The information on this page was last updated 28 August 2006
Almanacco Topolino started out in the 1950s as a spin-off of Albi D'Oro , a Disney comics publication featuring Disney comic stories in some issues and non-Disney in other ones. Albi d'Oro had started in the late thirties. Albi d'Oro was suspended during World War II, and was resumed in 1946, with a different layout.
The heading Almanacco (di) Topolino had been used since the thirties for annual and seasonal special issues. From October 1956 all issues published in the Albi d'Oro-series became monthly, having on the cover a large caption saying Almanacco Topolino and a small caption on the upper left corner saying Albo d'Oro.
Almanacco Topolino featured mainly foreign comic-stories. That was because the magazine had a larger format than the rest, making it possible to have 4 rows on each page. This made it more suitable to print foreign material which are usually in that format (although some Italian stories were written in that format as well).
Many years later, around January of 1970 to be exact, Almanacco Topolino took on a numbering which started at number 157. This numbering places number 1 as January 1957, but this was never explained to the readers.
From January 1985, the magazine got a smaller format and its name was changed into Mega Almanacco, and later Mega 2000 and Mega 3000.
All these different series that literally evolved through the last five decades, can be considered to be 'all the same series', only with different titles and characteristics, but maintaining the same numbering from January 1957, in which issue #1 was published!
Almanacco Topolino resumed publication, although very briefly, in April 1999, in the form of a thick (196 pages) bimonthly magazine, same size as the old ones, and reprinting old material. Unfortunately only 6 issues were printed. Number 6 being of June 2000.
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