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Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics

Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics is a book series which reprints Walt Disney's Silly Symphony Sunday comic strip, drawn by several different Disney artists from 1932 to 1945. The strip was published by King Features Syndicate.[1] The strip often introduced new Disney characters to the public, including its first comic character, Bucky Bug. The series was published by The Library of American Comics from 2016 to 2019.

Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics
Publication information
PublisherThe Library of American Comics
FormatHardcover
GenreFunny animals
Adventure
Humour
Adaptation
Publication dateApril 2016 – September 2019
No. of issues4
Main character(s)Bucky Bug, Elmer Elephant, Donald Duck, The Three Little Pigs, Snow White, Ugly Duckling, Pinocchio, Pluto, Little Hiawatha, Bambi, Panchito Pistoles, José Carioca
Creative team
Written byEarl Duvall, Ted Osborne, Merrill De Maris, Hubie Karp
Artist(s)Al Taliaferro
Penciller(s)Al Taliaferro, Earl Duvall, Hank Porter, Bob Grant
Inker(s)Al Taliaferro, Floyd Gottfredson, Bob Grant
Editor(s)Dean Mullaney

Background

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From 1929 to 1939, the Walt Disney Company produced 75 original animated short features under the Silly Symphony line. These shorts were originally designed as whimsical one-shots without ongoing characters; later such stars as Bucky Bug, the Big Bad Wolf, Max Hare, and Toby Tortoise were introduced, either as recurring figures or as characters who were expanded upon later in Disney comics. Donald Duck, "born" in a Silly Symphony short, quickly became a regular in Mickey Mouse films and then his own standalone series.

The Silly Symphony cartoon shorts helped Disney push the limits of what could be done with animation in terms of character effects and storytelling, and inspired the invention of the multiplane camera, a recording device allowing animated films to create tracking shots, which in turn made it possible to tell stories in new ways. The Silly Symphonies shorts were a great success, winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Films seven times. The series also branched out to include a series of children's books, comic books and a newspaper Sunday comic strip, drawn primarily by Al Taliaferro.[2]

The comic strip was syndicated through 1945. Seven years later, Dell Comics launched a series of 100-page comic books under the Silly Symphony brand; these predominantly featured new standalone stories, though a few were redraws of earlier Sunday newspaper strip material.[1] In total, Dell Comics published nine of these comic books.[1] While some of the 1930s Silly Symphony children's books were published in black and white, the comic books were all in color.

IDW book series

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In April 2016, IDW Publishing and The Library of American Comics began reprinting the Silly Symphony Sunday comic strips under the series title Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics.[3]

The books are hardcover with a sewn binding, a sewn linen bookmark, and a dust jacket. They measure 12 × 8.5 inches, approximately 305 × 216 mm, and are set in a landscape format. This format allows each Sunday page to be as close to the original size as possible.[4]

The comics are scanned from the original Disney proofs, which have been archived in vaults located in Glendale and Burbank, California, U.S.[5] Each print is in full color throughout the volumes, identical to the comic strips, originally published in full color. Each volume of the series has about 210 pages, in which approximately ten pages are supplementary material including introductions by the film historian and author J. B. Kaufman.[6][7][8]

Volumes from the series were sold separately. The release schedule for the series was one volume every ten months.[9]

Volumes

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Volumes
Vol. Release date Title Period Main appearances Page count ISBN Inducks link
1 2016-04-27 Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics Vol. 1 1932-1935 Bucky Bug, Bennie Bird, Peter Penguin, Donald Duck, Max Hare, Toby Tortoise, Ambrose, Miss Bonbon 216 978-1-63140-558-7 SSSC 1
2 2017-02-08 Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics Vol. 2 1935-1939 Three Little Kittens, Elmer Elephant, The Three Little Pigs, The Big Bad Wolf, Donald Duck, Snow White, The Seven Dwarfs, Pluto, Spotty Pig 224 978-1-63140-804-5 SSSC 2
3 2017-11-22 Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics Vol. 3 1939-1942 Pluto, Ugly Duckling, Pinocchio, Little Hiawatha 208 978-1-63140-988-2 SSSC 3
4 2019-09-17 Silly Symphonies: The Complete Disney Classics Vol. 4 1942-1945 Bambi, José Carioca, Panchito Pistoles 192 978-1-68405-264-6 SSSC 4

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Silly Symphonies". www.toonopedia.com. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  2. ^ Brewster, Mat (February 18, 2017). "Book Review: Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies Vol. 2 (1935-1939)". Cinemasentries.com. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  3. ^ Zack Saad (April 25, 2016). "Silly Symphonies Vol. 1 Review". Archived from the original on April 26, 2016. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  4. ^ Spinney, Alan (November 22, 2017). "Comic Review: Silly Symphonies, Vol. 3: The Complete Disney Classics 1939–1942 (IDW)". The Fanboy Factor. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  5. ^ Findlay, Kurtis. "Episode 001 with special guest Bruce Canwell Library of American Comics". Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  6. ^ "'Silly Symphonies Volume 2' delights with more classic Disney comic strips". Christian Science Monitor. March 20, 2017. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  7. ^ "Jerry Reviews "Cartoon Roots", Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse, Silly Symphonies – and the latest from Didier Ghez". cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  8. ^ "Westfield Blog » Roger's Comic Ramblings: The Library of American Comics/IDW's Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: The Sunday Newspaper Comics". westfieldcomics.com. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
  9. ^ "Westfield Comics Blog » Interview: Bruce Canwell on IDW's Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies Vol. 1". Retrieved March 9, 2019.
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