Mickey's Craziest Adventures
by Lewis Trondheim
art by Nicolas Keramidas
translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger
2016, reprinted 2024
For whatever reason, a lot of early science fiction stories are framed as though the actual author of the piece is a mere intermediary, simply delivering to the audience a work composed by someone else. They'll have an introduction where the author claims to have found the whole manuscript stuffed in a glass bottle on the beach, or else the first chapter will be a mundane account of their golfing weekend where, oh by the way, they happened upon a mysterious diary in the bedside table in their guest house, and then the rest of the book is the fantastical contents of the found document.
Mickey's Craziest Adventures is like that - the intro claims that author Trondheim and artist Keramidas were out garage sale shopping one Saturday, when they discovered an incomplete run of a rare Mickey Mouse comic, a collector's dream!, one that Disney has never reprinted, and that you, the casual fan, may never even have heard of. This is the metafictional setup, like in those early scifi stories, the conceit that what you're reading is actually more authentic than it appears, that it has an older and more compelling provenance. I should note, I absolutely love that sort of thing, even as I admit I don't fully understand all the reasons for it.
Anyway, supposedly, this rare comic, 'Mickey's Quest,' has a standalone story in each issue, plus a serialized tale that covers its entire run, that only gets one page per issue and is always 'to be continued...' So that ongoing tale is 'Mickey's Craziest Adventures,' and this book supposedly collects as much of it as Trondheim and Kermidas could find, chapters 2 through 82, with about half missing.
Keramidas's commitment to the bit is impressive. In addition to using faux faded colors to imitate the look of an old comic (like Ed Piskor and Tom Scioli used in their X-Men and Fantastic Four Grand Designs), several pages are also faux distressed, with the appearance of fake foxing, mildew, coffee stains, and in one case, a torn bottom corner.
Something like every other chapter is 'missing,' though you sometimes get a larger gap, or a few directly sequential pages in a row. The effect is a comic that's all set-pieces and action sequences, with a bare minimum of connective tissue. Each page is a spectacle; working out the plot requires paying attention to the details. In actuality, media companies in the 1960s expected that their readers (and viewers) might not catch every issue (or episode), so Trondheim's careful use of dialogue to let us know what we've missed without bogging down the forward momentum is period-appropriate, not just a way to write a comic that's all killer, no filler. Even into the 1980s and 90s, this is a pretty accurate representation of how I experienced any sort of ongoing series I liked. (The only thing missing is repeats and chapters out of order!)
I gave a copy of this book to my brother-in-law a few years ago, because he's a fan of the classic Disney comics this one is mimicking, like Carl Barks's Uncle Scrooge comics that the show Duck Tales is based on. He said that this really is Mickey's craziest adventure, but for Donald, it's just top half. Despite the title, this really is Donald's comic too. Mickey's nemesis Pete and Donald's enemies the Beagle Boys have teamed up to steal Uncle Scrooge's gold, so Mickey and Donald team up too to get it back.
What follows is a madcap chase around the world, involving a stolen shrink ray, a jungle, a desert, a meteor crashing into the earth, an underground lost world of dinosaurs and mammoths, detours to the Himalayas and the moon, a half dozen secret lost cities full of treasure, a visit to Atlantis, and finally finally a climactic confrontation where a frustrated Mickey beats the tar out of everyone to retrieve the stolen fortune.
It's a wild ride, and I had fun racing to keep up with it. Beyond paying homage to the comics of old, the metafictional conceit provides a good excuse to present a story that moves at a much faster clip than modern audiences are used to, and that forgoes as much exposition as possible - transitional text that's expected, but apparently ultimately unnecessary - to craft a story unapologetically that leaps from high point to high point, sprinting across its entire length with scarcely a pause for breath.
Mickey's Craziest Adventures is like that - the intro claims that author Trondheim and artist Keramidas were out garage sale shopping one Saturday, when they discovered an incomplete run of a rare Mickey Mouse comic, a collector's dream!, one that Disney has never reprinted, and that you, the casual fan, may never even have heard of. This is the metafictional setup, like in those early scifi stories, the conceit that what you're reading is actually more authentic than it appears, that it has an older and more compelling provenance. I should note, I absolutely love that sort of thing, even as I admit I don't fully understand all the reasons for it.
Anyway, supposedly, this rare comic, 'Mickey's Quest,' has a standalone story in each issue, plus a serialized tale that covers its entire run, that only gets one page per issue and is always 'to be continued...' So that ongoing tale is 'Mickey's Craziest Adventures,' and this book supposedly collects as much of it as Trondheim and Kermidas could find, chapters 2 through 82, with about half missing.
Keramidas's commitment to the bit is impressive. In addition to using faux faded colors to imitate the look of an old comic (like Ed Piskor and Tom Scioli used in their X-Men and Fantastic Four Grand Designs), several pages are also faux distressed, with the appearance of fake foxing, mildew, coffee stains, and in one case, a torn bottom corner.
Something like every other chapter is 'missing,' though you sometimes get a larger gap, or a few directly sequential pages in a row. The effect is a comic that's all set-pieces and action sequences, with a bare minimum of connective tissue. Each page is a spectacle; working out the plot requires paying attention to the details. In actuality, media companies in the 1960s expected that their readers (and viewers) might not catch every issue (or episode), so Trondheim's careful use of dialogue to let us know what we've missed without bogging down the forward momentum is period-appropriate, not just a way to write a comic that's all killer, no filler. Even into the 1980s and 90s, this is a pretty accurate representation of how I experienced any sort of ongoing series I liked. (The only thing missing is repeats and chapters out of order!)
I gave a copy of this book to my brother-in-law a few years ago, because he's a fan of the classic Disney comics this one is mimicking, like Carl Barks's Uncle Scrooge comics that the show Duck Tales is based on. He said that this really is Mickey's craziest adventure, but for Donald, it's just top half. Despite the title, this really is Donald's comic too. Mickey's nemesis Pete and Donald's enemies the Beagle Boys have teamed up to steal Uncle Scrooge's gold, so Mickey and Donald team up too to get it back.
What follows is a madcap chase around the world, involving a stolen shrink ray, a jungle, a desert, a meteor crashing into the earth, an underground lost world of dinosaurs and mammoths, detours to the Himalayas and the moon, a half dozen secret lost cities full of treasure, a visit to Atlantis, and finally finally a climactic confrontation where a frustrated Mickey beats the tar out of everyone to retrieve the stolen fortune.
It's a wild ride, and I had fun racing to keep up with it. Beyond paying homage to the comics of old, the metafictional conceit provides a good excuse to present a story that moves at a much faster clip than modern audiences are used to, and that forgoes as much exposition as possible - transitional text that's expected, but apparently ultimately unnecessary - to craft a story unapologetically that leaps from high point to high point, sprinting across its entire length with scarcely a pause for breath.
It's not just a sci-fi convention - plenty of 'and then such-and-such told me his story.' Kipling used it. Arguably Conan Doyle is using it. I think Stevenson and Dickens both did too. One wonders why.
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