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DISNEY COMIC HISTORY

The start of Disney comics was a slow and gradual process.
It started with all the Mickey Mouse magazines that were published in the USA.
The first one to come out was a copy given to children at local cinemas around January 1933.
The first magazine to be sold was called strangely MICKEY MOUSE MAGAZINE in November of 1933.
Though the years other Mickey mouse magazines where published like in England on the 8 February 1936 MICKEY MOUSE WEEKLY came out on the back cover it had 5 American daily strips taken from US newspapers.
Slowly but surly they changed over time.
In October 1940 Dell comics relasesd WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES but this new publishing did not have Mickey mouse as the main character as the past magazines had it was Donald duck as shown by the cover.
MICKEY MOUSE MAGAZINE ended in September 1940 as demand fell for them.
From now on it only started to get better in the US, in 1940 Dell published there second Disney comic titled DONALD DUCK next came MICKEY MOUSE in 1941 and in later years 1952 UNCLE SCROOGE.
The publishers started to change too first gold key then Whitman then Gladstone which started publishing with the old dell comics covers and stories.
Then Disney took over publishing the comics and gave them a new look as well as ending the long running title of MICKEY MOUSE.
After a short run Gladstone got back the rights to print them but the new Gladstone comic was also very different, they kept the same glossy style that Disney had used.
Then one-day disaster hit there was a dispute with the distributing of the comics and Gladstone lost the right to sell Disney comics in the newsagents.
This was I think the start of the end for them as next they changed the style of their comics again and stopped printing the long running DONALD DUCK.
Now they only had UNCLE SCROOGE and WALT DISNEYS COMICS AND STORIES being published, with over priced comics and so little titles Gladstone stopped publishing Disney comics in February 1999.
For many years there was no longer Disney comics in the USA but there was rumours that Disney was making a deal with a new publisher (Gemstone).
But there was a lot of disagreement with them and nothing got done.
Finally in 2002 they finally made the deal to start publishing again, the first issue came out in June 2003.
Gemstone is publishing all the original titles again Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories, and a new larger Donald Duck Adventures.
Disney comics are now all over the world now as other publishers (Egmont etc) are making the magic of Disney comics available to every one on the globe.

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