Marvel's Seekers of the Weird!

A few weeks back I posted about Marvel's Disney Kingdoms series. Inspired by somewhat more obscure pieces of Disney history and culture, the series seeks to 'much like... the silver screen has expanded the anecdotes and mythologies of Disney theme park attractions, the Disney Kingdoms team… had high hopes to join forces with the brilliant storytellers at Marvel to do the exact same thing through beautifully illustrated comic books' (Josh Shipley, WDI)

My post a few weeks back spotlighted the newly released Figment, but before Figment came the Seekers of the Weird series. The series is based on a set of concept sketches by Imagineer Rolly Crump in the early 60's for an attraction that would be called the Museum of the Weird.  The idea was that it would be a walk-through post-show type deal for the Haunted Mansion.  Unfortunately, the attraction was never fully developed, but as they say, 'no good idea at imagineering every really dies'.

The original concept sketches are really quite cool. Apparently, after Rolly showed Walk the sketches, Walt remarked the following day that he was 'up all night thinking about those weird little drawings'. I guess the Seekers of the Weird team thought the same thing because where original source material existed, they altered very little:

I can't wait to see what's next in the Disney Kingdoms series, who knows maybe we'll get some decent movies out of it too!

Figment, the newest from Marvel's Disney Kingdoms series!

Of the acquisitions Disney has made over the last decade or so, Marvel has interested me the least.  Although I respect the art form, comics just don't do all that much for me… that is, until Marvel released a series which provides a backstory for Epcot's own cult duo, Dreamfinder and Figment.  My copies of issues #1 and #2 came today!:

This title is the second in what I think is going to be a very interesting series by Marvel called Disney Kingdoms.  The goal of the series is to explore some of the more obscure facets of Disney history, culture, etc. in a fresh way.  For those that don't know, Figment was a character created in the early 80's for Epcot and he, along with his friend, Dreamfinder, were the stars of the attraction Journey into Imagination.  The original incarnation of the attraction closed in 1998, yet, to this day Figment and Dreamfinder maintain a following.

This blog seems to work better when I keep writing to a minimum, so I will let some illustrations from Issue #1 do the rest of the talking for me, and delve further into review mode at a later date. Enjoy!

Silly Figment.

Lyrics lifted straight from One Little Spark, the attraction's theme song.

The story is set in the early 20th century and has a distinct steampunk vibe.

Dreamfinder's leg looks so long!