Mickey Mouse turns 75 with a collector's number

On April 7, 1949, the first issue of Topolino was released in booklet format. Issue 3567 will be a special edition commemorating the first cover.

To celebrate 75 years since the first publication of Mickey Mouse Weekly, a collectible magnet featuring the very first Mickey Mouse cover from April 7, 1949, together with a commemorative cover and themed editorials.

With number 3567, on newsstands in the week of Wednesday 3 April, Mickey Mouse celebrates 75 years of its historic weekly. In fact, it was 7 April 1949 when the first issue of the publication arrived on Italian newsstands in the format that everyone knows well today: the previous numbering was eliminated and we started again from number 1, with a compact and pocket-sized format, with various comic stories and above all informative articles inside. The transformations then continued and within a few years Mickey Mouse went from monthly to fortnightly and then weekly, the number of pages increased in step with the contents, and it went from black and white pages to color ones. In short a revolution in the world of comics, but above all a magazine that has experienced more or less fortunate historical periods, with an awareness: to grow small generations of readers and keep loyal fans close. Mickey Mouse has always renewed himself without forgetting his origins, managing to always be in the right place at the right time.

It was April 1949. I have tried to imagine that moment several times. Those days. What would they have thought – writes in the editorial editorial director Alex Bertani – the readers of the time, accustomed to reading Disney stories on a sort of paper sheet? How will they have reacted to that reduced and compact format that persists 75 years later? Was the publisher crazy? What is certain is that after a probable initial confusion, the feeling was excellent. The important success. It had to be reprinted. There are choices that seem crazy. Reckless. But they are often the best way to make leaps forward. Today I like to celebrate the courage of those who 75 years ago, probably also driven by contingencies, were able to dare. To risk. What we have today, we also owe to choices that brought the newspaper towards modernity. We are only at the beginning. These wonderful characters still have so much to say and tell. Always with lightness and fun, our indispensable trademarks. Mickey Mouse is “food for the mind” of readers, especially the younger ones, it offers an incredible variety of ideas and stimuli, it deals with important realities and themes. Reading it is like sitting in the front row, ready to enjoy a new show every week and feel projected into an amazing world of fantasy, fun and adventure. Happy Mickey Mouse seventy-fifth everyone.

As in the series The Simpsons, where actors and public figures boast of having been included even for a few minutes in some episode, with Mickey Mouse the similar situation happens: you can be a writer, scientist, footballer, politician, tennis player or astronaut, but qwhen you are drawn to enter the tables of the most loved “newspaper” of Italians satisfaction is quadrupled equal to any other prestigious category award. Although a few months ago some handsome politician allowed himself to associate the magazine with those who “read nonsense”, Mickey Mouse always remains in the Olympus of comics, paving the way for many other series. For this very important occasion, ator 3567 one will be attached magnet collectible that reproduces the first cover of Mickey Mouse published 75 years ago, with the Disney mouse in the gang leader version. Inside, however, in addition to the classic unpublished comic stories, there will be space for editorial history pills, insights into the characters seen in these 75 years with a very particular history and an interview with two of the greatest collectors of the series. It is therefore absolutely an unmissable event, the one with Mickey Mouse 3567, to relive 75 years of releases, 75 years of engaging comics, 75 years of gadgets, but above all 75 years that have fascinated millions and millions of children, adults and beyond .

Curiosities and evolutions of Mickey Mouse from 1949 to 2024

Telling seventy-five years of history in an article is far too utopian, which is why we are going to tell you what the public saw in 1949 and then list the key moments in the history of the weekly (diary that can be read inside Topolino 3567) . So on April 7, 1949, the first “new” Mickey Mouse was released in booklet and stapled format, with a cover portraying Mickey Mouse symbolically dressed as a parade leader, while on the back appeared a drawing by Ken Hultgren depicting Minnie Mouse intent on gardening. Below the indication of the month and year the wording Vol.1 stands out, this is because initially the booklet was thought of as a sort of collection of six numbers and with continuous page numbering from one number to another so that at the end of the semester the reader could combine them into a single large volume. Already in 1949 seriality was king, this first issue in fact opens with the finale (started in the previous newspaper) of the story Mickey Mouse and the White Cobra to follow the first part of Eta Beta the man of 2000 which will continue in subsequent issues. Obviously he was also there at his debut in number one Carl Barks con Donald Duck is a broke millionaire, Pluto saves the ship and Donald Duck and the secret of the old castle. Closing with the stories of George Stallings, Dick moores, Carl Buettner and a whole series of columns, which are still Mickey Mouse's trademark, all edited by Guido Martina.

April 7, 1949: Mickey Mouse debuts, booklet stapled on newsstands every 10th of the month starting from number 1
7 October 1949: With issue 7, Mickey Mouse publishes the cover dedicated to Mickey Mouse's Inferno, the “Dantesque” parody written by Guido Martina and illustrated by Angelo Bioletto which will accompany readers for five issues
April 25, 1952: On the occasion of issue 41, Mickey Mouse changes from monthly to fortnightly
June 5, 1960: In issue 236, a new change in periodicity is announced, the weekly is at risk with the next issue which will be June 11, 1960. The cover of that issue was edited by Giuseppe Perego
June 11, 1961: One year after the revolution of the periodical another change. Everything is printed in color. Up to that point half was in color and half in black and white
July 2, 1967: After passing in the various issues first from stapled to stapled, then to glued paperback, Mickey Mouse adopts for the first time the yellow spine with the black writing “Mickey Mouse”
August 13, 1967: Giorgio Cavazzano's very first story is published on Topolino 611: Donald Duck and the Hammer Hiccup
Anno 1982: A very important year in which three of the most beloved sagas in the history of Mickey Mouse are published: The Saga of the Sword of Ice by Massimo De Vita and the two parodies The story of Marco Polo known as Il Milione by Guido Martina Romano Scarpa

The covers inspired by Issue 1

Estate 1993: The memorable gadgets begin. It's the summer of Topowalkie, the transceiver attached to multiple copies of the magazine which causes sales to soar by celebrating the event on the cover of the 1965 issue which screamed the record of 1,100,285 copies sold
October 3, 2013: Mickey Mouse becomes part of the Panini Comics family and for the occasion Giorgio Cavazzano creates a cover inspired by the overhead kick of the footballer Carlo Parola, an icon of stickers and of Panini itself. Mickey Mouse offers it in a double version, thus launching variant covers for the first time.
April 3, 2019: The first 70 years are arriving and the cover of issue 3306 is designed by Giorgio Cavazzano who revisits the first historic cover of 1949 in a modern key
December 21, 2022: Mickey Mouse number 3500 is available in a double cover with a “metal” effect: the first designed by Andrea Freccero and the second is a cover by Ivan Bigarella
24 maggio 2023: The 3D glasses essential for reading the story are back in vogue, 70 years after their first appearance in 1953, attached to Mickey Mouse 3522. A Tremendously Real Journey curated by Claudio Sciarrone who uses the historic technique of combining red and blue to give the the illusion of three-dimensionality
April 3, 2024: With the number 3567 Mickey Mouse celebrates his 75 years with a special cover designed by Andrea Freccero and colored by Andrea Cagol together with a limited edition magnet