mouse out of context

 

As my read through old Mickey Mouse newspaper comics continues, I find myself imbued with a new moral purpose: I will not show out of context images with the notion of corrupting or deconstructing an American institution(besides, "Air Pirates Funnies" did, and they got sued to Hellenbach)

   So if anybody out there has any comments about Minnie and spanking, say them within your own company, for I am obviously too noble to do so.

  

See, here's a beloved children's character reading a book about guns. Which is ridiculous, because Mickey never uses guns. 

 

  Here it may appear that Mickey is torturing a  sickly horse for his own twisted amusement, but the larger context reveals that this is the famous "Tanglefoot' storyline, in which Mickey buys a sickly horse, enters him in a race and nearly destroys all his assets betting on his own race.

 

...I have no explanation for this whatsoever.

Craft and Draughtmanship in Mickey Mouse

 the  Fantagraphics' reprints of the "Mickey Mouse" comic strips by Floyd Gottfredson,  are beautifully drawn: wonderfully constructed pieces of innocent whimsy that...

 

...  Okay, so it's Post-Depression audiences that we're talking about:  rough. After all, these strips were of the same generation of Dick Tracy. But unlike Chester Gould's violent cop, you'd never Mickey Mouse firing a gu--

 

 Um, never mind. Maybe I'm just picking out an isolated occurrence of

  

And here Clarabel Cow's gonna bust some ass. But hey, she has a rolling pin, so Comedy, Right?

 

And Goofy empties about two boxes of ammo in a blind killing rage. This is pretty sobering when I think that these are the comic strips my Grandmother grew up reading.

  

Dear God! Walt Disney's signature is even on this one! These are the comic strips my Grandmother grew up reading? 

Out of context, this panel makes it seem like Mickey's ultimate triumph is through a combination of arms escalation and damnright sadism...well that's exactly what it is.