January 2016 issues from IDW

January 2016 issues from IDW

I might be a bit late with this post, but my local comic shop hasn’t received this week’s new Disney comics yet. So here are some quick comments on last month’s issues instead.

Uncle Scrooge #10 (414)

I’ve read everything in this issue before, so to me it was a boring start of this year’s IDW comics. But for those who haven’t there’s a lot to enjoy! The main story is an old weird Italian story drawn by Romano Scarpa. I like that IDW bring new life to these oldies, and even if the plot often make no sense or just is a sequence of crazy events they are fun to read. "The Eternal Knot" is also a good example of how Scarpa bring motion and action to every panel, there’s no "wooden" characters just standing there talking in this story!

As usual when I have another copy of a story, I like to do a quick comparison. And it looks like IDW did another silly gunfire censoring in this story. In my Norwegian copy we can see a lot of bullets flying when the hermit fire his blunderbuss. They are removed in the IDW print.

But you can clearly see the hats are filled with bullet holes later.

I wonder if this issue of Uncle Scrooge originally was intended for February but for some reason moved. "The Eternal Knot" is a love story and we also get another Beagle Boys love story later in the comic. And the Crosstalk article even mention Valentine’s Day when t talking about the issue, but Valentine’s Day isn’t until mid-February...

Donald Duck #9 (376)

This was my most anticipated issue in January. I’ve been wanting to read the first Zantaf story for a long time, but it hasn’t been printed in a language I can understand until now.

"Tycoonraker" is also the second "McDuck Intelligence Agency" (MIA) story, so to get the most out of the story I would recommend to also read "Moldfinger or The Spy Who Ducked-Out On Me". It’s printed in Boom!’s first (and only) volume of "Donald Duck Classics". The book was really overpriced in my opinion, but you might be able to find a used one.

I expected more of an origin story of Zantaf, but he is just introduced as another mad scientist without much background information. So I guess I liked the story more as the second MIA story than the first Zantaf story. But now that we got introduced to the character I hope we get to see him again.

Mickey Mouse #8 (317)

"The Chirikawa Necklace" is a real Mickey mystery story, and a favorite of mine. It’s highly recommended! This story also features three (later recurring) characters of Scarpa’s creation. We have the first appearance of both Aunt Melinda and Pete’s girlfriend Trudy in addition to Atomo.

But I think the name Doctor Proctor must be added by the translator. Proctor was a regular character in the Mickey newspaper strips, but not used at the time this story was created I believe.

Proctor in "The Chirikawa Necklace" and in the daily strips

We also got the Super-Goof story "Polar Opposition!" in Mickey Mouse #8. I’ve read this one before too, but now I got to see the first page! That page was cut when the story was printed in Norway, while the original page 2 was reorganized to be the first page.

The Norwegian print comared to page 2 in IDW's print

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #727

WDC #727 features chapter 7 of "The Search for the Zodiac Stone", with Goofy’s French double. But did you know the cover originally was intended to be even more evil looking than it is? Andrea Freccero posted a sketch for the cover on his blog in October last year. And compared to the final cover we can see the saw was removed.

Sketch and final cover by Andrea Freccero (sketch from Freccero's blog)