The Greatest Mickey Mouse Story Ever Told

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LIFE’s issue for March 22nd, 1948 featured a story on Hunter College’s experimental elementary school, where all the students had genius-level IQs. It’s a fascinating piece–and I bring it up here because one of the pint-sized savants was Roy, beloved by his classmates for his storytelling. A LIFE photographer captured Roy spinning a tale about Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Minnie Mouse that involves violence, polygamy, Danny Kaye, and–well, Roy, take it away:

geniusschoolIs it too late for Disney to acquire the rights to this and make it into a feature?

Roy’s gifts as a performer didn’t go to waste when he grew up: he was Roy London, and he became an actor, director, and noted acting coach. I’m sorry to say he died in 1993. And now you know…the rest of the story.

Viva Newcon!

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The definitive comics convention was held in Boston in October of 1976. I was fortunate enough to live in Boston and be, at twelve, old enough to go to comics conventions by myself. It was Newcon 76, and while I still go to conventions and enjoy them–such as Wondercon, which I attended in San Francisco this weekend–I know I’ll never go to another with a lineup to compare with Newcon, which was spearheaded by Boston fan gods Don Phelps and Marty Greim.

Of the guests mentioned on the flyer, Carl Barks, John Stanley, Dick Giordano, Harvey Kurtzman, Preston Blair, and Gil Kane are no longer with us; Jim Steranko, Mike Kaluta, Fred Fredericks, Bob Overstreet, and Ron Goulart are still around. (I don’t remember Preston Blair actually attending, but there were some notable guests who weren’t mentioned on the flyer–including, maybe, Wally Wood, who I met either at this Newcon or the next one, I’m pretty sure.)

I have vivid memories of meeting Barks, Stanley, Kurtzman, Kaluta, Fredericks, and Kubert, and the sketches and/or autographs to prove it; I can also recall wandering the dealer’s room, and only wish I could go back in time and visit it again with a little more money in my pocket.

Click on the image below (which I stole from the Comics Journal’s amazing new archive) to see a larger version.

newcon

Why? Because We Like Them!

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Hey, Marie and I met Cubby and Sharon yesterday at the amazing Walt Disney Family Museum. (It would be even more wonderful, incidentally, if its gift shop sold books such as Mike Barrier’s The Animated Man, Jim Korkis’s The Vault of Walt, and Didier Ghez’s Walt’s People volumes.)

cubby

sharon