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.