Information
Complete title: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Walt Disney
Author: Merrill de Maris
Illustrations: Hank Porter
Inking: Bob Grant
Publication Date: From December 12, 1937 to April 24, 1938
Publishers: King Features Syndicate
Country: USA
Number of strips: 20
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The strip that started it all
Created by William Randolph Hearst in 1915, King Features Syndicate operates as a syndication company, meaning it licenses and distributes creative work to newspapers, websites, and other media outlets around the world.
In 1930, King Features began syndicating a daily Mickey Mouse comic strip drawn by Floyd Gottfredson. Over the decades, a wide range of Disney comic strips were syndicated, including Donald Duck, Silly Symphonies, and the Disney features, beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The first color animated feature was turned into a comic strip written by script writer Merrill de Maris, drawn by Hank Porter and inked by Bob Grant. It started several weeks before the premiere and several months before the general release. Interestingly, the Prince plays a more important role that in the film, as was originally planned.
Not only was this comic strip reprinted in albums for decades, it was also translated in many languages for foreign exploitation, and its drawings, created to convey the maximum amount of story information with an economy of means, were used again and again as the basis of countless products.
The original strips
Original art
Here are original layouts by Hank Porter. Notice the differences in some of the drawing, such as the drawing of Snow White in strip 13 where she says “Stop! Please don’t fight over me! I’ll go!” which was original close to the film’s concept where a simpering Snow White pretended to walk out the door. In the film, the sequence was abridged and here, the scene was redesigned.
