Donald Duck im Mickey Mouse Weekly von William Ward

One of my favorites from everything Disney comics last year is the book Donald Duck im Mickey Mouse Weekly von William Ward, published by the German fan club D.O.N.A.L.D. (Deutsche Organisation nichtkommerzieller Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus). The title and the introduction article is written in German, but the comic pages inside are facsimile copies from the British Mickey Mouse Weekly and in English.

The book collects all the Donald Duck serials by William Ward in chronological order which is a total of 135 comic book pages. In addition, there is a four-page article and a few pages with cover galleries.

These stories are super rare and only collected once before in the Italian Paperino: Le inedite follie inglesi di William A. Ward. I've been trying to get hold of a copy of the Italian book for years, and I wish I had it to compare. But unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anyone selling it for a reasonable price and willing to send internationally yet.
 

Italian book reprinting the same stories

The comics in the German book are scanned from the personal collection of a German collector, so I'm pretty sure the two books use different sources.

Comparing the book to the original British comics it's reprinted in a lot smaller format. But I guess production cost would have been way to high reproducing it in the same size. And I don't think this book had much of a budget as it's made by fans for fans.

The book on top of Mickey Mouse Weekly #67

Most of the reproduction is pretty good considering and according to a note only three pages had to be partly restored.

 

As I got the original comics I tried to compare the restored pages to the original. In the first case I could seriously not spot anything that could have been restored!
 

Original comic vs the book - could not spot what had been restored on this page.

On the second restored page it's easier to see what has been done, as the text is partly restored in a new font, and some of the words are guessed wrong.

Restoration to the left, original to the right

The last restored page just has some minor restoration in the upper corner, and I also noticed partly missing text in a panel at the bottom.

Restoration to the left, original to the right

 

Another mistake in the book is that one page is missing. But the page got printed separately, numbered 15 ½ and came as an attachment.

Missing page as attachment

But overall, I'm impressed with the work on this book and it's still awesome! It's mainly created just to make the comics available for anyone wanting to do research or just read these early Donald stories. I'm not sure about the print run, but when I write this it looks like they still have copies for sale.

Not sure if there is any meaning behind changing the flag on the cover to an European Union flag though. The illustration is taken from the Mickey Mouse Weekly #66 cover, celebrating the upcoming coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

"The Return of the Phantom Blot" and its American reprint

Here's a little trivia post about The Return of the Phantom Blot and its American reprint.
 

"The Return of the Phantom Blot" was originally printed in 4 parts in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #284-287

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #284-287 and Gemstone's Mickey Mouse #285 reprinting the story

The Return of the Phantom Blot (1964) was the first new story featuring the Phantom Blot in the American comics since his first appearance in Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot (1939). In the meantime, there was a couple of remakes of the daily strip series in the comic book format, and the Italians used the Blot in several stories. But The Return of the Phantom Blot was the first new original story for the American market and re-introduced the character leading up to his own comic book series.

 

The first issue of The Phantom Blot's own comic book series

At the end of the last part of The Return of the Phantom Blot we get an ad for this new series. When I see ads like this I'm always wondering if the story was created one row short or if the editors had cut something to make space for the ads. I got curious about this story too and wanted to check how the reprint dealt with the missing row. And it turns out Gemstone had done something clever, they actually re-used the ad too! But this time for their own new two-part miniseries with the Phantom Blot.
 

The story ends with an ad in both the original printing and the Gemstone reprint

Ad in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #287 and Mickey Mouse #285

 

The new Gemstone mini-series being advertised

Another fun thing with the Gemstone reprint is a little coloring goof with Goofy's clothes. I wonder what kind of strange onepice/jumpsuit thing is laying on this armchair...

 Checking the original coloring the clothes makes more sense 😄

Edit: Shortly after writing this blogpost, The Return of the Phantom Blot was printed again in Mickey Mouse: The 90th Anniversary Collection. I made a new March 2020 post about this comic.