Oswald South of the Border Oswald South of the Border

Mexican reader Uriel Durán writes to let us know that Oswald is popular nowadays in Mexico, as well as Japan:

The situation is that in the 1950s and ’60s, many comic books based upon American cartoon characters were translated and published here for Mexican audiences. Then, when the American imprints stopped making comics, Mexican companies bought licenses and kept making new stories, written and drawn by Mexican artists. Some characters like Pink Panther, Droopy and Tom & Jerry still appear weekly in small comic books (5.5x8in) aimed at children. Some of the cartoons are still on air too on some local networks.

Now, Woody Woodpecker is also a character that still has a comic book series. About two or three years ago, as a request from Universal, the comic was cancelled and relaunched to fit the new character designs used in the most recent TV series – until then, the characters were still drawn in the softened style used in the first Woody cartoons. Oswald did not appear in the new cartoons but he kept appearing in short stories in the Woody comics, now using a retro look very much like the Japanese toys. Art could be better though, as the current artists are not very talented and not very familiar with the original black-&-white Oswald cartoons. Just wanted to let you know about the situation of the character as it seems he’s used almost everywhere except his native country.

Uriel also sent along a few examples of the Oswald comics. Click on images for larger versions. This is what the older comic looked like:

Oswald comic

And here are a couple pages from more recent Oswald comics, using the old-school redesign also seen in current Japanese merchandise.

Oswald comic

Oswald comic


Tags: Comics, Disney, Animation

Amid Amidi

Amid Amidi is Cartoon Brew's Publisher and Editor-at-large.

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