The manuscript arrived in Disney's hands in July 1942, and he considered using it as material for a live action/animated full-length feature film, offering Dahl a contract. The film project was changed to an animated feature and entered pre-production, with characters "roughed out" and storyboards created. Disney managed to have the story published in the December 1942 issue of "Cosmopolitan" Magazine. At Dahl's urging, in early 1943, a revised version of the story, again titled "The Gremlins", was published as a picture book by Random House. (It was later updated and re-published in 2006 by Dark Horse Comics).