The latest issue of the magazine Disney Twenty-Three contains an excellent article about Disney's True-Life Adventures, which, I am glad to say, mentions my new monograph The Origins of Walt Disney's True Life Adventures.

 The Disney Books Network has just been updated.

UCLA's Film and Television Archive has just released some astounding Disney-related footage thanks to Randy Yantek. You can watch all of it as this link. Enjoy!

 An upcoming French book I am looking forward to getting when it is released.

Let's start the day with two photos of Walt which I just discovered this weekend while looking for something else. The one on the set of Paramount's "Untamed" was shot in August 1940. The second one is from a trip to Maine in June 1947. Walt was there with his wife Lillian as well as with Bill Cottrell and his wife. The spent from June 10 to June 11 in Lakewood according to the article. They had visited Bethel the day on June 9. It was, apparently, the first time that Walt visited Maine, where he had sent artist Jake Day a few years earlier on a research trip linked to the making of "Bambi."

 

I celebrated the 100th birthday of The Walt Disney Company today by watching, like many of you, "Once Upon a Studio."

I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this short. From the opening featuring Burny Mattinson to the appearance of some of the most obscure characters from the 1970s (my childhood).

If you have not watched it yet on ABC or Disney+, do yourself a favor and do so right now. You will not regret it.

 

FINALLY!

I am glad to report that Disney enthusiasts in Europe can now purchase The Origins of Walt Disney's True-Life Adventures via a local European distributor. Here is the link.

By the way, this monograph is one of the finalists for this year's Theatre Library Association Award.

Several readers who own this book have sent me messages underlying the fact that I missed the point of the book in my review. It is also great for adults who want to learn how to draw Disney characters. I am guilty as charged. Not being able to draw at all myself, I did indeed miss that point.

I agree with all those who mentioned this: It is indeed also a great book for adults.

Are you looking for the perfect Christmas gift for kids who would love to learn how to draw Disney characters and learn a bit of Disney history as well?

Then this wonderful new book by my friends Jim Fanning and Andreas Deja is the perfect answer to your challenge.

This is not a book for grown-up historians, but it is the perfect way to introduce a kid or a teenager to some elements of Disney history, while giving them the tools to start their artistic careers.

And of course, it goes all the way from the 1920s to the 2020s, which I loved. I wish this book had been released in the 1970s, when I was a kid!

 Some fascinating Tron artwork will be auctioned off by Heritage Auction two weeks.

I just received (thanks to Jan-Willem de Vries) this wonderful catalog (in Dutch) of a Donald Duck-related exhibition organized at the Stripmuseum in Groningen in 2012/2013.

Paging through it I learned that the Dutch magazine from the late 1930s, Olijk en Vrolijk, had featured a few Disney covers. See below.

 

This weekend, I was researching Walt's short trip to Mexico City in late August 1943 to receive the Order of the Aztec Eagle, when I realized that Walt had not stopped traveling during the whole month of August. On July 25 he had left L.A. to go to New York City and, on August 19, a short notice was sent to some Michigan newspapers that read:

"Walt Disney... is in Detroit conferring with Henry Ford and his staff of soybean specialists. He will make a film about soybean to be shown in South America."

On August 20 Walt, Lillian and Diane visited the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. That night or the night before they dined at Dearborn Inn with the inventor William B. Stout and his wife.

I had never seen any of those photos of the Ford Museum visit (save one) nor the photo of Walt with Stout and I thought you might enjoy them as much as I did.

Walt was back in L.A. on August 22 (he travelled back by train) and on August 24 he boarded a plane to go to Mexico City to receive the Orden del Aguila Azteca (which he got on August 26).