Micky mouse is not public domain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!1!1!1!1!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!1!1!!!!1!!11!!!!!!!!!!!
The steamboat willie short is, but the character is still copyrighted! People need to learn about the sonny Bono mickey mouse copyright extension term law

Oopsie doodle!

This is why he switched to chewing tobacco

ENCOR !

THIS is why he chews tobacco.

Edit: Beaten to it.

The surface level of the strip is simple. We see a cat. A plain-looking cat who is not named in the comic (although we know he is called Pete) with a large jumper symptomatic of the style back then - he clearly cares about his appearance at least a little. Hes holding a newspaper. The newspaper, and its contents, are unknown to the reader. But we can surmise from the lack of images that Pete is, if not an intellectual, at least engaged and interested in the more cerebral side of current affairs. He is reading this newspaper, holding it up to his face. But even as his eyes scan the page, the fingers on his right hand creep out. They tentatively tap the table, searching for something. Something they can’t find. He stops. He lowers the paper - it’s in his lap now. He looks to the camera, eyes slightly askew, and it hits him. His pipe is missing. Where could it be? He returns his hand to the seat-rest and he thinks - not says - to himself “Now where could my pipe be?” Now where could my pipe be. A simple statement, on the surface, brilliantly condensing Pete’s apparent state of mind.

We don’t see it, but something remarkable happens off the page, hidden from us. Pete realizes suddenly what’s happened to his pipe. The knowledge corrupts him and possesses him absolutely and he is suddenly all-too certain of where his pipe is. Mickeyield, a black mouse, has the pipe. And he is smoking the pipe. It is Pete’s pipe, but Mickeyfield the mouse is smoking it. Mickeyfield has stolen the pipe, we assume. And Pete simply shouts a single resonating word: “MICKEYFIELD!”

Thank you, John Blyth Barrymore.

Mickey Minus Mickey