Sunday 7 March 2010

SCAMP RUNS AWAY FROM HOME (1955)

Yes, this is not pre-war, but I think it's vintage enough. Below images are the first 5 daily Scamp strips, as published in Turkey's Milliyet newspaper, featuring the beginning of Scamp's first adventure:





Scamp had first appeared at finale of the animated feature Lady and Tramp (1955, and its comics adaptations from the same year) as the new-born child of the movie's protagonists. Later that year, he began to star in his own daily strip, scripted by Ward Greene and with art by Dick Moores. As can be seen from the above, the Scamp daily strips initially had entailed continuity adventures, but a gag-a-day approach would be adopted in the later years.
Scamp began to be published in Milliyet on Dec. 18th, 1955, starting with the original start of the strips from Oct. 31, hence with only a one and a half month delay from its debut in the US (*). It was retitled as 'Boncuk' [the Little Bead]. It was probably the first licensed publication of any Disney comics in Turkey. It was popular enough to be carried in Milliyet till March 2d, 1974.
From my own childhood, I recall that 'Boncuk' was still being published in some other Turkish newspaper by late 1970s or early 1980s.
A colorized and re-formatted version of this first adventure of Scamp would be published in no. 679 of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories in 2007.
(*) However, while the Scamp strip arrived in Turkey with almost no delay, the movie Lady and the Tramp, which had actually preceeded it, reached Turkey a year after the strip started! Below is the newspaper ad (from Milliyet) for its Turkish release on Dec. 26, 1956:

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