"Mickey and Donald: Christmas Parade", trade paperback from IDW

If you prefer to get trade paperbacks rather than the single-issue comic books, it can be a challenge trying to follow the IDW ones. They do not have any volume numbering and some have a "Donald and Mickey" logo or a "Mickey and Donald" logo even if the comics they collect does not.

Here are some notes about the recent Christmas Parade TPB in case more of you are confused about that one. When I write TPB in this post I mean "trade paperback", and WDCS is "Walt Disney's Comics and Stories".

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All the way back in August 2016 we got a book called Donald and Mickey: The Walt Disney's Comics and Stories Holiday Collection listed in the Previews catalog (order code AUG160522, ISBN 978-1-63140-729-1). This trade was originally listed for an October release the same year but went through several delays where the last update said June 28, 2017.

We saw two different pre-release covers for this book, with both the "Donald and Mickey" logo and the "Mickey and Donald" logo.
 

Pre-release covers for the planned but canceled "Holiday Collection" trade paperback

As we can read from the final update from the distributor, this TPB was supposed to collect the first Christmas Parade from IDW, the first Halloween Scream and backup stories from WDCS #727-732.

 

Final update of the Previews listing for the planned but cancelled "Holiday Collection"

Well, this never happened and the book got cancelled in 2017.

In the June 2018 Previews catalog, we saw another TBP being listed, this time as Mickey and Donald: Christmas Parade (order code JUN180710, ISBN 978-1-68405-324-7) – but using the same pre-release cover as the previous cancelled one. The first listed cover was identical to the previous one but without the "Holiday Collection" text, and later this was changed to the Christmas Parade logo.

 

Pre-release covers for the "Mickey and Donald: Christmas Parade" trade paperback

If you are still waiting or looking for a TPB with the cover art shown above (originally from the WDSC #726 RI variant) – then you can just stop. Because when the trade recently got on sale it ended up using another cover and looks like this:

 

The "Mickey and Donald: Christmas Parade" trade paperback, final cover as published

And this one does not have the content originally planned for the canceled "Holiday Collection", but collects IDW's Christmas Parade #1 and #2.

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As a side note, here is a summary of which IDW comics are not collected in TPB's. This does not include newer issues that might be expected to be collected in the future (ex. Christmas Parade #3 and #4, the new Afternoon Giant and such)

* The Search for the Zodiac Stone serial in WDCS #721 to 732 did not get collected in trades, but all parts are collected in a nice hardcover instead.

* The backup stories in WDCS #727 to 732 are not collected in any TPB's, but they are all collected in the Walt Disney's Comics and Stories Vault hardcover. I don't expect any of these to be in any future trades.

* Halloween Scream #1 and #2 and Giant Halloween Hex #1 and #2 are not collected in any TPB (or hardcover). But I wouldn't be surprised if we saw one next autumn.

* Donald and Mickey #3 and #4 are not collected in any TPB or hardcovers, and as we haven't seen any yet – I don't think they will be. So they might be nice to pick up even if you usually get the TPB's.

More comics celebrating Mickey's 90th Anniversary

I've already made two previous posts showing things published to celebrate Mickey's 90th Anniversary. First the Norwegian weekly Donald Duck & Co had a special birthday story, and then I talked a bit about the amazing Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History. But there are more, so here is a post with some other comics celebrating the anniversary.

Mickey Mouse: The Greatest Adventures (USA)

 

From Fantagraphics we got a book with a selection of daily strip serials from the 30's, 40's and one from the 50's too – all stories drawn (partly or fully) by Floyd Gottfredson. They are all previously collected in Fantagraphics' Gottfredson library, but here they are presented in color.
 

Great color work inside the book

The coloring and the different format makes it a different reading experience, and I'd say it's worth getting the book even if you have the library collection – especially for the first part where the panels are printed a lot larger. Also, I guess the book is aimed more towards casual readers not wanting a full library, and includes a couple of articles about Floyd Gottfredson and the Mickey strip as well.

The book starts with Mickey Mouse in Death Valley that got a new splash panel for this print, based on the Columbia title card used in early Mickey cartoons.

Columbia title card, printed over two pages in Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History

The early daily strips are created so they can be printed in two identical sized rows, making them easy to be printed in 3-row pages like in this book – without having to do any panel remounts.

The Floyd Gottfredson Library (top) were I marked with red how the strips can be rearranged.

Later strips are not created this way and are printed in four rows in The Greatest Adventures book, but with a more asymmetrical layout. I have mixed feelings about this, some pages look a bit messy I think – but it's a whole lot better than remounting the panels to fit. And when you get used to it, it's not too much of a bother.
 

From "The Gleam", irregular layout

The stories inside have a mix of newly colored stories and coloring used by Gemstone in the past. We also have The Atombrella and the Rhyming Man, with panel layout and coloring done for Boom!'s Mickey Mouse Classic: Mouse Mayhem. This book got cancelled during printing and only a few copies got sent out to editors and probably never went into regular distribution. The same version of the story got printed (in French) in a Canadian book by Groupe Modus/Presse Adventure – but this is the first time most of us will see it on print. 

 

Mickey Mouse Classics: Mouse Mayhem from Boom! - canceled during printing (image source)

Mickey Mouse Sticker Story (United Kingdom)
 

From Panini we got a sticker album for the anniversary. Normally this is not something I'm interested in, but this sticker album has a new comic story by Casty inside (!). The album is published in several countries around the world including Italy, Brazil, Germany and Poland – but I got the British version as that one is printed in English.

The one I have was sold in a starter pack, which included a few pack of stickers as well. It doesn't look like any of the stickers have any text, so I guess you can use stickers sold in one country in an album sold in another. The stickers also have random Mickey-logos on the back suggesting it's not a special print for the British album.

Stickers

Stickers, back

Inside we have several less interesting gallery sections, but the most interesting part is the 16 page comic story What an Adventure, Mickey!.

 

"What an Adventure, Mickey!", 16-page comic story

Even if you don't collect all the stickers it's perfectly readable, and it's a fun little story with a lot of Casty madness and references to old Gottfredson stories.
 

The Ryhming Man, Eega Beeva and Dr. Vulter

But apparently they didn't know that Ellroy now have an English name (first seen in IDW's Mickey Mouse #12), as the Italian name is used here.
 

Musse Pigg 90 år (Sweden)

Swedish readers got a nice compilation book with everything from old newspaper stories, a couple of Murry stories, Scarpa and newer Egmont stories (check out a full listing in the inducks database). The daily strips are in black and white, while most of the book is in color. As we can see in the example from Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot, this book have remounted panels to make it fit the layout instead of doing it like Fantagraphics did in The Greatest Adventures.
 

Remounted version of Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot

We also get several interesting articles with background information inbetween the comic stories.
 

Article "Mickey in Scandinavia"

The book has the same kind of design as another anniversary book celebrating 70 years of the weekly comic book, making them great next to each other on the shelf.

 

Donald Pocket #472 (Norway)

The monthly Donald Pocket in Norway also had an issue to celebrate the anniversary. Inside we have two special anniversary stories. One is a new Egmont story written by the McGreal's and drawn by Fecchi.
 

New anniversary story from Egmont

The other one is an Italian production and by Casty:
 

Anniversary story by Casty

But we also got a Mickey Mouse parody of the Metropolis movie, from the new series of Italian parodies. Also a great read, but I don't like reading these stories in the pocket format… they need proper paper with better color printing and in a larger format!
 

Metropolis parody story

The Norwegian Donald Pocket is a coproduction with other countries, so we have the same book in ex. Sweden, Denmark and Germany too. But for some reason the Norwegian editors apparently doesn't think a Disney comic will be a hit unless they throw a Donald Duck logo, or just "something" Donald on the cover… We've seen this on lots of occasions – and in this case they replaced the great Casty cover with a generic birthday cake cover with Donald on it! The book would have looked sooo much better with the Casty cover!
 

Danish, Swedish and German edition of the same pocket book

The Norwegian cover was originally created for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #550

Mikke Mus i Dødens dal (Norway)

 

Not really an anniversary book but got released in mid-November just in time for Mickey's birthday –  so I'll count it among the rest. This book is the first of six books collecting newspaper comics by Floyd Gottfredson. It uses the same restoration as the Fantagraphics books, but have both the daily strips and the Sunday pages in the same book. Also, the Norwegian edition is not going to be a complete collection, just a selection of the Gottfredson newspaper stories. This decision got some negative responses on forums and such, but personally I don't mind that the series is just going to be a selection. If the series was going to be 14 volumes like the Fantagraphics one I wouldn't have bought it – I already have the Fantagraphics set and that's going to superior in my opinion. But six volumes is just fine for me to support it. (but yeah, I can understand others wanting a full set)
 

Example from inside the book

Upcoming comics from IDW

IDW is a bit late to the party, but has two books planned to celebrate the anniversary. Mickey Mouse: The 90th Anniversary Collection is scheduled for an early January release, while Who Is Mickey Mouse? won't get on sale until June next year. The first one looks like will be a compilation of classic stories by Gottfredson, Murry, Scarpa and also Casty. But from the Amazon description of Who Is Mickey Mouse? it looks like that one has a completely new story.
 

Upcomming comics from IDW

Edit: The two IDW issues are covered in a March 2020 post.

 

The Scrooge Mystery

The Scrooge Mystery, Blu-ray cover

The Scrooge Mystery, Blu-ray disc

The Scrooge Mystery is a documentary film about Don Rosa that got finished this autumn, and I received my copy in the mail a few weeks ago. This documentary started as a Kickstarter project, but now that the project is finished you can also buy it on the The Scrooge Mystery webpage.

The DVD version was sold out last time I checked the webpage, but when I write this it's back for pre-order so they probably ordered more copies to be made. But I recommend getting the Blu-ray edition if you have a player. It might be available for digital purchase at a later date too, at least the Kickstarter backers are supposed to get a digital copy but I have yet to receive any download link for this. But the downloadable (or maybe streaming?) version is probably not going to have all the extra features that the physical "Collector's Edition" has.
 

DVD edition

The documentary features interviews with both Don Rosa and fans and friends around the world. For example Tuomas Holopainen from the Finnish band Nightwish that created a solo album with music inspired by The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Katja Kontturi that wrote a doctoral thesis about Don Rosa's comics, and maybe the most interesting for me personally an interview with editor Byron Erickson.

And I recommend checking out the bonus features too, because some of the interviews didn't make it to the actual feature and was added as bonus material. Some of those are just as interesting I think.

Lots of bonus features on the disc

Deleted scenes (interviews) that didn't make it to the film

If you have been a Don Rosa fan for a while or read the autobiography and texts in Fantagraphics' Don Rosa Library, The Scrooge Mystery might not have too much new and unknown information. But there are some bits here and there, and it's still interesting to hear what other people have to say.

Compared to earlier films The Scrooge Mystery is a lot more enjoyable to watch than the 2010 Life and times of Don Rosa. That DVD is really depressing to watch, but Don Rosa talks about a lot of the same things in the two documentaries. We also had a DVD with The Don Rosa House Tour in 2011 (it's on Youtube too), that as the title suggest is a tour of Don Rosa's property and collections. We get to see parts of the house and his comic archive in The Scrooge Mystery too, but not as much as in the 2011 tour.

 

"Life and times of Don Rosa" (2010) and "The Don Rosa House Tour" (2011)

To sum up, I enjoyed watching The Scooge Mystery and can recommend it if you like Rosa's comic stories and want to know more about him and the people he has inspired.

Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History

If you are going to a boring meeting, this is the only briefcase you need 😊 Inside this great packaging you'll find Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History published by TASCHEN books just in time for Mickey's 90th Anniversary.
 

The image above doesn't show the size that well, but this book is HUGE! Just to show how large it is, I put a regular comic book on top of it to compare.

 

Inside we have almost 500 pages packed with illustrations of everything from sketches for the movies, posters, comics, photos and other rare items. A lot of it supposedly shown on print for the first time and there's definitely a lot of things I've never seen before.

Check out TASCHEN's own webpage for an image gallery showing some of the stuff inside.

But the book is not all about images, there's also a lot of text with background information. I've had the book a few weeks now, but it will take some time get through all of it – I've just read bits here and there yet. But the good thing about this book is at that you don't need to read from the beginning all the way to the end – you can just flip through it and read parts at random places.

When I first heard about this book I didn't expect it to have too much information about the comics, but I'm positively surprised at the amount of comic book history inside it! The book is divided into three parts, "The Golden Age", "The Silver Age" and "The Modern Age" – all with several chapters dedicated to the comics. And they are not just about the American comics, we have sections like "First Italian comics" and "Egmont's new Mickey", lots of scans from early British stuff etc.

Here are some low-res images with examples from the comic book chapters, just showing the layout and what kind of things are talked about:
 

From the chapter "Mickey comes to the comics (1930-1931)"

From the chapter "The Comic Adventurer (1931-1941)"

From the chapter "Password: Mickey Mouse (1941-1945)"

From the chapter "Modernizing Mickey (1950-1960)"

From the chapter "Cosmopolitan Mickey (1960-Today)"

I think this is the most expensive single book I've ever bought, but for me it was worth it. I'm not going to be "done" with the book anytime soon. And if you are interested in Disney history, Mickey Mouse or even just Disney comic history I can highly recommend this book! My thought after flipping through the entire book was "how can they top this for Mickey's 100th Anniversary in 10 years?"

Disney Masters from Fantagraphics - Box 1 & 2

I've been waiting to check out the new Disney Masters series from Fantagraphics for a while now. We first heard about this series when vol.1, 2 and 3 got listed on Amazon late September/early October last year, but the first book didn't get on sale until May this year. By then box sets was announced too, and I like to get the box sets if available for series I collect – so I had to wait another half year for the boxes to be released. The box sets collecting the first four books got on sale in October, arrived in my mailbox a month later (that's what you get of pre-ordering something online..), and now I've finally found some time to sit down with them!
 

Collectors Box sets

The boxes arrived shrink-wrapped with a Mickey Mouse 90th Anniversary sticker, but the actual boxes and books does not have that logo. (The 1st printing of volume 5 have)
 

There are no volume numbers on the spine or cover, but the books are identified by volume numbers inside under "Titles in this series". This way you can sort the books as you want on the book shelf, and you can skip books you don't want without having a visible hole in the numbering. That is if you don't get the box sets.

We had a similar "Hall of Fame" series in Norway earlier, and this series did almost the same – but had numbering if a creator had several books. The Fantagraphics way with a book title in addition to the creator name is better I think.
 

Norwegian Hall of Fame series

I like the book design with a more minimalistic look than we are used to with comic books. And the covers look a lot better than the early pre-release covers we saw.

Disney Masters volume 1 and 2

Disney Masters volume 3 and 4

Early pre-release covers

What I don't like is that we have two different box sets to choose from! I decided to go with the Collector's box sets with the books in chronological order. But there's also a Gift box set where one box has Donald Duck books and the other one Mickey Mouse books. As a collector I now feel I have an incomplete collection, but I don't want to get both sets just for that reason. Also, I'm a bit skeptical to the idea that the entire series will be collected in two different box sets – and personally I think it's the collectors set that is most likely to last. But as I'm writing this we have books up to volume 9 announced, while I haven't seen any information about any more box sets.

 

Gift box sets

Another thing that's not really that important but can be a little bit annoying is the book size. If you go to Fantagraphics webpage for the Disney Masters series, the earlier Snow White book is listed among the Disney Masters ones. And I also thought it would be naturally to put the books next to each other on the shelf. But the Snow White book is bit larger in size (and doesn't fit on the shelf I wanted to use)

Here are some thoughts and notes about the first four books in the series.

Mickey Mouse: The Delta Dimension

This book might be the one I was most excited about from the ones announced so far, with two stories by Romano Scarpa that I've never read before! After IDW's recent printing of The Chirikawa Necklace I got curious about other early stories with Atomo and Trudy. And The Bleep-Bleep 15 and The Fabulous City of Shan-Grilla both were on my wish list of stories to track down. In addition we get Mickey Mouse in the Delta Dimension with Atomo Bleep-Bleep's first appearance.
 

The Fabulous City of Shan-Grilla, one of the stories inside

Donald Duck: Uncle Scrooge's Money Rocket

Another book with a story I hadn't read before and with all stories in English for the first time. I'm generally not a huge fan of "ducks in space" stories, but the ones in this book is entertaining simply for the pure madness. I was thinking "where does he get the ideas from??" more than once reading the book. But we also have some great scenery and artwork throughout.

Great scenery in "Uncle Scrooge's Money Rockey"

Example of some of the crazy things going on

More madness

As all books in the Disney Masters series, the book ends with an article about the featured creator. Luciano Bottaro is a creator I'm not very familiar with even if I've read quite a few stories by him – so this text was much appreciated.

I wouldn't mind another Bottaro book in this series, and if we get one the Zantaf sequel to Tycoonraker! (published by IDW not long ago) is on my wish list.


Mickey Mouse: The Case of the Vanishing Bandit

This is the first of several planned Paul Murry books in the series. Unlike the other books that have a selection of stories, the Murry books are collecting all the Mickey Mouse serials chronologically. In this book we get the first 7 serials drawn by Murry and originally printed in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. Also, unlike the other books in the series the stories in this book all have new coloring done to match the original coloring. The same way as the coloring in Fantagraphics' Carl Barks collection is done. Two of the stores in this book recently got a new coloring when they were reprinted by IDW – but even those two got a new coloring for this book!

IDW's coloring (left), Fantagraphics' coloring (middle), original coloring (right)

Fantagraphics' coloring (left) and the original coloring (right)

The Mysterious Crystal Ball, one of the stories in the book, was cencored when printed by IDW a few years ago (well, not in IDW's hardcover print). But thankfully it doesn't look like there's any censoring done to the Fantagraphics print.
 

Disney Masters (top), IDW's hardcover (middle) and IDW's cencored print (bottom)

Donald Duck: The Great Survival Test

This book collects all stories created by Daan Jippes in collaboration with Freddy Milton. And they make a great team creating a lot of fun 10-pagers. It's easy to see where they get their inspiration and for an untrained eye you could easily mistake the stories for a Carl Barks story.

One thing I really like with the Disney comics published by IDW the last years is that even if they use various European coloring for the stories, the colors are always adjusted so clothes, vehicles, the money bin etc. are consistent. Vol. 4 of the Disney Masters series seems to be made more on a budget compared. The coloring of the different stories is taken from different sources (Disney Italia, Sanoma, from previous American reprints), but it doesn't look like any adjustments are made. So Donald have a red car in one story and red and blue (Italian coloring) in another. I don't mind that the book has different coloring styles for the different stories, and a complete new coloring would probably have been too expensive for the book to be published. But it would have been nice if things like Donald's car had the same color in all stories in the book. Not a huge deal though.
 

Italian coloring, from "Haste Makes Waste"

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Overall, I'm impressed with what I've seen so far in the Disney Masters series and I hope it will continue for a while.