Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Color Sundays: "Robin Hood Rides Again" (Vol. Vol. 2)  (Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse)
This second volume of full-color Sunday newspaper strips by artist Gottfredson sees Mickey entering a more genteel phase in the late 1930s. Reflecting the domestication of his big-screen incarnation, the mischievous scamp of the earlier strips is giving way to a more decorous rodent who increasingly turns the broad humor over to his dim-witted sidekick, Goofy. In contrast to the daily episodes, which largely featured adventure-oriented story lines that extended for weeks, these Sunday installments are mostly self-contained gags. Welcome exceptions are serialized tales in which Mickey joins Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, becomes a sheriff in the Wild West, and portrays the Brave Little Tailor in an adaptation of his then current film. The strips contain occasional appearances by Disney’s newly hatched character Donald Duck, who would soon displace Mickey as the studio’s biggest star. With their retro appeal, Gottfredson’s buoyant drawings might just look even better now than they did when they were fresh. Gottfredson’s late-1950s Sunday-strip adaptations of Disney classics like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty round out the volume. --Gordon Flagg