Thursday, March 16, 2017

Vintage Funnies

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
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

IssueContent
29ZS 32-07-10,ZM 32-07-10
30ZS 34-01-14,ZM 34-01-14
31ZS 34-03-25,ZM 34-03-25
32YM 30-07-14 (first half as intro),YM 30-07-07,YM 30-07-08,YM 30-07-09,YM 30-07-10
33YM 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)
34YM 30-07-21,YM 30-07-22,YM 30-07-23,YM 30-07-24,YM 30-07-25,YM 30-07-26
35YM 30-07-28,YM 30-07-29,YM 30-07-30,YM 30-07-31,YM 30-08-01,YM 30-08-02
36YM 30-08-04,YM 30-08-05,YM 30-08-06,YM 30-08-07,YM 30-08-08,YM 30-08-09
37YM 30-08-11,YM 30-08-12,YM 30-08-13,YM 30-08-14,YM 30-08-15,YM 30-08-16
38YM 30-08-18,YM 30-08-19,YM 30-08-20,YM 30-08-21,YM 30-08-22,YM 30-08-23
39YM 30-08-25,YM 30-08-26,YM 30-08-27,YM 30-08-28,YM 30-08-29,YM 30-08-30
40YM 30-09-01,YM 30-09-02,YM 30-09-03,YM 30-09-04,YM 30-09-05,YM 30-09-06
41YM 30-09-08,YM 30-09-09,YM 30-09-10,YM 30-09-11,YM 30-09-12,YM 30-09-13
42YM 30-09-15,YM 30-09-16,YM 30-09-17,YM 30-09-18,YM 30-09-19,YM 30-09-20
43YM 30-09-22,YM 30-09-23,YM 30-09-24,YM 30-09-25,YM 30-09-26,YM 30-09-27
44YM 30-09-29,YM 30-09-30,YM 30-10-01,YM 30-10-02,YM 30-10-03,YM 30-10-04
45YM 30-10-06,YM 30-10-07,YM 30-10-08,YM 30-10-09,YM 30-10-10,YM 30-10-11
46YM 30-10-13,YM 30-10-14,YM 30-10-15,YM 30-10-16,YM 30-10-17,YM 30-10-18
47YM 30-10-20,YM 30-10-21,YM 30-10-22,YM 30-10-23,YM 30-10-24,YM 30-10-25
48YM 30-10-27,YM 30-10-28,YM 30-10-29,YM 30-10-30,YM 30-10-31,YM 30-11-01
49YM 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)
50YM 30-11-10,YM 30-11-11,YM 30-11-12,YM 30-11-13,YM 30-11-15 (YM 30-11-14 missing)
51YM 30-11-17,YM 30-11-18,YM 30-11-19,YM 30-11-20,YM 30-11-21,YM 30-11-22
52YM 30-11-24,YM 30-11-25,YM 30-11-26,YM 30-11-27,YM 30-11-28,YM 30-11-29
53YM 30-12-01,YM 30-12-02,YM 30-12-03,YM 30-12-04,YM 30-12-05,YM 30-12-06
54YM 30-12-08,YM 30-12-09,YM 30-12-10,YM 30-12-11,YM 30-12-12,YM 30-12-13
55YM 30-12-15,YM 30-12-16,YM 30-12-17,YM 30-12-18,YM 30-12-19,YM 30-12-20
56YM 30-12-23,YM 30-12-24,YM 30-12-25,YM 30-12-26,YM 30-12-27 (YM 30-12-22 missing)
57YM 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)
58YM 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)
59YM 31-01-12,YM 31-01-13,YM 31-01-14,YM 31-01-15,YM 31-01-16,YM 31-01-17
60YM 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)

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

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!