Lawrence.com

New York — The purported first drawings of Mickey Mouse � estimated to be worth more than $3 million � failed to sell at auction on Saturday, leaving the museum that owns them scrambling for other ways to pay its debts.

The six-page, 36-panel storyboard was drawn for the Walt Disney cartoon "Plane Crazy" in 1928, International Museum of Cartoon Art founder Mort Walker said. In the 9-inch-by-12-inch sheets, the rodent reads the book "How to Fly," builds a plane, flies it and crashes.

	� www.guernseys.com

The museum offered the Mickey drawings � the first ever of the cartoon character, according to Walker � and hundreds of other items for sale to defray nearly $2 million in debt, most owed to a bank that holds the museum's mortgage.

Bidding for the storyboard, which was valued at $3.2 million to $3.7 million, started at $400,000 during an auction at the New York Historical Society.

The price reached $800,000, but the sale was put on hold because the credibility of the online bidder could not be established, said Arlan Ettinger, president of the auction house Guernsey's.

Ettinger said Guernsey's was trying to contact the person who made the second-highest bid, $700,000.

Walker, who created the Beetle Bailey comic strip, hoped that the Mickey Mouse exhibit would fetch at least the $2 million needed to pay the museum's debts.

Many of the other drawings sold for less than advertised, and many more failed to sell. Guernsey's officials did not immediately calculate how much money the auction took in.

"We're still in trouble. It's going to be tough," Walker said. "I'm very disappointed, but we always move forward."

In all, more than 600 items, some donated and some coming from the museum's collection of 200,000 drawings, were put on the block.

Walker said the museum would look for other ways to pay its debts, including fund-raisers or selling the building that houses the museum in Boca Raton, Fla.