Argentinian Coloring Book from 1959 - ¡Ven a Pintar! #4

From their series of Disney coloring books “¡Ven a Pintar!” this is the fourth in the series, featuring Alice.  Consisting of 16 large pages to color or paint, the line art is quite good and appears to be either copies of or redrawn from the Whitman Paint Book.

I've seen Alice depicted with the pink pinafore and stockings a few time from South American countries, but have never been able to figure out why.

Whitman Sticker Fun

As mentioned on the cover, the Sticker Fun is a stencil and coloring book - with a twist.  The interior of the book is designed as a coloring book, with lots of line drawings of scenes from the film to color.  But interspersed with the coloring pages are full pages of gummed stickers to cut out and apply to some of the scenes.  At the front and back of the book are full pages of bright orange stencils to punch out and use to make your own pages to color.

Given that the purpose of the book was to cut out and use both the stickers and the stencils, finding complete copies is very difficult.  Add to that the tendency of complete sticker pages to adhere to the coloring page behind it makes it doubly difficult to find.  If a copy is found with intact and uncut stickers, it is advised to place a sheet of wax paper between the sticker page and the coloring page to prevent them from sticking together.

This copy is a Western file copy.

Whitman Paint Book

Stock #2167-25, this copy is a Western file copy.  While this is called a paint book, today we would call this a coloring book.  I guess children in the 1950s used watercolors more than crayons.  

When I began collecting, this book was pretty much ever-present; you would find these at nearly every show and it seemed copies were quite plentiful.  The reason for this became clear when I found a complete copy of the 1974 campaign book offering these as part of the merchandise for the 1974 release.  

Western must have printed a boatload of these in 1951 to have them still available 23 years later.

Golden Catalog - Fall 1951

I thought I'd add this post as an extension of my Sandpiper post, to illustrate all the other Alice related items that were in the Fall catalog from 1951.

First up is the page describing the Golden Story Coloring Book (see posts here and here for more details).

Second is third of the Little Golden Books from Alice, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party. This is other LGB from Alice to get a single (A) printing, along with the Live Flowers book.

Next is another one of those items that for years I couldn't confirm even existed. Just like the Sandpiper book I had seen references to the DBR-1 and DBR-2 Big Golden Records (or Disney Big Record - DBR), but had never actually seen them, nor had anyone else. But I did finally acquire them about 5 years ago, and I will be posting them in the not too distant future. Too bad the covers are so boring...

Lastly the Big Golden Book; a small entry for the Alice book amongst the other BGBs of the day. Oddly, of the catalogs that I have, this is the last time the Alice books are ever mentioned, even though the BGB and the LGB White Rabbit remained in print for more than 30 years.

Golden Coloring Book Original Art by Bob Grant - Page 40

Last of the original pages from the Golden Coloring Book, page 40, Alice flees the trial through the hedge maze pursued by card soldiers.

Golden Coloring Book Original Art by Bob Grant - Page 38

My favorite of the five pages, page 38 with Alice being brought to trial by two soldier cards.

Golden Coloring Book Original Art by Bob Grant - Page 26

Next in the Golden Coloring Book art series is page 26 - Alice in the garden of live flowers.

This is the page that made me realize what this batch of art was from. If you look at the rendering of Alice's face - especially the eyes - you'll see that it is very distinctive. I had always noticed the way her eye's were drawn in that coloring book, and the page of art triggered that memory enough for me to pull out the book and compare.

Another interesting thing is that this page of art - along with all the others in this series - is art from the pre-colored pages of this book. You may recall from my original post that this coloring book is a little different from most, it has a bunch of pages that come pre-colored, acting as a sort of reference.

The Golden Catalog from the fall of 1951 describes these special books as Golden Story Coloring Books, and the pre-colored pages as offering 'a general guide to the young artist'.

Golden Coloring Book Original Art by Bob Grant - Page 20

Continuing with the original art from the Golden Coloring Book, this is page 20, Alice in the White Rabbit's house opening the Eat Me box.

Golden Coloring Book Original Art by Bob Grant - Page 14

A while back I had a post on a very hard to find item, the Alice in Wonderland Golden Coloring Book.

The next few posts feature original art for this coloring book. First up is page 14, the Walrus preparing to 'begin the feed'.


Art for these is credited to Bob Grant, an artist who did a number of comic strips and comic books for Disney from the 1930s through the late 1960s at least.

Playthings Magazine - August 1951

This is the August 1951 issue of Playthings magazine. By this time the film was in general release, and merchandising was in full swing. Earlier issues had a lot more advertising for merchandise leading up to the release, but there are still some cool items in here.


First is a full page ad for Gund toys. This ad depicts the complete set of dolls (Mad Hatter, March Hare, and White Rabbit) as well as 3 of the vinylite toys mentioned in a previous post.

There is also a full page ad for the large-sized 12½" Duchess doll. This is a very rare doll, much harder to find than the standard 7" doll.

There is also an article that talks about a toy shortage predicted by some guy named Freud, and has a nice picture of Kathryn Beaumont playing with the Model Craft Molding Set.

The article also lists a few other items that were released as part of the Alice merchandising machine in 1951.

There is also a blurb about Alice in Wonderland Whitman publications

What's nice about this is that it pictures all the Whitman products released in 1951, including the Whitman 2140 from this post.

Then there is the first of two items about Alice in Wonderland balloons. Believe it or not there were TWO companies that made balloons for the Alice release. This first one talks about those released by Eagle.

Nice graphics of the so-called Head and Body Tossup Balloon, a balloon with cardboard feet so that it stands up!

And finally a quarter-page ad for the other balloon company, Oak Rubber Co., with lots of different balloons illustrated.

I find it interesting that they also have the stand-up balloons, something I'm sure Disney would never do today. I especially like the March Hare balloons with ears - forerunner of the Mickey head balloons at Disneyland I imagine.

Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland Coloring Book - A Golden Coloring Book

Cool, my first request :-) This is the extremely rare Golden Coloring Book.


For years I didn't even know this existed, having thought that people who referred to it were mistaking the very common Paint Book.

What is interesting about this coloring book is that it is divided into two parts. The first part tells the story, and there are lots of pages that are pre-colored, giving the child a model to work from. The second part is more of a traditional coloring book with large figures for easy coloring.

The art in this book is particularly good, credited to Bob Grant of the Walt Disney Studios.