the Italian ones out of the pocketbooks. There was a strange period of transition with stories such as "Dirty Business" where you can already witness a certain "darkening", where the overall arc is still pretty much in the "Micky Mystery" tradition of longish plots, but the art gets more aggressive and the plot points become more ridiculous (the beam that only destroys trash) as well as creepier (Pete's sadistic behaviour towards Minnie and Mickey). Once you reach a story like "Off the Beaten Trail", there really is nothing left of the classic Murry feeling and instead we have the (wrong) basis which was then tried to refine by introducing some of the old Gottfredson characters and bringing the red shorts back... but Mickey's characterization was fundamentally wrong, as were the preferred themes, and therefore it was always doomed. I feel less strongly about the four-tiered stories where the editors usually exerted more care, but those could be very mixed in quality too.