Donald Duck’s Halloween Scream! 2017

25-pack for Donald Duck’s Halloween Scream!

I know I’m a bit late with this post, but we got a new issue of Donald Duck’s Halloween Scream! for Halloween this year. This is the second issue, and it actually says so on the inside too.
 

The 2017 issue is numered #2 on the inside

We didn’t get any last year, but we got one for Halloween ComicFest in 2015. This year’s issue got a Halloween ComicFest logo too, but it’s not intended for free giveaway in comic shops like the last one (although some shops might do it anyways). Instead this year’s issue is sold in packs of 25 comics for $4.99 and intended for people to buy and give out for free themselves. So instead of giving away candy when someone is trick-or-treating at your door, you could get one of these packs and give away a comic book instead. Just like last year’s preview comic for Mickey’s Inferno that was sold in a similar pack (check my blogpost last year about this one)

As this year’s Donald Duck’s Halloween Scream! is sold in packs of mini-comics, the format is a lot smaller than the first issue.
 

Donald Duck’s Halloween Scream! 2015 (#1) and 2017 (#2)

But like the 2015 comic the new one also have a reprint (i.e. not new to the USA) story by William Van Horn.
 

"Kid Stuff" by William Van Horn

Kid Stuff is not really about Halloween, it’s just about Donald painting a house that might be haunted – so I guess it kind of fits the Halloween theme.

We didn’t get any Giant Halloween Hex from IDW this year, so I’m glad Donald Duck’s Halloween Scream! is back instead. But I hope we’ll get a new issue of Giant Halloween Hex next year!

Books about Carl Barks' surviving comic book art

Books by Matti Eronen

Earlier this year Matti Eronen published a new book about Carl Barks' surviving comic book art. It's the second book about this topic he has (self)published, and at the time I'm writing this both are available for sale on eBay directly from the author. The new book is also available on Amazon and Adlibris, or you can find contact information on www.illusi0n.com and I'm sure other arrangements can be made.

Carl Barks' Surviving Comic Book Art – 1994 – ISBN 952-90-5644-3

The first book was published back in 1994 just in time for Barks' European Tour. The main part of the book is a listing of the known pages of surviving comic book art and is the result of years of study in auction catalogs, magazines and with the help of other Barks' fans around the world. From the roughly 6700 pages of comic book production this books is listing about 200 pages of surviving artwork. Not a huge amount of art has surfaced after this book was written, so it's still relevant for anyone interested in the topic.
 

Example from inside the book, just text no illustrations

The book also has an index of all of Barks' comic book production and a listing of the paintings, but those parts are of less interest as they are better covered elsewhere.

A Study from Shadow: Carl Barks' Surviving Comic Book Covers – 2017 – ISBN 978-952-93-8893-6

The new book is just focusing on the surviving art of Barks' covers, including 11 newly discovered covers not mentioned in the previous book. Unlike the 1994 book that just had text, this book is illustrated with both the original artwork and the original published covers.

 

Example from inside the book, illustrated with both the original art and published cover

The most interesting part for me in this book was the analysis of how the editors had removed Barks' inked shadows in a lot of the covers. I have seen examples of this before, but had no idea it was this thoroughly done!
 

Comparison with the removed shadows highlighted

The back of the book also has an interesting article more general about the covers made by Carl Barks and for his stories.

Changes to the IDW lineup of Disney comics

IDW's Mickey Mouse #21, Donald Duck #21, Duck Avenger #5 (regular cover variants)

Sadly the comics on the picture above will be the last issues of the titles Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Duck Avenger we’ll see from IDW. At least for now, but hopefully they will continue again sometime in the future.

For Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse it’s not a definitive end as they will be replaced by a new series Donald and Mickey scheduled for an August release. Donald and Mickey will be a quarterly series in a "prestige format", which means more pages than the regular issues.
 

From Previews #345 (June 2017 catalog)

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories will also be changed to a quarterly series in the new prestige format. We’ll see the first issue in this format next week with a new story in the Tamers of Nonhuman Threats series that wouldn’t been able to fit in a single issue of the old format. So the changes are not all bad news.

But the worst part of the changes is that Duck Avenger has an uncertain future. I was really hoping for a full run of the PKNA series! For now the series seems to have been canceled, but we got this message on the last page in issue #5.

 

From the last page of IDW's Duck Avenger #5

I’m not 100% sure where they want us to write in; the only e-mail address in the comic is for licensing purpose. But they do have links to facebook, twitter etc. inside.

The Crosstalk page in the June issues has some more information about the changes.
 

From the June crosstalk page

As you can read we’ll also get a new series Walt Disney Showcase. The text say September, but the series was not listed in the "July for September" Previews catalog. I’m curious about and looking forward to this series, so hopefully we’ll get some more information about it in next moths catalog.

Not mentioned in the text above is DuckTales that’s also a new series from IDW starting up this month. So even with some bad news there are still a lot of Disney comics from IDW to look forward to!

***

For fun I did a quick look at the previous runs of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse and made these tables:

Mickey Mouse 

Issue #	Publisher	Numb. of issues	Years
1-84	Dell	84	194x-1962*
85-218	Gold Key/Whitman	134	1962-1984
219-256	Gladstone	38	1986-1990
257-295	Gemstone	39	2003-2006
296-309	BOOM!	14	2009-2011
310-330	IDW	21	2015-2017

* first 27 as part of Four Color/One Shots, not sure which one is considered #1
 
Donald Duck       

Issue #	Publisher	Numb. of issues	Years
1-84	Dell	84	194x-1962*
85-245	Gold Key/Whitman	161	1962-1984
246-279	Gladstone (1st run)	34	1986-1990
280-307	Gladstone (2nd run)	28	1993-1998
308-346	Gemstone	39	2003-2006
347-367	BOOM!	21	2009-2011
368-388	IDW	21	2015-2017

* first 25 as part of Four Color/One Shots, not sure which one is considered #1
 
Interesting to note is that Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck didn’t continue during the Walt Disney Publications’ run of Disney comics between what fans call Gladstone I and Gladstone II. But both Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories continued during the W.D. Publication time (and will continue now too).

Funko Universe cover variants

In May we got some strange cover variants for some of the Disney comics from IDW. The Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories and Donald Duck titles all had a 4th "Funko Universe" cover variant this month. The characters are drawn in the same style as the collectable POP! figures from Funko.

The Uncle Scrooge title didn’t get a special Funko cover, maybe because no Funko figures with Scrooge existed. But that is about to change. A new DuckTales series of POP! figures was just announced, scheduled for a September release. And one of the figures is Scrooge McDuck.

Vintage Funnies

Not long ago I got this collection of Vintage Funnies pictured above. Or the lot actually consists of Favorite Funnies 1-12, Golden Funnies 1-15 and Vintage Funnies 16-60, but they are all basically the same thing. Favorite Funnies and Golden Funnies were two different series published at the same time, while Vintage Funnies is just a new name for Golden Funnies. The name changed after #15 and according to comics.org the series lasted up to #100.

Favorite Funnies #1 and Golden Funnies #1

Golden Funnies #15 and Vintage Funnies #16 after the name changed

This newspaper sized series from the 70's reprints old newspaper comic and has everything from Superman to Krazy Kat inside. And from Vintage Funnies #29 the series also has Disney comics.
 

Sunday pages and daily strips in Vintage Funnies

The first three issues had one page with some randomly chosen Sunday pages with Silly Symphony and Mickey Mouse. But after that Vintage Funnies started printing Mickey Mouse daily strips in chronological order, usually with 6 strips (Monday to Saturday) in each issue. The source looks like are newspaper clippings probably from private collections, so the reprint quality is not that good.
 

Editorial text in Vintage Funnies #29

From the editorial text in #29, it sounds like the plan was to reprint the Mickey Mouse daily strips from the beginning, but that didn't happen. The daily strips start in the middle of "Death Valley" with the first half of July 14th, 1930 strip as an introduction and then with the strips chronologically from July 7th, 1930 and onwards. I'm glad I got this print of the introduction strip (at least half of it) because the size is huge compared to the reprint in the Floyd Gottfredson library! There you can barely read the text.

 

Vintage Funnies #32 and the Floyd Gottredson library vol.1

This might only be for people with a special interest, but I made an index of all daily strips up to issue #60. I know the strip continued after this too (if anyone knows for how long please tell)

I used the inducks way to code the different strips, so:

ZS = Silly Symphony Sunday page
ZM = Mickey Mouse Sunday page
YM = Mickey Mouse daily strip

32-07-10 = 1932-July-10th

Issue	Content
29	ZS 32-07-10,ZM 32-07-10
30	ZS 34-01-14,ZM 34-01-14
31	ZS 34-03-25,ZM 34-03-25
32	YM 30-07-14 (first half as intro),YM 30-07-07,YM 30-07-08,YM 30-07-09,YM 30-07-10
33	YM 30-07-11,YM 30-07-12,YM 30-07-16,YM 30-07-17,YM 30-07-18,YM 30-07-19 (half of YM 30-07-14 used as intro in last issue, YM 30-07-15 missing)
34	YM 30-07-21,YM 30-07-22,YM 30-07-23,YM 30-07-24,YM 30-07-25,YM 30-07-26
35	YM 30-07-28,YM 30-07-29,YM 30-07-30,YM 30-07-31,YM 30-08-01,YM 30-08-02
36	YM 30-08-04,YM 30-08-05,YM 30-08-06,YM 30-08-07,YM 30-08-08,YM 30-08-09
37	YM 30-08-11,YM 30-08-12,YM 30-08-13,YM 30-08-14,YM 30-08-15,YM 30-08-16
38	YM 30-08-18,YM 30-08-19,YM 30-08-20,YM 30-08-21,YM 30-08-22,YM 30-08-23
39	YM 30-08-25,YM 30-08-26,YM 30-08-27,YM 30-08-28,YM 30-08-29,YM 30-08-30
40	YM 30-09-01,YM 30-09-02,YM 30-09-03,YM 30-09-04,YM 30-09-05,YM 30-09-06
41	YM 30-09-08,YM 30-09-09,YM 30-09-10,YM 30-09-11,YM 30-09-12,YM 30-09-13
42	YM 30-09-15,YM 30-09-16,YM 30-09-17,YM 30-09-18,YM 30-09-19,YM 30-09-20
43	YM 30-09-22,YM 30-09-23,YM 30-09-24,YM 30-09-25,YM 30-09-26,YM 30-09-27
44	YM 30-09-29,YM 30-09-30,YM 30-10-01,YM 30-10-02,YM 30-10-03,YM 30-10-04
45	YM 30-10-06,YM 30-10-07,YM 30-10-08,YM 30-10-09,YM 30-10-10,YM 30-10-11
46	YM 30-10-13,YM 30-10-14,YM 30-10-15,YM 30-10-16,YM 30-10-17,YM 30-10-18
47	YM 30-10-20,YM 30-10-21,YM 30-10-22,YM 30-10-23,YM 30-10-24,YM 30-10-25
48	YM 30-10-27,YM 30-10-28,YM 30-10-29,YM 30-10-30,YM 30-10-31,YM 30-11-01
49	YM 30-11-03,YM 30-11-04,YM 30-11-05,YM 30-11-06,YM 30-11-07,YM 30-11-08 (part of panel missing)
50	YM 30-11-10,YM 30-11-11,YM 30-11-12,YM 30-11-13,YM 30-11-15 (YM 30-11-14 missing)
51	YM 30-11-17,YM 30-11-18,YM 30-11-19,YM 30-11-20,YM 30-11-21,YM 30-11-22
52	YM 30-11-24,YM 30-11-25,YM 30-11-26,YM 30-11-27,YM 30-11-28,YM 30-11-29
53	YM 30-12-01,YM 30-12-02,YM 30-12-03,YM 30-12-04,YM 30-12-05,YM 30-12-06
54	YM 30-12-08,YM 30-12-09,YM 30-12-10,YM 30-12-11,YM 30-12-12,YM 30-12-13
55	YM 30-12-15,YM 30-12-16,YM 30-12-17,YM 30-12-18,YM 30-12-19,YM 30-12-20
56	YM 30-12-23,YM 30-12-24,YM 30-12-25,YM 30-12-26,YM 30-12-27 (YM 30-12-22 missing)
57	YM 31-01-05,YM 31-01-06,YM 31-01-07,YM 31-01-08,YM 31-01-09,YM 31-01-10 (worng order, should have been printed in next issue)
58	YM 30-12-29,YM 30-12-30,YM 30-12-31,YM 31-01-01,YM 31-01-02,YM 31-01-03 (worng order, should have been printed in the previous issue)
59	YM 31-01-12,YM 31-01-13,YM 31-01-14,YM 31-01-15,YM 31-01-16,YM 31-01-17
60	YM 31-01-19,YM 31-01-20,YM 31-01-21,YM 31-01-22,YM 31-01-23,YM 31-01-24

As you can see there are some strips missing in-between, and it looks like one of the source clippings had a tear. So in addition to the bad reproduction quality this is not the collection to get if you want to read a full run of the strips. For that I recommend the Floyd Gottfredson library published by Fantagraphics.

YM 30-11-14 missing in #50 (not the 13th as the note say)

YM 30-12-22 missing in #56

Part of the panel is missing in the source used in #49

 

When making the index I actually used the Fantagraphics book as a guide to easily spot if something was missing. And by doing that I noticed something interesting that was missing in the book too! The end caption panel in the YM 30-12-06 strip is actually missing in the Fantagraphics collection.
 

YM 30-12-06 in the Floyd Gottfredson library vol.1 (top) and Vintage Funnies #53 (bottom)

To get the strip the same size as the rest it looks like the entire strip is scaled in width, so the proportion in the book is all wrong too compared to the original. It's easier to notice this by comparing the first two panels to the strip the day before. They should be about the same size, but as you can see in the picture above they are not in the Fantagraphics book.

I've seen scans from the German "Comic Buch Club" edition and I have the same strip in the British Disney Mirror #149. Both have the missing caption panel, so it couldn't have been that hard to find a source with it when compiling the book.

How the YM 30-12-06 strip originally looked (clickt to enlarge)

DuckTales trailer

A week ago we finally got the first real trailer for the new DuckTales series! We’ve seen a couple of promo images before and had a teaser video with the voice actors, but this is the first look at the animation and what to expect from the stories.

We got a lot of hidden clues and references to the comics in the trailer, so I’ll do a little breakdown of some the things I noticed.

 

McDuck Manor in the new series

The first scene we see in the trailer is Scrooge’s money bin, or McDuck Manor as they call it. From some of Barks’ stories we know that he has more than one bin, but apparently he has moved from Killmotor Hill to an island. The new money bin looks more like a fortress I think and seems to be a combined mansion and money bin. But the design looks closer to how the bin looked in the old DuckTales series (and with the roof like Italian comics) and not with the flat roof we usually see in the comic stories.
 

Uncle Scrooge's money bin in Walt Disney's Comic's and Stories #135

In the first comic stories with Scrooge, he lived in a mansion – which he also did the original DuckTales series and when Don Rosa created The Richest Duck in the World, the story where Huey Dewey and Louie meet Uncle Scrooge for the first time. As the they meet Scrooge for the first time in the trailer too, I guess we got it confirmed that the new series really is a "reboot" and not a continuation of the previous series.

Painting in the trailer, modeled after "Pick and Shovel Laborer" by Carl Barks

More painings in the trailer

After the boys have been introduced to Scrooge, we see the some of the interior and the first direct references to Carl Barks work. The first painting we see is actually modeled after a real paining called Pick and Shovel Laborer by Carl Barks. I believe the castle in the next scene is Castle McDuck from The Old Castle's Secret, and then we have a couple of more paintings by Carl Barks. The first one is called Always Another Rainbow and the other one is an unnamed painting from 1972.

Castle McDuck in "the Old Castle's Secret"

 

The original paintings by Carl Barks

The boys make a comment about Scrooge saying "you used to be a big deal" while we see a torn newspaper in the background with the headline "McDuck hangs up his spats after …". So apparently something has happened making him give up the treasure hunting and business adventures.

Scrooge replies by saying "I made it by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties", a quote from the comic story Only a Poor Old Man but also used in the original DuckTales series.

While Scrooge live in a mansion/money bin, it looks like Donald is living on a houseboat, exactly like he did in his very first appearance in The Wise Little Hen.
 

Donald living in a houseboat - from the DuckTales trailer (2017) and The Wise Little Hen (1934)

Webby seems to be a real nerd and quite different from the original DuckTales series. And it looks like she is already living with Scrooge. On her note board we can read something that looks like "Terri-Fermians sighting!". The Terries and Fermies (from Land Beneath the Ground) were called "Terra-Fermians" in the previous DuckTales series. So maybe we’ll see them again in this series.

Webby's note board with "Terri-Fermians sighting!" in the upper part.

Then we get to see scenes from some of the adventures we are going to get in the first season.

First we have a ghost pirate that some people think look like LeChuck from Monkey Island. I’m not sure I agree, but that would be the most awesome crossover ever! I guess Disney Interactive has the rights to Monkey Island now, so it could theoretically happen.

Ghost pirate

Then we see Scrooge riding a Chinese dragon.

And we get a glimpse of Flintheart Glomgold heading towards a huge ruby.

Flintheart Glomgold heading towards a huge ruby

And we have an underwater adventure, where we see an upside-down temple with a huge piece of rock – that looks a lot like the Temple of Manco Capac from Don Rosa’s The Son of the Sun!

Temple at the bottom of the sea

And we all know what happened to that temple...

 

With all the comic references and adventure stories the trailer is teasing, I’m really excited about the new DuckTales series!

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)