Night of the Living Text! (entitled Topolino e la Rivolta delle Didascalie in the original Italian) is a comic story written, penciled and inked by Casty, with additional inking by Michele Mazzon. It features Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Peg-Leg Pete, and, in their debut, the Caption Boxes, Darlene Decibel and Professor Gerner Von Dipp. The 2016 American localization also mentions the Phantom Blot and P.E.R.C.Y..
Description[]
It's a bizarre metafictional apocalypse in Mouseton as comic-book-style caption-boxes begin manifesting in the real world, aggressively commenting on all that goes on around them! Mickey Mouse and Goofy, soon joined by the unlikely crew of Peg-Leg Pete, Darlene Decibel and Gerner Von Dipp, are forced to live through a hackneyed comic-book plot as they try to figure out what's going on and defeat the fiends… Easier said than done when more Caption Boxes are spawned with every action our heroes take!
References[]
- In the 2016 American localization, a few allusions are added: a policeman mentions Indianquackolis (which is "half a continent away" from Mouseton). Gerner von Dipp speculates as to the Caption Boxes' origins, and one of his hypothesis is that they are refugees from the alien planet Kap-Tion.
Continuity[]
- Mickey Mouse mentions his adventure in the Delta Dimension in an effort to spawn a new Caption Box, in allusion to Mickey Mouse in the Delta Dimension (1959), a reference replaced in the 2016 American localization with one to Plan Dine from Outer Space (2010). Allusion is also made to Mickey Mouse and the Jellomolecules (2008).
- In the English localization, one of the Caption Boxes originates from the first page of Mickey Mouse in the Delta Dimension, while another seemingly originates from an Andold Wildduck story.
- The one-page cartoon Dawn of the Text (2011), first printed alongside Night of the Living Text! itself, is a humorous epilogue to it.
- A temporarily-reformed Peg-Leg Pete becomes a sergeant in the U.S. Army, as had already been in Donald Gets Drafted (1942) and its sequels.
Behind the scenes[]
This story was first printed in Topolino #2900, and printed in English in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #733 with localization by Joe Torcivia. This version of the story was soon reprinted in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories Vault #1.
The story contains an allusion to Casty's model Romano Scarpa, in the form of a Mouseton shop called "the Roman Shoe" (the literal meaning of Scarpa's name in Italian).