Moana graphic novel

Moana graphic novel and Moana Comics Collection published by Joe Books

This post it mostly to let anyone interested know that Moana comics are in sale. Personally I haven't seen the movie yet, so I'll save the comics for later.

Both comics pictured above are published by Joe Books, and both have the same comic adaptation of the movie inside. But the "Comics Collection" book also has a few shorter original comic stories in addition to several "cinestories" (stories created with screencaps).

The Gladstone daily strip collection that never was

It's time for another random post; I guess I have to live up to that hastily chosen name for this blog :)

From Gladstone's Donald Duck #279 (1990)

In the last issue of Gladstone's first run of Donald Duck comics we can read a short note titled "The Gladstone that never was"
 

The page also has three covers by Russel Schröder that probably was intended to be used on future Donald Duck issues. One was later used as a cover for Donald Duck #303 and one for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #592, but the elephant one is still not used anywhere to my knowledge. It would be fun if we saw it as a variant cover or something some day.

But the most interesting thing about that little note is that we almost had a Taliaferro daily strip collection back in the late 80's/early 90's! The project sounds like it's a similar concept as the Norwegian daily strip collection starting in 1987, also called "Day by Day" (translated). And books with the same format and content were later published in Sweden and Denmark too.
 

First volume in the Norwegain "Day by Day" collection

The Donald Duck cover by Jippes intended for the "Day by Day" collection was later used as a cover for Donald Duck #281 instead, when Gladstone resumed the Donald Duck series after a 3 years break while Walt Disney Publications was doing the Disney comics. And now about 25 years later we finally got that daily strip collection in IDW's Library of American Comics – and luckily without any strips having to be removed or edited!

 

Donald Duck #281, with the Jippes cover inteded for "Day by Day"

First volume of IDW's daily strip collectipn (published 2015)

 

Mickey’s Inferno from Papercutz

About a month ago we got the fourth volume of Papercutz’ series called Disney Graphic Novels, and the first one under the logo title Great Parodies. But the actual title of the book and the story inside is Mickey’s Inferno.

Mickey’s Inferno was originally published as a serial in the Italian Topolino way back in 1949 and was the start of a long series of Italian parody stories adapting classic literature. And this story is a parody of Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century poem Divine Comedy.

Written in rhyme it’s hard to do a direct translation of the comic story, so the English translation is more of a script adaptation than a real translation. I don’t know much Italian, so I can’t do a comparison to the original text – but we now have two different American editions of this story so it’s fun to do a little comparison of those.

The first American edition was a cut and remounted version in Gemstone’s Walt Disney's Comics  #666 in 2006.
 

Gemstone layout (left) and Papercutz using the original layout (middle and  right)

And the text in Gemstone’s version is quite different from the one in Papercutz’ book.

Italian Topolino (left), Gemstone (middle), Papercutz (right)

Italian Topolino (left), Gemstone (middle), Papercutz (right)

The Gemstone version got an entire sequence of the story cut out, but the Papercutz’ one is actually not 100% complete either. Even if the total number of pages is a few more than the original Topolino serial, a few panels are cut and others are extended.

Under is the last page of the first part and the first page of the second part as they originally were printed. In the 1-part version used by Papercutz the panel with Goofy about to be chopped to pieces is cut out and the intro panel for the second part is cut too.

Topolino last pg. of part 1 (left), Topolino first page of part 2 (middle), Papercutz 1-part version (right)

IDW's Timeless Tales

First volumes of IDW's Timeless Tales

Initially I didn't plan on getting the hardcover series Timeless Tales as I already got all the monthly issues the books collects and some of the trade paperbacks as well. But when ordering some other books I saw a sale on the first volumes, and well… I couldn't resist a good deal.

Compared to the monthly issues and the trades the books print the comics in the same size as the monthlies, while the trades have a slightly smaller print. The monthlies and the trades use a glossy paper type while the books have a thicker matte paper. The colors are a little bit brighter on the glossy paper.
 

Trade paperback (left), montly issue (middle) and Timeless Tales hardcover (right)

The books each collect six issues of the monthly comic titles, and have the same content as two trades. I'm sure the various serials in the monthly comics are planed so books can collect six issues without having to break up a serial. But the books won't always collect exactly two trade paperbacks. Ex. the Scrooge's Last Adventure trade collect 4 issues (US #13-16), while the next trade Himalayan Hideout will have the usual 3 issues again (US #17-19). So Uncle Scrooge: Timeless Tales vol.3 with 6 issues (US #13-18) will only collect part of the second trade.

In addition all books have one extra bonus story not present in the comics they collect and they also have a new introduction article.

But that's not the best thing about these books. This information was new to me until I started flipping through the books, but might be important to some. While some of the stories in the monthlies and the trades are censored, the books actually print the stories how they originally were drawn without the censoring.

Examples:

In the story with Shamrock Bones that I thought was censored in a really silly way, the good guys are now allowed to use guns again. This story was also censored in the trade paperback.
 

Montly issue (left) and Timless Tales vol.1 (right)

The Ghost of Man-Eater Mountain had splash panels and several other panels removed when printed in IDW's Mickey Mouse #5. In Timeless Tales all original content is present in the story. But in this case, the uncut version is actually used in the trade paperback too.
 

Montly issue with panels removed (left) and Timeles Tales vol.1 (right)

And Grandpa Beagle is allowed to smoke his pipe again.

Montly issue (left) and Timeless Tales vol.2 (right)

I haven't done any extensive comparisons of the different editions, but for most part the censoring seems to be gone in Timeless Tales. One exception is the story Hampered! from the British Mickey Mouse Annual that is censored in all American prints. But that one was censored for good reasons!

So if you haven't got any of IDW's Disney comics yet, Timeless Tales is the definitive edition and the one to get.

Walt Disney’s Treasury of Classic Tales vol.1

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We got the first volume of Treasury of Classic Tales in November last year. The series is (probably) going to collect all Sunday pages under the Treasury logo that ran in newspapers from 1952 and all the way up to 1986. We got a total of 129 stories in this series and by my calculation it’s enough to fill at least 9, maybe 10 books. But I guess sales will show if we are going to get all of them.

The first volume in this series collects the first 8 treasury stories in addition to a Cinderella adaptation and a Alice in Wonderland adaptation that were printed as standalone Sunday series between the Silly Symphony series and Treasury of Classic Tales. And all stories in this series are adaptations of animated or live-action features – sometimes an entire film and sometimes just a segment of it.

"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" - adaptation of the live-ation movie with the same name.

"Ben and Me" - adaptation of the animated short with the same name

When I got the first volume in this series I didn’t really know how to read the book… I have to admit I’m not that interested in all of the stories in this series – at least not just reading them as entertainment. A few years ago I had a project going on trying to watch old live-action Disney movies (still a lot I haven’t seen), so one way to read this book is to watch the movie first, and then read the story to compare. Another interesting way could be to compare the Sunday page adaptations to the regular comic book adaptations.

There are several other series of Sunday pages I’d rather see collected in IDW’s Library of American Comics, like the Brer Rabbit Sundays, or the early years of post-Gottfredson Mickey Mouse Sundays. But I still think it’s a good thing that Treasury of Classic Tales is being collected too. Some of the stories in this series are really hard to find! Even in the newspapers at the time they were created they were a rare find. So it’s great that they finally become available for anyone interested, and I know a lot of Jack Kirby fans have been waiting a long time for a proper collection of the The Black Hole Sunday pages. But the volume collecting that story is still years away.

As with the Silly Symphonies and Donald Duck Sundays collections from IDW, Treasury of Classic Tales also print the pages in the full format with coloring based on the original coloring used in the newspapers. But in the newspapers the pages were often printed in a different layout. Under are some pages from The Sword and the Rose, comparing different layouts in the newspapers with the full format in the book.

Sunday pages were usually colored unlike to the daily strips that at the time were printed in black and white. But some newspapers also printed the Sunday pages without color.
 

In the next example the panes are arranged to fill an entire page in the newspaper. Note that two panels are cut too.
 

Another popular format was to print the Sunday pages over two rows. That way the newspaper could fit 3 different comics on the same page. Two panels are cut in this example too, and other panels are also trimmed in width.
 

I’ve always believed that the 3 row landscape format as used in the book was the original format containing all of the artwork. But this seems to not be the case. In the 2-row example above the panels actually have more art in the bottom and top compared to the panels in the book! So the original artwork must look like none of the examples above (?).

"The Sword and the Rose" - panel from the book (left) compared to a 2-row newspaper clipping (right)

Here are a couple of examples from other stories in the book:

"Peter and the Wolf" - panel from the book (left) compared to a 2-row newspaper clipping (right)

"Peter Pan" - panel from the book (left) compared to a 2-row newspaper clipping (right)

Trying to search the web for original art, all examples I find looks like the layout found in the book, ex. the July 18, 1954 page from Peter and the Wolf.  But my newspaper clipping got more art not present on that piece of original art.
 

"Peter and the Wolf" - Original art (?) compared to a 2-row newspaper clipping

So was the extra art added later, or is the piece in the gallery at Comic Art Fans not really the original art, just one of the original mountings? If anyone knows more about this, please enlighten me!