Mickey Mouse Weekly #581 from England - June 30th, 1951

Today we embark upon a new series - the Mickey Mouse Weekly series.  Mickey Mouse Weekly is a British comic publication that started in 1936, and continued until 1959, with upwards of 1000 issues published.

Beginning with issue #581 on June 30th, 1951, Alice in Wonderland was previewed in a series of articles, and eventually would be serialized much the same way as we saw in Mickey Magazine from Belgium.  The cover above sports a nice little badge advertising that exciting Alice news awaits the reader inside!

In this first issue we see 3 very standard press photos of the time accompanied by a very lightweight article on Alice and its new Disney film.  It also mentions that concurrent with the serialization will be a four week 'painting' competition with £100 in prizes.

Gag Drawings of Milt Kahl and Marc Davis

For those of you who have missed it, Andreas Deja has created his own blog, and it is chock full of AMAZING stuff.  Andreas has kindly given permission to repost the following two gag drawings from his blog post on Milt Kahl.

Apparently, Milt and Marc had several run-ins on how best to animate Alice, particularly her arms.  

I highly encourage everyone to head on over to his blog and read it religiously.  There is always a healthy dose of Alice in addition to all the other wonderful stuff.

Big Alice in the White Rabbit's House Pan Layout Drawing

Sorry for my absence these past couple of weeks, I fell victim to an ancient Chinese curse and have been experiencing 'interesting' times.  But time marches on, and so does this blog.

Today I present to you another nice pan layout drawing, of Alice sprouting out of the White Rabbit's house.

I love the addition of Alice herself (or at least her arms and legs) in red on this piece.  Studio notations identify this as being from Sc 22 Seq 6.  It is interesting to look at all the little details in this drawing, like the pile of debris that the Dodo intends to use as kindling.

You can also make out the outline of the proposed frame, which is as you would expect centered on the house.

Oddly, there are also notations for the Scene start and stop locations, which are offset to the left from the framing.

Alice Attraction Concept Art Publicity Still

Today is the 53rd anniversary of the opening of the Alice in Wonderland attraction at Disneyland.  To commemorate the auspicious event, I present to you this original publicity still featuring concept art of the attraction.

This still is dated April 6th, 1958, and was used to publicize the upcoming attraction.  I especially like the rendering of the Caterpillar.

As can be seen by reading the snipe on the back, the exact details of the ride were unclear at the time this art was sent out, but this is the only still I've seen of this art.

Rossini Auction This Weekend

Rossini is having another fantastic auction this weekend, and I think this Mary Blair would make a great Father's Day gift for me, don't you?  You can bid in the US via ArtFact if you can't make it to Paris to bid live.

Mickey Magazine #87 from Belgium - June 6th, 1952

A bonus issue, #87, not part of the serialization,

but containing a throwaway piece of Alice art of the Dodo.

Mickey Magazine #86 from Belgium - May 30th, 1952

Our final installment in issue #86 finds Alice receiving her verdict

and fleeing Wonderland for home.

Courtroom Rotoscope Drawings

I always knew drawings like these existed, but had never seen any until I acquired this set.  Yet more courtroom art, gotta love it!.  These are (what are now called) rotoscope drawings.  I'm not sure when that term came into existence, but the technique has been around for nearly 100 years.  It is unclear to me how much the animators relied on these tracings, but let's look at how they compare to the final film.  First up we have what appears to be Alice scoffing at the Dormouse's testimony "twinkle, twinkle - what next?"

Going back in time a little, we have Alice correcting the Queen "unimportant your majesty means"

followed by Alice's reaction to the Queen bellowing at her for "silence".

And finally we have Alice looking on in wonder and dismay as the entire courtroom exclaims on the fact that it is the Queen's unbirthday.

Based on these comparisons, I feel that these are not true rotoscopes, but were indeed used as a starting point for the animation.  There are lots of little differences (even taking into account that my screen grabs are not exact), but the basics of the layout, pose, and expression were clearly influenced by the reference tracings.

What do you think?

Mickey Magazine #85 from Belgium - May 23rd, 1952

Getting near the end now, our second to last installment in issue #85 features Alice meeting the Queen and King of Hearts for a game of croquet.

Then let the trial begin!

Mickey Magazine #84 from Belgium - May 16th, 1952

Whaddya know, an issue of Mickey Magazine with Mickey on the cover.  This installment, issue #84, features Alice encountering the Cheshire Cat once again,

and painting the roses with the Card Gardeners.

And Now for Something Completely Different - Donald Duck as Alice from Donald in Mathemagic Land

While this is not really from Alice in Wonderland, it is fun.  An original model sheet from the short Donald in Mathemagic Land.  I don't know about you, but this short was a staple in my primary school education; I must have seen this a dozen times over the years in classrooms, and all on 16mm film of course.  I was even one of the A/V guys one year, no wonder the chicks dug me.

As we know, Donald does a brief turn in drag as Alice from Through the Looking Glass when the subject turns to mathematics in games, and the discussion turns to chess.

I'd say the final animation got the attitude of Donald pretty close to his model sheet counterpart, wouldn't you?

Mickey Magazine #83 from Belgium - May 9th, 1952

Our next installment, issue #83, featuring Alice in the Tulgey Wood

amongst all the bizarre denizens therein.  I especially like the Mome Raths.

Courtroom Layout Drawing - Bailiff Stand

I seem to be in a courtroom mode these days, but probably only because long ago I was lucky enough to acquire a bunch of art from that sequence.  Today's layout drawing is a fantastic and large vertical pan layout for the White Rabbit's bailiff stand.

What's neat about this particular layout is that there are framing notes on the drawing itself.  While I'm not familiar with the terminology (hoping Hans reads this and tells me what these mean specifically), I can guess that they refer to the starting and ending shots for this background.

If you look closely at the drawing above you'll see what appear to be crop marks in two locations on the drawing.  I've highlighted what the boxes would look like in the image below.

if you extract the marked frames, you'll see what is apparently the start of the White Rabbit's ascent of the stairs

and his eventual position at the top of the stand.  Looks a little different from what eventually ended up in the film, probably why this drawing is marked 'discard', but pretty close.

The drawing also has other standard production notations Prod # 2069, Seq. 11.0 Sc 12.1.

Dodo Suggestions Model Sheet - May 1950

Today we have a very interesting model sheet, the Dodo Suggestions model sheet (550-8007).   What I like about the various 'suggestions' model sheets is their rough nature, a lot of the construction of the characters is still visible whereas a 'final' model sheet is generally taken directly from cleanup animation drawings.

What's interesting about this model sheet is the inclusion of one of the Tenniel illustrations.  I posted previously a series of stills that included Tenniel illustrations of the Gryphon and Mock Turtle, so the inclusion here is not without precedent, but still unusual.

Also, a word about model sheet numbers.  The code number dates the model sheet.  This sheet has code 550-8007, the 550 represents May of 1950.  The 8007 is some other internal numbering scheme, probably having to do with when the sheet was registered with the production staff, but that is unclear to me.

Mickey Magazine #82 from Belgium - May 2nd, 1952

Our next installment in issue #82 featuring the Mad Tea Party,

featuring the Mad Hatter and March Hare, and a brief appearance by the White Rabbit.

Alice Looking Over Shoulder Drawing

This is a great drawing, full of character and emotion, a combination of puzzlement and annoyance.

This comes from the scene where Alice is wandering though the Tulgey Wood and hears the Cheshire Cat singing and looks over her shoulder to see what the noise is.

Mickey Magazine #81 from Belgium - April 25th, 1952

Our next installment is in issue #81, this time featuring the Cheshire Cat,

and the Mad Tea Party with the Mad Hatter and March Hare.

Spanish Filmstrip Set - Cine NIC Sonoro

What a great toy this is.  This is a boxed set of 'filmstrips' of the Alice story from Spain.  Box graphics are a little crude, but wait till you see the insides!

This is one of many sets offered, this being set L (stock number 139-144).  There are a couple of other Disney sets in there as well, including Lady  and the Tramp, which probably dates this to 1955 since there is no Sleeping Beauty.

Inside are six individual boxes containing the filmstrips.  The inner boxes are generic, with what looks like a rubber stamp impression of the specific title.

Here's where it gets really interesting.  This filmstrips are really paper strips with drawing in two rows.  The action in each of the two rows is slightly different.  I've seen this kind of toy before, in fact I've seen Alice themed versions of this toy before, but not Disney.  Apparently the 'player' for this toy switches between the two rows creating a sort of animated effect.

I've attempted to reproduce what this effect would look like at a very slow pace (faster and I get a headache).

I was very excited when I got this, a complete set, woohoo! But sadly, my set is NOT complete, I have two copies of segment 6 and am missing segment 1. Oh well.