Matterhorn Bobsleds poster

When doing some fact checking for yesterday’s post about Disney Magic Kingdom Comics, I came across a poster for the Matterhorn Bobsleds. I immediately recognized the similarity with a Donald Duck cover we got earlier this year. I had no idea the Donald Duck #11 cover was a parody of an old poster!

IDW’s Donald Duck #12

All three cover variants for IDW's Donald Duck #12 (379)

So far this year we haven’t had the 3rd "retailer incentive" cover variant that the IDW monthly Disney comics used to have last year. They are going to be back next month though, starting with another blank "sketch" variant just in time for the convention summer. But this month we got another special 3rd variant cover. IDW is having an Art Appreciation month in April, where selected series get an extra variant cover celebrating famous art. Donald Duck is one of those series (the only Disney one), and the cover is a parody of Vincent van Gogh’s painting "Self-portrait with grey felt hat".

Original painting vs. the art appreciation cover

It’s actually not a newly made cover for this IDW event, but a painting the Dutch artist Wouter Tulp made for the "Van Gogh Year" (125 years after his death) in 2015. And the painting was exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum last summer. The painting was also used as a cover for a Dutch Donald Duck comic last year, and as IDW’s Donald Duck logo is the same as the Dutch one the two issues looks almost the same!

Dutch Donald Duck #22/2015 and IDW's Donald Duck #12

We also got a couple of interesting stories in IDW’s Donald Duck #12. First we have Vicious Cycles, another story drawn by Scarpa – but this time written by Osvaldo Pavese. Doing a quick search in inducks it looks like this is the first story written by him that is published in the USA.
 

The story starts with business rivalry between Scrooge and Rockerduck, both having their own brand of bicycles called McDuckernaut and Thunderbolt. I’m not sure if McDuckernaut is wordplay for Juggernaut or something else, but part of the original pun might have been lost in translation. In Italian they are called Saetta and Folgore i.e. two names for the same thing. So Lightning/Flash and Thunderbolt might have sounded better imo (but it's not a big deal).

When the cycling champ and Thunderbolt rider Two-Wheel McHeel comes to town, Scrooge needs a champion of his own to show everyone that McDuckernaut is the best brand. And who is going to save Scrooge’s business by riding a McDuckernaut in the Duckburg Cyclethon? Donald of course…

This story has a lot of similarities with the Barks story Bubbleweight Champ. The boxing and the cycling champs are not only similar looking, but in Italian they even had the same name!

Italian names from "Bubbleweight Champ" (left) and "Vicious Cycles" (right)

In English they are called Boldan True and Two-Wheel McHeel, so the similarity is not that obvious. But we also have the boys as coaches and kind of a similar outcome. And we have the same milk/soda drinking joke.

From "Bubbleweight Champ" (top) and "Vicious Cycles" (bottom)

The next story is Free Spirits, the first story with Sonny Seagull ehm, I mean Garvey Gull. It’s actually not the first story with the character printed in the USA. He also had a small role in Healthy Choice published in Gemstone's Mickey Mouse Adventures #10. The character's English name in Egmont scripts is Sonny Seagull, but Gemstone decided to change it for the American printing. The reasoning was that Garvey Gull was a more tougher-sounding name for his mischievous characteristics, and that Sonny could be mistaken as slang for "kid" instead of his real name. Personally I think the name Sonny Seagull sounds a lot better, but I’m not American so I can’t really tell what is best sounding for American readers.

By introducing the character with his first story, I’m guessing IDW plan on printing more stories with Garvey in the future. And that is good news for readers unfamiliar with this free spirit! I’ve read all stories with him and there are some really good ones! Egmont haven’t produced any new stories with Garvey and Phelps in a while – but I hope they will soon. Because I got a bit jealous of American readers right now, I want to read new stories with Garvey too!

Donald and his 10 nephews

In a comment on another post there was a question about a Taliaferro strip described as "In a 1940s Donald Duck newspaper strip, Donald applies for child benefit as the sole guardian of Huey, Dewey, and Louie". It turns out the strip in question was the August 21, 1944 Donald Duck daily strip.

So this post is by request, just showing the newspaper strip.

Donald Duck daily newspaper strip - August 21, 1944

The text in the strip say:

"How to do trick photography" (the book Donald is reading)
"U.S. Mail" (post box and bag)
"Bureau of Internal Revenue" and "Pay income tax here" (the door)
"With love, Donald Duck and dependents" (photography)
"Donald Duck Hollywood" + something I can’t read (envelope)

So, it sounds more like a matter of tax fraud. Donald doesn’t apply for child benefit in the strip.

This strip will be published in volume 3 of IDW’s Donald Duck daily strip collection, coming this summer. This is a series I highly recommend for anyone interested in Al Taliaferro’s work or early Disney comics history. Especially interesting in the last volume and the upcoming one is seeing how wartime in USA influenced the daily comic strips. And Donald is prepared for anything, getting a bomb shelter in his garden!

Pre-release cover for Donald Duck - The Complete Daily Newspaper Comics vol.3

Bad Day at Black Water

In sale right now is Donald Duck #377 (IDW’s #10) with the story "Bad Day at Black Water".

 

With script by Carol and Pat McGreal and art by Giorgio Cavazzano the story takes us on a journey to the least tourist friendly town on the planet! They’ve been so isolated that the kids in town have never seen a stranger before. And how did the ducks decide to spend the vacation there? By fate of course…

We know from other stories that Duckburg has a port, so I assume this is a map over part of Calisota and Duckburg is one of the two red circles in the bottom right corner. Here are two of Carl Barks’ more detailed maps:

From an untitled WDCS #155 story and "Fishy Warden"

Before the real mystery in "Bad Day at Black Water" even started, I got my own mystery going on, one that might turn out to be nothing… At the same day as DD #377 got on sale we also got WDC #728. And the 8th part of the "The Search for the Zodiac Stone" started with this speech balloon:
 

"Flight WDCS-728" is of course a joke referring to the current title and issue number, and I guess "arriving at gate 2-016" is February 2016 or just 2016. Why it’s arriving from Toronto, Canada I don’t know (the comic is printed in Korea, IDW offices is in San Diego and the translator is USA based too I think). Also note that Duckburg and Mouseton apparently share the same airport. Anyway, this hidden reference got me thinking that the "Bad Day at Black Water" started with some reference too.

When Scrooge says his files date back to 1946, I started wondering if that specific year was put in by purpose. My first thought went to Scrooges first appearances in "Christmas on Bear Mountain". According to the bibliography in Michael Barrier’s book "Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book", the creation date for "Christmas on Bear Mountain" is July 22, 1947. This date comes from a list Barks himself compiled, and for this story the date it’s from the voucher Barks received from Western, i.e. the date they accepted his story. So work on the story was done sometime before that, maybe as early as 1946. But we don’t know that for sure, do we? I might of course be overthinking everything and 1946 is just a random date.

If anyone else have the answer or another theory, it would be interesting to know :)

Alright, I’m not going to go into reviewing this story, I don’t think I have that much to say about it really. But I did like it, even if the ending was a little boring after an exciting buildup. It’s worth checking out if you like Duck comics. I have a couple of more things to note about the story though.

I like the fact that IDW make sure clothes and recurring objects are colored the same way in every story. Even when they use the coloring done by other publishers small adjustments are made. This story uses the Disney Italia coloring and one of the things that have been adjusted is the color on Donald’s car. But one little slip-up was made this time. The car is all red in all panels except one, where the Italian red-blue coloring is still used.

If you’ve read the story you might have noticed the story code I-D 2011-014. The I-D (or I/D) codes were stories made by Egmont Creative and Disney Italia in cooperation. Searching in inducks we can see that a number of these stories were made, but this is the first one published in the USA. From the list it looks like they stopped the coproduction in 2012, after just a few years. At least this kind of coding stopped then.

Donald Duck: The Complete Daily Newspaper Comics volume 2

I got the second volume of IDW’s Donald daily strip collection a few weeks ago. This book collects all daily strips from July 22, 1940 to January 2, 1943 plus the second part of David Gerstein’s essay about Al Taliaferro. I was a bit disappointed with the bonus material in the first volume, so I didn’t expect to see much of that in this book. But we got some rare publicity drawings and all Taliaferro illustrations from a 1948 children’s book. And I found the second part of the essay a lot more interesting than the first part, so no complains about the bonus material this time! If I have to nitpick something, it’s that the second part talks about several things we saw in the first volume (the license plate, Gus Goose, Bolivar…) so I think it would be better to say something about that in the first part. But it’s not a big deal.

The first volume had really good quality reprints of the strips, and from the credits it sounded like they had tracked down various sources to get the best possible quality. This volume also started with clean and good reprints, but a good deal of the 1942 strips seems to be from a less good source. Here are a few examples comparing the IDW collection (left) to the Norwegian strip collection (right).

From the August 4, 1942 strip

From the August 14, 1942 strip

Book 5 of the Norwegian collection

It might have been difficult to obtain better source material, but I hope they at least tried and not just went with the first complete run they could find. For a collection like this I’d rather wait a few extra months if it means getting better source material, or if restoration work needs to be done. There’s no need to rush these books out on the market.

I have to admit I didn’t read the second volume as thoroughly as the first one. I just went quick through it, so I don’t have that much to say about the strips (maybe there’s not that much to say either). But here are a few notes about some of the strips in volume two.

Hidden names

From the September 24, 1940 strip

The names of a lot of people from the comic department are hidden in the September 24, 1940 strip. Here’s a list of them all (I think)

Daisy Duck
 

First comic appearance of Daisy Duck

The first comic appearance of Daisy Duck is in the November 4, 1940 strip. But we don’t see her name until a few days later (November 7) and her full name the next week (November 13). After that she becomes a regular character in the daily strips.

First time we see the name Daisy in the comics

First time we see the full name Daisy Duck in the comics

National Park poster

The May 19, 1941 strip

The May 19, 1941 strip was later used as a poster (probably) in National Parks. The images under is from an eBay auction, so I don’t know more about it than what you can see on the images. But the sign is changed from "Sequpia Park" (a national park in California) to "National Park", and at the bottom we have the text "U.S. Government Printing Office 1944". If anyone has more knowledge about this poster, please comment below!

National Park poster (image found on eBay)

Details from the poster (image found on eBay)

Wartime

There are a lot of wartime themed gags in this book, not that suprising as the strips are made during World War II. We also get notes with a plea for help inserted into the comic strips, as seen in the examples below.

The same logo/stamp is printed in a lot of 1942 strips. The first one say "You Help Someone You Know, When You Give to USO" and is for the United Service Organizations. The other one has the text "For Victory, Buy United States War Bounds and Stamps"

Halloween ComicFest 2015

Only two/three (depending on timezone) days left until Halloween, and for comic fans that means Halloween ComicFest with free comics! You can check if your local comic shop is participating using the store locator on the Halloween ComicFest homepage, a lot of shops all around the world seems to have joined.

Among the free comics this year is Donald Ducks’s Halloween Scream! from IDW.

Donald Ducks’s Halloween Scream! from IDW

Earlier the free Halloween comics have usually been small in size and with few (typically 16) pages. This year however the Disney one is a 32 page regular sized comic, containing two Halloween stories by William Van Horn.

"Donald Ducks’s Halloween Scream!" compared to earlier giveaways from Gemstone and Fantagraphics.

When the news about new monthly Disney comics came in January this year I expected to see something on Free Comic Book Day (in May) advertising the new run. But that didn’t happen, probably because the comics need to be prepared a long time in advance. "Donald Ducks’s Halloween Scream!" has an ad for Free Comic Book Day 2016, so mark May 7, 2016 in your calendar! Hopefully we get something Disney next year :)

The origin of the Duck Avenger

The true origin story

IDW just published the two-part story The Diabolical Duck Avenger in Donald Duck #5 and #6 (legacy 372 and 373).

Covers of IDW's Donald Duck #5 and #6

This story, originally published in 1969 in Italy, tells the story about how Donald Duck finds Fantomallard’s diary and becomes the Duck Avenger. I’m a bit surprised it took 46 years to get this story published in the USA, in Europe the story is quite famous! The San-Diego comic-con magazine "Disney Comics – 75 Years of Innovation" (2005) even have a page telling that this story is an important milestone in the history of Disney comics.

For me this story is a bit nostalgic. The origin story is also the first story with the Duck Avenger I ever read. My local library had this story in one of the oversized books similar to the American Abbeville books. And I remember I loved the story as a kid and borrowed the book numerous times. So I really enjoyed re-reading the story with American dialogue!

The Norwegian book "Jeg Super-Donald"

I’m not going to do a review of the story itself, I’m sure some other bloggers will do that. But did you notice the cover made a point out of this being the true origin of the Duck Avenger?

The Disney Adventures origin story

Because the story is actually not the first origin story printed in English. The first one was The Secret Origin of the Duck Avenger in the May 2000 issue of Disney Adventures, and with a follow up part in the next issue .

In this origin story the "mad scientist Ludwig von Drake" has been captured by evil alien ducks from the planet Zondar, and needs Donald’s help. In Ludwig’s laboratory Donald find a super-suit and the Duck Avenger is born!

Donald becomes the Duck Avenger, here in a British print of the story

The logo used in this story is the same as IDW now use for the Duck Avenger, and I can’t remember seeing it anywhere else. So that’s probably the source for IDW’s logo.

The PK origin story

"The Secret Origin of…" story in Disney Adventures looks like it is inspired by the Italian PK series of the Duck Avenger, that got a huge fan base in Italy (and the rest of Europe) in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. But the PK origin story didn’t come out until two years after "The Secret Origin of…" , and wasn’t translated to English until 2012. You can find it on comiXology in the first issue of Superduck titled Superhero of the Day

When the Evronians invade the planet, Donald gets recruited in a hurry to be a "Guardian of the Galaxy".

After a signature..

..and a redressing, he is ready for action!

But in this translation as Superduck.

This story is actually a reboot of the PK series. Like every proper superhero series, of course we have a reboot… A similar story introduced the original PK series, but in that story Donald already is the Duck Avenger when he discovers Uno in the tower and starts fighting aliens. So it’s more true to the Duck Avenger canon. I don’t think the original PK introduction is translated to English.

The video game origin story

So we have 3 different origin stories for the Duck Avenger, that should be enough right? Well, there’s actually a 4th in the video game PK: Out of the Shadows! And the PAL version of the game (both the GameCube and PlayStation 2 versions) comes with a comic insert telling this story.

The PAL version of the Play Station 2 game

The story is called Evron Attacks and is pretty much just a short and slightly rewritten version of the "Superhero of the Day" story.

In this story the Duck Avenger is called PK.

The flashback origin story

Gemstone only published two stories with the Duck Avenger. The first one, Crisis (Donald Duck Adventures #14), is not that interesting. It’s just a typical Italian Duck Avenger story with nothing special in it.

From "Crisis" in Donald Duck Adventures #14

But the next one was the closet we had to a (translated) true origin story before IDW finally printed it. The story Legacy (Donald Duck Adventures #18) has a lot of references to “The Diabolical Duck Avenger”, and tells the origin story through flashback scenes.

In this translation the predecessor is called Phantom Duck, and not Fantomallard like in the recent IDW translation of the origin story.

"Legacy" is (kind-of) a sequel and extension to both "The Diabolical Duck Avenger" and the story "Paperinik alla riscossa" which gives more details about the Duck Avenger’s predecessor. I really hope that story is going to be translated and published by IDW too! And to get more insight into the backstory, they should also translate "Paperinik e il tesoro di Dolly Paprika".

Ultraheroes

During the BOOM! run of Disney comics we saw another version of the Duck Avenger. Eega Beeva assembles all Duckburg superheroes to form the group Ultraheroes.

Of course, the Duck Avenger is part of that group, but he used another suit when appearing as part of the Ultraheroes.

A new suit

The Ultraheroes story started in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #699, but from part 5 on it continued in its own title. The entire story was later collected in 3 trade paperbacks.