Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney and it's Christmas. YAY! And this year, we are going to be doing something a bit different as the lovely folks over at IDW put out a book that is a collection of Disney Christmas newspaper comic strips. I'll let the Amazon description feel you in on the rest.
The Disney Christmas newspaper comic strip was an annual tradition from 1960-1987, running daily throughout the month before Christmas. Twenty-seven special Christmas stories are collected in a book for the first time. Plus a special bonus: the 1992-1997 Disney Holiday Stories featuring Aladdin, Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Lion King!
Now, I doubt that we will get through all of them but I'll be reviewing them as I read them and the first one today is rather interesting to say the least. With that outta the way, our first story takes us to the Christmas season of 1960 as we look at the first Disney Christmas Newspaper Comic Strip.
The Plot
We open on the Jolly Roger and see that Captain Hook is in a sour mood and it's because of Christmas. Turns out the Captain hates Christmas. Peter knows and sends Tinker Bell off to spy on the old codfish just in case something is up and indeed, something is up. Hook has a nasty old plan to deliver a present to Santa Claus. And he'll have Smee send unbeknownst to Smee that it truly is a bomb. Oh, and this is where we get to one of the best parts of the story. How does Smee get from Never Land to The North Pole. Captain Hook shoots him out of a cannon on the Jolly Roger.
Honestly, I'm just amazed that worked. Tink relays the message to Peter and Peter realizes that this means bad news. We next see Smee arrive in The North Pole and as we do, we see The Seven Dwarves. Just because, and that is not the weirdest thing that'll happen in these stories as one features Ludwig Von Drake interacting with the characters from Sleeping Beauty. As Smee sees The Dwarves, he gets the idea to blend in and pretend to be Bashful. Which okay? Although, I do love Grumpy pointing out that it feels pretty crowded in their cottage.
That night as The Dwarves sleep, Smee sinks out with the package to take Santa and this is just another WOW moment. As Smee arrives at Santa's Workshop with the package, Santa says this.
Well! It's one of the Seven Dwarfs! Which one? Can't tell 'em apart... except Dopey!
Okay, it's not stated in the story but I read into the Dwarfs being at The North Pole as meaning that they are stand-ins for the Elves and that is giving that line weird context in my head. Smee delivers the package to Santa and back in Never Land, Hook is counting down the days and has reached Christmas Eve and is excited that there'll be no more Christmas but Peter and Tink arrive in time to save Santa from the bomb and the story ends with Santa flying in his sleigh with The Dwarfs as as Peter and Tinker Bell fly by.
And so, that brings our first Christmas comic review to a close. Overall, I enjoyed this story. It was simple and sweet.
Characters
There's not a whole lot that can be said about the characters here as they are perfectly in line with what you'd expect from their respective movies.
My Final Thoughts
It's a simple and sweet story that is fun for this time of year and I hope that trend continues as we look at Pinocchio's Christmas Story next.
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