Last week Disney released the new Walt Disney Treasures DVDs, tin-cased limited edition DVD collections featuring rare, classic cartoons and TV programs. One of this year’s four new volumes is More Silly Symphonies, featuring 38 of Disney’s vintage musical cartoons as well as their assorted spin-offs. More »

I wish everyone around the world a very merry Christmas — Arthur.

The house where Walt Disney was born, 2156 N. Tripp in Chicago, is up for auction on eBay starting at US$ 250,000. The four-bedroom, frame house was built in 1893 by Disney’s father, Elias, and it is was where Walt Disney was born 105 years ago this week. The house was posted by owners Radoje and Barbara Popovic. More »

From Scoop*: It’s here at last! Years ago, 1980s Disney licensee Gladstone Publishing planned to publish “Mickey Mouse Joins the Foreign Legion,” a legendary serial by 2006 Eisner Hall of Fame inductee Floyd Gottfredson. The story was shelved at that time, but this month Gemstone serves it up for us at last — and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #675 (buy it here for $6.95) is its home. Join two-fisted Mickey for a harrowing induction into the Secret Service… and a battle for secret plans with a sinister spy! More »

There is no building on the Duckburg skyline as recognizable as Scrooge McDuck’s money bin, a twelve storey building first introduced in the Uncle Scrooge comic stories by Carl Barks in 1951. Behind dozens of booby traps and a strong safe door, the richest duck in the world (listed third on The Forbes Fictional 15 list this year) holds here a sea of money, a total of three cubic acres, in which the old miser likes to dive like a dolphin and burrow through like a gopher. More »

Legendary Dr. Erika Fuchs, born on 7 December 1906 in Rostock and first editor-in-chief of German’s weekly magazine Micky Maus, would have turned 100 years old today. She became famous in Germany for her quality translations of Carl Barks stories and set a very high standard for the language used in the German Disney comics, a standard that is still followed today. More »

Brazil’s publisher of Disney comics, Editorial Abril, celebrates the 75th anniversary of Mickey’s dog Pluto with a special edition of Aventuras Disney. The magazine is dedicated to the character and contains “Pluto the Pup”, the first Pluto comic story from 1931 by Floyd Gottfredson. More »

At the Lucca 2006 Comics and Games fair in November, the Walt Disney Company Italy presented the first issue (‘Episodio Zero’) of a new comic book for boys. The new series is much more a cross between a manga-style comic and a video game, than your usual classic Disney comic. The exciting story is told like a true novel, interpreted in the form of a comic strip with an original graphic style. More »

Talented Italian Disney comics artist Luciano Bottaro died on 25 November at the age of 75. He was considered one of the most important Italian humor cartoonists. His first Disney story for the Italian editor was “Paperino e le onorificenze” written by Alberto Testa and published in 1952. Besides his work with the Disney’s characters, he also worked on other magazines, creating a lot of his own characters, and in 1958 he founded the Bierreci Studios with Carlo Chendi and Giorgio Rebuffi. More »

Chinese Mickey Mouse, which is published twice per month by Children’s Fun Publishing Co., is starting a subscription service starting in January 2007, along with monthly Little Princess and Winnie the Pooh. Mickey Mouse was launched in China in 1993 when a contract was signed between Egmont and the Chinese Post Office. Each issue is now read by more than three million people! More »