The Walt Disney Treasure Book

In February 2016 I made a blogpost about two pages of comics where I was trying to identify what publication they came from. And it turned out they were from a British book called The Walt Disney Treasure Book. Now two years later, I finally got hold of a copy of the book!

I already knew that the Barks story had dialogue changes in the British edition, so I did a little search for more examples.

The first story in the book is a re-arranged version of the Sunday pages with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The dialogue in the first part of the story is pretty much unchanged. But when the dwarfs start talking, a lot of the slang is removed.
 

Original dialogue to the left - British dialogue to the right

Original dialogue to the left - British dialogue to the right

We also get an occasional British word inserted.

Original dialogue to the left - British dialogue to the right

The next story is Mickey Mouse and The World Under the Sea.

Original dialogue on the top - British dialogue at the bottom

Then we have Christmas on Bear Mountain.

Original dialogue to the left - British dialogue to the right

Original dialogue to the left - British dialogue to the right

And Bambi, where not much is changed, just some minor adjustments here and there. But here I also checked another early British print of the story.

Original dialogue (left), from World Distributor #33 (middle), and the Trasure Book (right)

And finally, the book ends with Mickey Mouse and Pluto the Hero.

Original dialogue to the left - British dialogue to the right

Today’s exchange rate is about 0.7, but trying to check historical data it looks like the exchange rate was about 0.36 in the early 50’s. So 18 thousand pounds would have been more accurate when the book was printed, while it’s not too far off today. (I’m not sure exactly when the book was published)

Comics on Norwegian milk cartons

After IDW started publishing Disney comics we have seen 3 stories drawn by Norwegian Arlid Midthun, and I hope we'll see more in the future! If you haven't read any yet I recommend checking out "The Substitute Santa of Strathbungo" printed in IDW's Uncle Scrooge #21, with Scrooge as a young boy in Glasgow.

Among the stories we haven't seen in English yet is a series of crime riddles with Donald & company, created in collaboration with novelist Gunnar Staalesen. But they are not the only crime riddle comics the two them have created together.

For the last 8 years they have created comics printed on Norwegian milk cartons. And the comics are only printed on the cartons during the Easter Holidays (and the week before).
 

2011-2014 milk cartons

2015-2018 milk cartons

If I didn't make it clear these are not Disney comics, but an original creation with the detective character "Ulf Ulvheim". But the drawing style is very similar to Arild's Disney comics.

Here are the comics from the last two years as slideshows (external links, might not work forever):

2017

2018

Source: https://www.tine.no/påske

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons

This book is not about comics, but was one of my most fascinating reads last year and deserves to be covered!

Written by David Bossert with help from David Gerstein the book is all about the Oswald cartoons produced under Walt Disney in the late 20’s. A total of 26 cartoons were made where some are still considered as lost, and this book covers all of them and the history of how they are tracked down.

The book first start with a history section about the Disney Studio before, during and right after the Oswald cartoons. Then we get chapters about the reacquiring of the rights to Oswald, how the hunt for the cartoons began and details about the preservation and restoration process – all filled with new information I hadn’t read anywhere else.

After the intro articles the main part of the book starts, where each cartoon has its own section with a detailed synopsis, information about the source used for restoring the cartoons and lots of illustrations. In the cases where a cartoon is considered lost we sometimes get the full script or survived story-sketches or pencils that can give us information about the story. While reading the book I almost felt glad the cartoons were lost or we probably wouldn’t see all this background material on print!

 

Example from inside the book

When talking about sources and restoration, the book is usually referring to the restoration done for the 2007 DVD set released in the Walt Disney Treasures series. But much has been discovered after this and we also get details on things that should have been done different. Ex. what title cards were used, sequences that should have been in another order and such. After reading the book I wish we could get a new home media or digital release of the entire collection – updated with all the new information discovered the last 10 years. I also hope the detailed information on what is know and not result in more information being discovered in the future.

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Even if the book is not about comics, it does have some references and bits of information about the comics too. Even things that was new to me and that I don’t remember reading about in the Gottfredson library.

One is about the re-use of gags from the Oswald cartoon Africa Before Dark in the daily strips. The gag where Oswald is shooting off an owl’s feathers is re-used in the January 29, 1930 Mickey-strip, and the sequence with a lion, hollowed-out log and a gun is also re-used.
 

From "Africa Before Dark" (top) and the Mickey Mouse daily newspaper strips (bottom)

Also, story-sketches from the lost cartoon Hot Dogs reveals that gags are re-used in the comic strips.

Not specifically mentioned in the book, but we also get to see sketches from The Banker’s Daughter, another lost cartoon. Those sketches were used as reference for the design of Mr. Whiskers and his clothes in Just Like Magic (check out my old blogpost about this story)
 

Mr. Whiskers in cartoon sketches and the comic story

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As an endnote I’d like to show something else I got about a year before the book was released. One day I came across the magazine pictured below while browsing online. And it’s not every day you come across a Disney Oswald magazine, so I just had to get it even if I can’t read a word Japanese!

Inside there are pictures of a lot of Oswald merch and a few pages dedicated to the cartoons with still images and sketches.

 

My immediate thought was that I wish there was a book like this in English, with background information about all the Oswald cartoons. And what happened… soon after the book was announced, and now I have exactly what I wanted!

Walt Disney Showcase - new series from IDW

IDW's Walt Disney Showcase #1, A and B cover variants

Originally planned for September 2017, the new series Walt Disney Showcase finally hit the shelves in February. From the crosstalk page inside it sounds like the series is going to feature stories that wouldn't be a good fit in the other titles. I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it sounds like good news to me – I like unusual stories! And I miss the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse titles, so I'm just glad we got a new monthly title in their place.

 

From the June 2017 crosstak page

 

From the February 2018 crosstalk page

As the crosstalk text say, this is not the first series called Walt Disney Showcase, and the IDW series also reuse the logo from the original 70's series.

 

The first two issues of the original 70's series

The first issue in the new series features two stories with Donald and Fethrty that could just as well have been printed in Donald Duck or Walt Disney's Comics and Stories I think. But future issues will feature characters like Arizona Goof and we'll also get a new story with McDuck's Intelligence Agency (MIA), as seen in IDW's Donald Duck #9.

 

The main story inside is Bad-news Bruise Cruise! with Scrooge hiring Donald and Fethry as the crew of his new cruise ship. And it turns out they are the only crew! With Donalds temper and Fethry being Fethry, there's only one way this can go...

The second story is just a 4 page backup story, but I actually learned something new from it!
 

I had no idea "National cousin's day" was a real thing, and neither did Donald judging by his expression. But a quick internet search reveals that July 24th every year apparently is the day to celebrate your cousins.

Blog update

This is just a quick update about this blog. With just 11 posts last year and none so far this year it might seem like I've given up on the blog or lost interest. But that's not the case and I'll try to get back at it again!

There are several reasons for the blog to slow down, but mostly because I was working away from my permanent home for most of last year (and still am). And that means away from my comic collection too. I tried to plan a few blogposts by bringing with me comics for scanning and photographing, but that didn't work out as I thought.

Also one of the reasons I started this blog, and focusing on Disney comics in English, was that IDW started publishing Disney comics with a lot of interesting things to talk about. But Diamond Comic Distributors suddenly stopped distributing IDW's regular Disney comics (not TPB and hardcovers) to Europe last autumn. From October last year and up to when I write this my local comic shop has tried to order every issue of Uncle Scrooge, Showcase, WDC&S, Donald and Mickey, Christmas Parade, DuckTales... but the only one they actually received in this time period was Donald and Mickey #2. The problem is only with Disney comics from IDW, the ones from Joe Books I still get through my local shop. I'm still getting the rest one way or another too, but usually a month or more after release and then I feel it's "old news". So that's another reason for the blog to slow down.

But it's not that there's nothing else to talk about, I have lots of ideas about things! So let's see if I can bring some life to the blog again. 

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Enough boring updates, here is a random comic page from a British Mickey Mouse Annual that I can't imagine being reprinted anytime soon :)

Click to enlarge