Mickey Mouse first appeared in an animated short in the Fall of 1928 and was an instant hit.
By the next Summer:
The popular Mickey cartoons piqued the interest of J.V. Connelly of King Features Syndicate, who proposed the release of a Mickey Mouse comic strip as early as June 1929. The Disney Studio soon went to work on extending Mickey’s adventures onto the pages of newspapers, with Walt Disney writing the stories and Ub Iwerks creating the drawings.
Yes, the comic strip began as a collaboration by Mickey’s co-creators (with Win Smith inking).
The Mickey Mouse comic strip debuted on January 13, 1930. Below the first week.
Unlike Popeye, who last year turned 90 in newspaper comic strips, the comic strip Mickey never got that old. Newspaper Mickey retired at age 65 in 1995. His last strips being produced by Colette Bezio and Thomas Lewis. Yes, that T. Lewis.
Hat tips:
Disney’s D23 for the strips.
First Versions for the promo.
Inducks for the ending dates.
The Mickey Mouse newspaper strip ended in 1995? I thought it ended in 2005!
Love Mickey mouse! And love the classic beginnings of the Disney Icon!!
Actually: I guess the last Mickey Mouse newspaper strip ran at the end of 2015.
Well…
There’s a reason Fantagraphics’ The Complete Peanuts ended after 26 volumes – because the strip ended 20 years ago on February 13, 2000; although it continues to appear in newspapers to this day.
So, yes, after Disney and King stopped commissioning new strips they continued distributing old strips. In the 2010s Creators Syndicate got the license and for a few more years gave the papers the opportunity to print Mickey Mouse reruns. This apparently lasted until January 2, 2016. https://www.creators.com/read/mickey-mouse