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Not to be confused with Disney Adventurers.
Old Disney Adventures logo

Disney Adventures was a monthly magazine published by The Walt Disney Company from 1990 to 2007. It was targeted mainly at grade-school kids, but contained items of general interest to fans of Disney productions, as well as fans of various entertainment media, alongside calendars, comics, polling, and other features. Disney Adventures tended to be an inclusive magazine, often featuring information about films and TV shows by rival companies, such as DreamWorks and Nickelodeon. Major feature films, such as the Star Wars, Harry Potter, Shrek, and The Chronicles of Narnia franchises, also received coverage. It also featured The Simpsons way before Disney would buy the show and its company wholesale in 2019.

On August 21, 2007, Disney announced that after 17 years, Disney Adventures would be cancelled. The last issue was dated November 2007.

Comics

A regular feature of the magazine throughout its run was comic book stories. For the first eighteen issues, the comics were placed in different spots between articles and columns in each issue. Starting from the May 1992 issue, the comics were consolidated into a single section, labeled the Comic Zone in the January 1995 issue. However, from May 1992 to November 1994, most issues had one story run at an earlier point in the issue as a "Feature Comic". The "Feature Comic" idea was dropped as a regular feature afterward, but reappeared occasionally in later issues.

Early on, the magazine's comics were mainly based off of animated Disney properties, particularly the shows aired on the Disney Afternoon. Comic stories starring Roger Rabbit were also a regular feature in the magazine until the May 1993 issue (though much of the Roger Rabbit stories in the magazine's first year were reprints from the regular Roger Rabbit comic book that was running at the time). Another early recurring feature in the comics were "Big Adventures" comics, which were original stories themed around whichever topic was the subject in the "Big Adventures" column that month. Starting in 1996, the magazine also began publishing new comic stories based on older Disney animated features, often to tie in with new video releases that the films themselves were receiving.

Disney properties that were adapted as comics in Disney Adventures included:

As early as 1993, Disney Adventures also included independent comics with little to no relation to the Walt Disney Company itself. These included comics, such as LEGO comics, William Van Horn's Nervous Rex, excerpts from Jeff Smith's Bone (which were censored to cut out family-unfriendly scenes), and short stories from The Simpsons comic book (notably, two stories were actually published in Disney Adventures before being printed in Simpsons Comics itself). Later issues would instead primarily feature original strips, such as Jet Pack Pets and Society of Horrors. As a result, however, comics based on newer Disney cartoons, such as Teacher's Pet, Kim Possible, and The Replacements only appeared sporadically, and often did not run longer than four pages.

Late in the magazine's life, a spin-off Comic Zone magazine was published quarterly from fall 2004 to fall 2007. A few years after Disney Adventures ended altogether, Disney briefly revived Comic Zone as two one-shot magazines, published in winter 2012 and summer 2013, and featuring entirely comics based on Disney films and television shows.

Many of the Disney Afternoon-based comics in the magazine's first two years were reprinted in the comic digest Disney's Colossal Comics Collection, which unfortunately ended in May 1993. Almost two decades later, the first few Darkwing Duck comics were reprinted in Boom! Studios' Darkwing Duck Classics: Volume 1 trade paperback (which unfortunately never got any follow-up volumes) in 2010. Over another decade later, Fantagraphics began publishing The Disney Afternoon Adventures, a series of hardcover collections reprinting Disney Afternoon comics, including several that originally appeared in Disney Adventures. The first volume, Darkwing Duck in "Just Us Justice Ducks", was released on July 27, 2021.[1] Also, many of the magazine's One Saturday Morning-based comics were reprinted in the 2023 collection One Saturday Morning Adventures, the Kim Possible comics were reprinted in Kim Possible Adventures, which was released by IDW Publishing on February 19, 2019, as a tie-in with the live-action movie.[2]

Cover gallery

Comic Zone

Australian Cover Gallery

External links


v - e - d
Disney Comics current logo
Cartoon-based titles
"Core Four" and other titles based on shorts: Walt Disney's Comics and StoriesMickey Mouse (Adventures/Wizards of Mickey/X-Mickey) • Donald Duck (Adventures/PKNA/Double Duck) • Uncle Scrooge (Adventures) • Goofy AdventuresDonald and MickeyWalt Disney GiantWalt Disney Showcase

Based on animated features: AladdinBeauty and the Beast (New Adventures) • Big Hero 6CarsCinestory ComicsDisney Comic Hits!Disney FairiesDisney PrincessDisney VillainsFrozenThe IncrediblesThe Little Mermaid (Disney Comics/Marvel) • Monsters, Inc.: Laugh FactoryTangledToy StoryZootopia: Friends to the Rescue
Based on TV cartoons: Chip 'n Dale Rescue RangersDarkwing DuckThe Disney AfternoonDuckTales (IDW) • Gargoyles (Marvel/SLG/Dynamite) • Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Deep TroubleTaleSpin

Other Disney-related comic books
Based on live-action films and shows: DinosaursJohn Carter: World of MarsThe Muppet Show Comic Book (Spin-off mini-series: Muppet Robin Hood/Muppet Peter Pan/Muppet King Arthur/Muppet Snow White/Muppet Sherlock Holmes) • Roger Rabbit (Toontown) • Star Wars (Adventures/Forces of Destiny)

Based on theme park attractions: Disney Kingdoms (Seekers of the Weird/Figment/Big Thunder Mountain Railroad/Figment 2/The Haunted Mansion/Enchanted Tiki Room) • SLG's The Haunted MansionPirates of the Caribbean

Comic magazines
Aku AnkkaDisney AdventuresDisney Junior MagazineFrozen: The Official MagazineMickey's MagazineMickey Mouse MagazineMinnie & Daisy BFF MagazinePicsou MagazinePhineas and FerbTopolino
Publishers
Dell Comics • Gold Key Comics • Gladstone PublishingDisney ComicsMarvel ComicsDark Horse ComicsGemstone PublishingBoom! StudiosFantagraphicsIDW PublishingJoe BooksDynamite EntertainmentEgmont Group
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