Mickey's Inferno (L'inferno di Topolino)

       After starting to read and really study the Inferno, I began to recall a comic strip that I had seen a few years ago while I was at Walt Disney World back home in Florida. During this visit I discovered something very interesting about a modern day Dante reference. What I found was a comic strip about Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters in their own adventure through Hell. Though the book was in Italian and behind a display case in a shop, it still caught my eye and especially caught my interest.

       To me this was a little bit odd. Disney, a usually very family friendly company, was supporting the use of its characters in a comic book that was based on a book that talks about Hell and the suffering of so many people. In the book the authors Dwight Decker  and David Gerstein create a little more of a family friendly description of Hell and the suffering of people than Dante did in his version.

      To keep similarities common between the actual Inferno and the comic version, the comic dialogues and story are actually written in terza rima (an intertwining three line scheme that Dante created himself) and cantos. The comic originally came out in the Italian language and was released in Italy in 1949. Strangely enough, the issue number of the comic when it was released was #666 which is merely coincidental. The comic was not released in the United States (in English) until 2006.

       In the comic, Mickey Mouse is depicted as Dante. His guide, Virgil, is actually the Disney character Goofy. Minnie Mouse is Beatrice and a cast of characters that are in Hell include the infamous Big Bad Wolf and Peg Leg Pete.

       One of my favorite things about the comic strip other than it contains Disney characters, is the illustrations. The pictures depict cartoon images of Hell and the scenery that Dante depicts so vividly in his masterpiece. The fact that it is a comic and contains such everyday characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck also gives off the feeling as the whole grim outlook of Hell is a little bit dampened as one cannot help but smile as they think of Mickey Mouse fainting from grief or becoming extremely scared because of wildlife.

       In the link following this, there are screenshots of the comic book in its full page form. Sadly, the English version is not available online but it can be ordered if anyone finds this that interesting. Also, the book was published in Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, and German.

Click here to view the scans of the pages from the comic.