External links
- Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales (samples of 1970s strips)
- INDUCKS database of credits for Treasury of Classic Tales
| Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Various |
| Illustrator(s) | Various |
| Current status/schedule | Concluded |
| Launch date | July 13, 1952 |
| End date | February 15, 1987 |
| Syndicate(s) | King Features Syndicate |
| Genre(s) | Funny animals |
Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales is an American Disney comic strip, which ran on Sundays in newspapers from July 13, 1952, until February 15, 1987. [1] It was distributed by King Features Syndicate. Each story adapted a different Disney film, such as Darby O'Gill and the Little People , Peter Pan , or Davy Crockett . It was run in relatively few papers, with 58 in 1957 [2] and 55 in 1966, [3] and was principally a vehicle for promoting new and re-released Disney films. [4]
From March 8 to June 18, 1950, Disney distributed a limited-time Sunday strip adaptations of their new animated feature Cinderella , written by Frank Reilly, with art by Manuel Gonzales and Dick Moores. [5] The same team followed the next year with Alice in Wonderland, which ran from September 2 to December 16, 1951. [6] Judged a success, the experiment was turned into an ongoing feature in 1952, beginning with The Story of Robin Hood .
The strip featured a wide variety of Disney stories. The animated features adapted for the strip include Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1958), The Sword in the Stone (1963) and The Jungle Book (1968). Classic Tales also featured animated shorts, including Lambert the Sheepish Lion (1956) and Ben and Me (1953), and featurettes like Peter & The Wolf (1954) and Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966).
Treasury of Classic Tales also adapted live-action films like Old Yeller (1957–58), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), Mary Poppins (1964) and The Love Bug (1969). The strip transitioned from historical dramas like The Sword and the Rose (1953) and Kidnapped (1960) to comedies like The Shaggy Dog (1959) and The Parent Trap (1961).
The 1979–80 adaptation of The Black Hole was particularly notable for featuring pencil art by comics icon Jack Kirby, with Mike Royer inking.
Some of the stories created toward the end of the strip's run in the 1980s were original stories featuring characters from different Disney animated movies, including The Return of the Rescuers (1983), Dumbo, the Substitute Stork (1984) and Cinderella: Bibbidi-Bobbodi-Who? (1984).
Most stories ran for thirteen weeks. A total of 129 stories were created between 1952 and 1987.
In 2016, IDW Publishing and their imprint The Library of American Comics (LoAC) began to collect all the Treasury of Classic Tales stories in a definitive hardcover reprint series. [7] As of 2019, three volumes have been published, reprinting all the stories from Robin Hood (1952) through In Search of the Castaways (1962). In April 2018, it was announced that, due to the sales goal of the series not being met, the third volume may be the last one to be published. [8] [9]
Theodore H. Osborne was an American writer of comics, radio shows and animated films, remembered for his contributions to the creation and refinement, during the 1930s, of Walt Disney cartoon characters.
Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.
Paul Murry was an American cartoonist and comics artist. He is best known for his Disney comics, which appeared in Dell Comics and Gold Key Comics from 1946 to 1984, particularly the Mickey Mouse and Goofy three-part adventure stories in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.
Manuel Gonzales was a Spanish-American Disney comics artist. He worked on the Mickey Mouse comic strip from 1940 to 1981.
The Batman comic strip began on October 25, 1943, a few years after the creation of the comic book Batman. At first titled Batman and Robin, a later incarnation was shortened to Batman. The comic strip had three major and two minor runs in American newspapers.
Casey Ruggles is a Western comic strip written and drawn by Warren Tufts that ran from May 22, 1949, to October 30, 1955.
Robert Louis Karp (1911–1975) was an American comics writer. He began working for the Walt Disney Company in the 1930s, and from 1938 to 1974, he wrote the scripts for the daily Donald Duck newspaper strips which were illustrated by Al Taliaferro and, after Taliaferro's death in 1969, by Frank Grundeen.
Reg'lar Fellers is a long-running newspaper comic strip adapted into a feature film, a radio series on the NBC Red Network, and two animated cartoons. Created by Gene Byrnes (1889–1974), the comic strip offered a humorous look at a gang of suburban children. Syndicated from 1917 to January 18, 1949, Byrnes' strip was collected into several books. Branding also extended to such items as baseball bats and breakfast cereal.
Dixie Dugan is best known as a long-running syndicated newspaper comic strip published from October 21, 1929 to October 8, 1966. The title character was originally modeled after 1920s film actress Louise Brooks and early stories followed Dixie's exploits as a Hollywood showgirl.
Little Jimmy, originally titled Jimmy, is a newspaper comic strip created by Jimmy Swinnerton. With a publication history from February 14, 1904, to April 27, 1958, it was one of the first continuing features and one of the longest running.
Ella Cinders is an American syndicated comic strip created by writer Bill Conselman and artist Charles Plumb. Distributed for most of its run by United Feature Syndicate, the daily version was launched June 1, 1925, and a Sunday page followed two years later. It was discontinued on December 2, 1961. Chris Crusty ran above Ella Cinders as a topper strip from July 5, 1931 to July 6, 1941.
Polly and Her Pals is an American comic strip, created by cartoonist Cliff Sterrett, which ran from December 4, 1912, until December 7, 1958. It is regarded as one of the most graphically innovative strips of the 20th century. It debuted as Positive Polly on December 4, 1912, in William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, initially the New York Journal, and was later distributed by King Features Syndicate. The title changed to Polly and Her Pals on January 17, 1913.
Little Hiawatha is a 1937 animated cartoon produced by Walt Disney Productions, inspired by the poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It does not appear to have historical correlation to legendary Mohawk leader and peacemaker Hiawatha. It is the last Silly Symphonies short to be released by United Artists.
Winnie the Pooh is a 1978-1988 daily comic strip based on the Winnie-the-Pooh characters created by A.A. Milne in his 1920s books. The strip ran from June 19, 1978, until April 2, 1988. This is one of many Disney comic strips that have run in newspapers since 1930.
Alvah Posen was an American cartoonist on several comic strips, but he is best known for his 1933-1960 comic strip Sweeney & Son and as co-producer of the now-lost Marx Brothers film, Humor Risk (1921).
George Vernon Stallings was an American animation director and writer. He started working for Bray Productions in 1916 where he directed the Colonel Heeza Liar series of shorts, and the Krazy Kat shorts. He invented "the animation disk placed in the centre of the drawing board" in the 1920s. Its primary use by 1930 was as an aid in inking cels. He then worked for Van Beuren Studios from 1931 through 1934.
Ward Greene was an American writer, editor, journalist, playwright, and general manager of the comic syndicate King Features Syndicate. He is known for overseeing the works of Alex Raymond and other writers and artists at King Features Syndicate, as well as writing Raymond's Rip Kirby comic strip from 1946 until his death.
Silly Symphony, initially titled Silly Symphonies, is a weekly Disney comic strip that debuted on January 10, 1932 as a topper for the Mickey Mouse strip's Sunday page. The strip featured adaptations of Walt Disney's popular short film series, Silly Symphony, which released 75 cartoons from 1929 to 1939, as well as other cartoons and animated films. The comic strip outlived its parent series by six years, ending on October 7, 1945.
Disney Christmas Story is an American Disney comic strip that appeared each year in the weeks before Christmas, beginning in 1960. The strip ran Monday to Saturday for the three to four weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, and often promoted the latest Disney release or re-release. The strips were usually not published on the newspaper's comics page; they appeared at the bottom of the page somewhere else in the paper, so that the reader would have to hunt for it, and not-coincidentally pass by some of the Christmas advertising. The strip appeared every year until 1987.
Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit is an American Disney comic strip that ran on Sundays from October 14, 1945, to December 31, 1972. It first appeared as a topper strip for the Mickey Mouse Sunday page, but after the first few years, almost always appeared on its own. The strip replaced the 1932-1945 Silly Symphony strip, which had spent its final year on gag strips featuring Panchito from The Three Caballeros.
