ABSTRACT
During the 2011 financial year, Disney, one of the world’s top 10 brands, generated US$38 billion (Donnolley 2012), a result that owes its success to an anthropomorphized mouse, first syndicated in comic book form in 1932. There is more to the Disney story than Mickey, of course, but the popularity of the company’s animated creatures with human features is based on a relationship with animals that predates history (Guthrie 1995).
