Winnie the Pooh (comic strip)

Last updated

Winnie the Pooh
Author(s)Don Ferguson
Illustrator(s)Richard Moore
Website www.creators.com/read/winnie-the-pooh
Current status/scheduleConcluded daily & Sunday strip
Launch dateJune 19, 1978
End dateApril 2, 1988
Syndicate(s) King Features Syndicate (1978–1988)
(reruns) Creators Syndicate (up until April 2010)
Genre(s) Humor
Funny animals

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. [1] This is one of many Disney comic strips that have run in newspapers since 1930.

Contents

Based on the Disney adaptations of the characters, the strip was written by Don Ferguson and drawn by Richard Moore, although the feature was usually billed as "by Disney."

The strip features the full cast of Winnie the Pooh's friends: Christopher Robin, [2] Tigger, [3] Rabbit, [4] Eeyore, [5] Owl, [6] Piglet, [7] Kanga, [8] and Roo. [9]

To the established cast of characters, Ferguson and Moore (along with Willie Ito who helped develop the strip) [10] added Sir Brian and his dragon, inspired by characters from Milne's poetry. [11] Sir Brian is introduced in the first strip, on June 19; [12] the Dragon appears in the third strip, on June 21. [13] No explanation is given for how Sir Brian ended up in the Hundred Acre Wood and became friends with Winnie the Pooh. In fact, in that first strip, Pooh is awoken early in the morning by a terrible clattering noise and, in the last panel, he looks out the window and observes Sir Brian jogging in his suit of armor. Pooh remarks, "I sure wish Sir Brian would get himself a sweat suit for his early-morning jogging!"—implying that this is a regular occurrence that Pooh is already tired of.

The comic has been noted by critics for the characterization of Winnie the Pooh, who is sometimes demanding, thoughtless and insulting to his friends. [14] In a 2015 blog post, animator Floyd Norman reflected on the style of his colleague, Don Ferguson:

Don Ferguson had a unique sense of humor. It was not surprising since his previous job was working with Jay Ward, a zany animation production company that thrived during the early sixties. You're probably familiar with "Rocky and Bullwinkle," Dudley Doright" and many of the other Jay Ward creations. How we managed to get Don to migrate to Disney I'll never know. I do know that he brought a very special cartoon sensibility to the Walt Disney Publishing Department and we were all the better for having him here. One would imagine that writing a comic strip about the silly 'ol bear would be pretty tame stuff. After all, "Winnie the Pooh" could hardly be called irreverent. It was usually considered pretty namby pamby stuff targeted at young children. However, Don managed to bring a degree of audaciousness to the "Winnie the Pooh" comic strip that was totally unexpected. It was Don's cheeky sensibility that made the comic strip such a joy to read. [15]

In 2019, Dark Horse Comics released a reprint collection of the strip's Sunday pages, 365 Days with Winnie the Pooh. [16]

Comic book

Western Publishing began publishing Winnie the Pooh as a quarterly comic book in January 1977, and published 33 issues, the last released in 1984. This book predated the Winnie the Pooh comic strip by a year and a half, but Sir Brian and the Dragon—introduced in the strip in June 1978—began appearing in the comic book with issue #14 (Aug 1979). [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Junior Woodchucks</span> Disney comics characters

The Junior Woodchucks of the World is a fictional scouting organization appearing in Disney comics and the DuckTales animated television franchise, most notably in adventures featuring Disney characters Huey, Dewey, and Louie as members.

Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck.

Bucky Bug is a beetle who appears in Disney comics. He first appeared in the Silly Symphony Sunday comic strip, and later appeared as a regular feature in the comic book Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.

<i>Walt Disneys Comics and Stories</i> Anthology comic book series featuring Disney characters

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, sometimes abbreviated WDC&S, is an American anthology comic book series featuring characters from The Walt Disney Company's films and shorts, including Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Chip 'n Dale, Li'l Bad Wolf, Scamp, Bucky Bug, Grandma Duck, Brer Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, and others. With more than 700 issues, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories is the longest-running Disney comic book in the United States, making it the flagship title, and is one of the best-selling comic books of all time.

<i>Donald Duck</i> (American comic book) 1942–2017 American Disney comics magazine

Donald Duck, also known as Donald Duck and Friends, is an American Disney comic book series starring the character Donald Duck and published by various publishers from October 1942 to June 2017. As with many early Disney comics titles, Donald Duck began as individual issues of Dell Comics' Four Color one-shots series. It was published as its own regular series in November 1952, starting with issue #26.

<i>Four Color</i> 1939–1962 anthology comic book series

Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and Dell Four Color, is an American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962. The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic books. The first 25 issues (1939–1942) are known as "series 1". In mid-1942, the numbering started over again, and "series 2" began. After the first hundred issues of the second series, Dell stopped putting the "Four Color Comics" designation on the books, but they continued the numbering system for twenty years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inducks</span> World-wide database about Disney comics

The International Network of Disney Universe Comic Knowers and Sources (I.N.D.U.C.K.S.) or Inducks is a freely available database aiming to index all Disney Universe comics ever printed in the world, created and maintained by both amateurs and professionals. It is an international project which provides indexes of around 170,000 Disney comic publications worldwide. It is distributed with its own licence.

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. 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 and 55 in 1966, and was principally a vehicle for promoting new and re-released Disney films.

Walt Disney Comics Digest is one of three digest size comics published by Gold Key Comics in the early 1970s. The other two were Mystery Comics Digest and Golden Comics Digest. It was the first digest-sized regular Disney comic published in the US, and was very successful, offering relief from the company's slipping comic book sales.

Scamp is a canine Disney comics character, the son of Lady and Tramp, all of whom appear in the 1955 animated film Lady and the Tramp. Scamp is featured in comic strips and comic books of his own since the 1950s. In the final scene of the film, the dogs have a litter of puppies, including three girl pups who look like Lady, and a mischievous, restless boy pup who resembles Tramp. The puppies are unnamed in the film and only appear in one scene, but the little boy puppy made an impression, and King Features Syndicate launched a comic strip a few months after the film's release.

Shirley Slesinger Lasswell was an American marketer. She was the wife of comics artist Stephen Slesinger and, after his death, Fred Lasswell. She is furthermore best known for losing a lawsuit with The Walt Disney Company due to her company's judicial misconduct in a dispute over Winnie-the-Pooh royalties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winnie-the-Pooh</span> Fictional character created by A. A. Milne

Winnie-the-Pooh is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared by name in a children's story commissioned by London's Evening News for Christmas Eve 1925. The character is inspired by a stuffed toy that Milne had bought for his son Christopher Robin in Harrods department store, and a bear they had viewed at London Zoo.

Le Journal de Mickey is a weekly French comics magazine established in 1934, featuring Disney comics from France and around the world. The magazine is currently published by Unique Heritage Media. It is centered on the adventures of Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters but also contains other comics. Le Journal de Mickey is credited with "the birth of the modern bande dessinée". It is now the most popular French weekly magazine for children between 8 and 13 years old.

<i>Winnie the Pooh</i> (franchise) Disney media franchise

Winnie the Pooh is a media franchise produced by The Walt Disney Company, based on A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's stories featuring Winnie-the-Pooh. It started in 1966 with the theatrical release of the short Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree.

Donald Duck is an American comic strip by the Walt Disney Company starring Donald Duck, distributed by King Features Syndicate. The first daily Donald Duck strip debuted in American newspapers on February 7, 1938. On December 10, 1939, the strip expanded to a Sunday page as well. Writer Bob Karp and artist Al Taliaferro worked together on the strip for more than 30 years. The strip ended in May 1995.

<i>Mickey Mouse</i> (comic strip) 1930-1995 American Disney comic strip

Mickey Mouse is an American newspaper comic strip by the Walt Disney Company featuring Mickey Mouse and is the first published example of Disney comics. The strip debuted on January 13, 1930, and ran until July 29, 1995. It was syndicated by King Features Syndicate until 1990, when Disney switched to Creators Syndicate, which distributed the strip until 2014.

Silly Symphony 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.

Donald Duck and Other Adventures, also known as Paperino giornale, is a 1937–40 weekly Italian Disney comics magazine published by Mondadori. The comic was launched by Federico Pedrocchi, Mondadori's art director, as a companion to the existing weekly Topolino magazine. Paperino published 149 issues from 30 December 1937 to 26 October 1940, at which point it was merged with Topolino.

References

  1. ↑ Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p. 414. ISBN   9780472117567.
  2. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: June 20, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  3. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: June 20, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  4. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: June 22, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  5. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: June 23, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  6. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: June 23, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  7. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: June 28, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  8. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: July 4, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  9. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: July 14, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  10. ↑ "Willie Ito". San Diego Comic-Con Souvenir Book 2019, p.221
  11. ↑ Becattini, Alberto (2019). "Disney Beyond Mickey". American Funny Animal Comics in the 20th Century: Volume One. Seattle, WA: Theme Park Press. ISBN   978-1683901860.
  12. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: June 19, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  13. ↑ "Winnie the Pooh: June 21, 1978". Inducks . Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  14. ↑ Cronin, Brian (11 January 2014). "Poohdickery Archive". CBR.com. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  15. ↑ Norman, Floyd. "Don Ferguson". Mr. Fun's Journal. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  16. ↑ Ferguson, Don; Moore, Richard (2019). 365 Days with Winnie the Pooh. Dark Horse Books. ISBN   978-1506714691.
  17. ↑ Becattini, Alberto (2016). Disney Comics: The Whole Story. Theme Park Press. p. 75. ISBN   978-1683900177.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.