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Missed It: Winnie the Pooh Centennial

Winnie-The-Pooh by A. A. Milne, illustrated by J. H. Dowd, The Evening News, December 24, 1925

From Il Post (via Google Translate from the Italian):

On Christmas Eve 1925, 100 years ago, the London newspaper Evening News published a children's story it had commissioned from the English writer Alan Alexander Milne. In a short introduction, Milne described his five-year-old son, Christopher Robin, coming down the stairs dragging a large teddy bear by the hand and asking his father to tell him a story. The story began: "Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, more or less last Friday, there was Winnie-the-Pooh."

From the positive reception of that Christmas Eve story in 1925 was born one of the most famous and enduring children's literary characters in history: the clumsy and lovable teddy bear Winnie the Pooh, who turns 100 years old today.

The December 24, 1925 Evening Sun installment would become the first chapter of the 1926 book Winnie-The-Pooh by A. A. Milne. J. H. Dowd as illustrator would be replaced by E. H. Shepard.

“Teddy Bear” by A. A. Milne illustration by E. H. Shepard, 1924

A prototype of Winnie, Edward Bear, had appeared the previous year in When We Were Very Young, 1924.

June 1978 promo for Winnie the Pooh comic strip

Wikipedia states that the Disney version of Winnie the Pooh ran as a comic strip from June 19, 1978 to April 2, 1988. Credited to “Walt Disney” it was written by Don Ferguson and drawn by Richard Moore. Wikipedia notes that the Winnie the Pooh comic book had started a year earlier. The Grand Comics Database credits those comic books to Vic Lockman writer and Pete Alvarado and John Carey as artists.

Walt Disney’s Treasury of Classic Tales: Winnie the Pooh and The Honey Tree, January 2, 1966

Wikipedia neglects the three Treasury of Classic Tales Sunday episodes starring Winnie and friends.

The first, Winnie the Pooh and The Honey Pot adapting the 1966 Disney featurette of the same title, ran from January 2, 1966 to March 27, 1966. That was followed two and a half years later by Winnie the Pooh and a Blustery Day, again an adaptation of a Winnie featurette, which ran from August 4, 1968 to September 29, 1968. Both of those were written by Frank Reilly and drawn by John Ushler.

Treasury of Classic Tales: Winnie the Pooh and The Blustery Day, August 4, 1968

Seven years later, and two years before the comic book saw the final Treasury of Classic Comics tales starring Winnie when Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too by Frank Reilly and Mike Arens adapted that featurette to comic strip format. It ran from October 5 to November 30, 1975.

Treasury of Classic Tales: Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, October 5, 1975

I don’t find any evidence of an English Winnie the Pooh comic strip.

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Comments 1

  1. I was not aware that A.A. Milne had published any of the “Pooh” stories as newspaper installments. The (minor) differences from the final text in the book are fascinating.

    P.S. Just because a story can be adapted into comic strip form does not mean that it should be turned into a comic strip. I find it reassuring that the strips shown above did not appear in England, simply for the reason that back then, Christopher (Robin) Milne did not (yet) have a grave in which he could spin.

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