Disney Comics Around the World in One Hundred Years

Target excluive (left) and Deluxe edition (right)

In September 2023 Fantagraphics published a book called Disney Comics: Around the World in One Hundred Years as a Target (American retail stores) exclusive. And in December last year we got a deluxe edition of same book in regular distribution. I've seen people ask about the differences between the editions, so I'll try to make a quick summary here.

The most obvious difference is the cover color, and that the deluxe edition comics with a slipcase while the Target exclusive does not. The Target edition also has the Disney 100, and "only at Target" logos on the top front. Most Target copies probably also have a 30% sticker on the front, as it was sold at a 30% discount from the start.
 

The Deluxe Edition comes in a slipcase

It's a bit hard to see the size just comparing these two books, but they are huge compared to a regular sized comic book and most other books published by Fantagraphics.

Size compared to some other books from Fantagraphics

Size compared to a regular sized comic book

The book is divided into chapters for each decade starting with 1923-1932, 1933-1942 etc. all the way up to 2013-2022. And every chapter starts with a one-page article about that decade. These articles have been revised and slightly extended for the deluxe edition, sometimes also with different illustrations.

Target exclusive (left), revised article in the Deluxe edition (right)

There's also a total of seven new comic stories added to the deluxe edition:

1923-1932 – no new comic stories
1933-1942 – Donald Duck – The Secret of Mars (18 pages)
1943-1952 – Li'l Bad Wolf – The Practical Pig (8 pages)
1953-1962 – Uncle Scrooge - The Round Money Bin (10 pages)
1963-1972 – no new comic stories
1973-1982 – no new comic stories
1983-1992 – The Great Mouse Detective – Ratigan Strikes Back! (8 pages) (new to the USA)
1993-2002 – Mickey Mouse – A Mouse and His Dog (10 pages)
1993-2002 – Donald Duckling – The Awfullest Day Ever (17 pages) (new to the USA)
1993-2002 – Gyro Gearloose – Forward to the Past (1 page) (new to the USA)
2003-2012 – no new comic stories
2013-2022 – no new comic stories

Overall, I think both editions of the book have a great selection of stories representing the different decades. There's also a variety of different kinds of stories and featured characters. And I would recommend the book both for people not familiar with Disney comics and longtime fans. There are several new-to-the-USA stories inside, and getting comics printed in a large size like this is always a treat!

My personal highlights come at the very end of the book. First, we have Spies Like Us! – one of only two DuckTales '17 stories by Disney Publishing Worldwide that didn't get published in IDW's run of DuckTales comics. I've been wanting to read these two for years, and hope the last one will be published in English too at some point. The other one is the Estrella story by Casty, printed for the first time outside Italy.
 

DuckTales '17 and Casty's Mickey ending the book

While reading the book I couldn't help noticing some nerdy details too.

In the very first article for the 1923-1932 decade, we get to see a rare ad strip for the Mickey Mouse daily strip series. The same one is also printed in the Floyd Gottfredson library vol. 7, but there the text is translated back to English from Italian. In the meantime, a version with the original text has been discovered and I think this book is the first time we have seen a reprint of the original text.
 

First panel of the ad strip - Translated text in the FG library (left) and original text (right)

From the various examples of early comic stories around the world, we get to see a page from the Italian newspaper Il Popolo di Roma. This page has also been reprinted before it the Floyd Gottfredson library, but new this time is the coloring. A rabbit seen as a delivery boy is colored with blue shorts and then looks a lot like Oswald. It's probably not originally intended to be him (maybe inspired by?) but now I like to think it is! The rabbit is just called il fattorino (the delivery boy) in the original text, and baker's boy in the translation.
 

You might notice that it's not a literal translation, but that because the story is written in rhyme. If the blue coloring was intentional chosen to make it Oswald, it's not the first time this kind of thing has happened with the Il Popolo di Roma comics. The first two comic pages had a cat that was probably drawn as or inspired by Felix the Cat, a non-Disney character. But later reprints have turned this cat into the similar looking Disney character Julius the Cat. In the book Mickey and the Gang he was even colored green.
 

Black cat in the original (left) is called Julius and colored green in Mickey and the Gang

Later in the book we have The Crazy Crime Wave, with the same kind of panel layout as Gladstone used in 1986 (only 4 tiers instead of 3). But the cover Daan Jippes drew for that print is now used as a title panel – and I like it!

 

The Crazy Crime Wave in Mickey Mose #224 (left), the book (middle), and the cover of MM #224 (right)

A story I never expected seeing in an American translation is The Captive Fairy's Quest by the Italian team of Martina/Scarpa/Gatto. This story really has some not-for-fainthearted-kids scenes, and is a story of pure madness. I've read it before in fan translation and a heavily cut version in the British Walt Disney's Weekly. But I'm glad more people get to enjoy this story! Compared the British version some scenes are quite different both in coloring and dialogue.

British print (left) and American (right)

British print (top) and American (bottom)

In The Awfullest Day Ever, one of the extra stories for the Deluxe Edition, we get to meet young Donald as Donald Duckling or just Donny living on Grandma's farm. Even Grandma Duck calls him Donny here. One thing to notice in these stories is that they do not take place in Duckburg, but in Quacktown, a rural village outside of Duckburg. I think this is the first time we've seen Quacktown in American comics.

Exploring a Vietnamese comic book

In another attempt to get some life into this blog, I think I'll start with something random! I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before on here, but one of my collecting goals is to have a Disney comic from every country where one is published. And not long ago I finally got to check Vietnam off the list.

Inside and featured on the cover is A Matter of Some Gravity, one of my favorite Don Rosa stories. Published in January 1997 soon after the story was created, no official cover for this series existed – and I guess they had to make one themselves. But looking at the inducks gallery, it looks like they did the same for the rest of the comics in this series too.

From inducks.org

 

So how did they make the cover? Well, it's just art taken from a panel on page 8 of the story, with some background editing.
 

Panels from page 8 of the story, the first one is used as a cover

Not the best editing work I've seen and they should have time traveled to 2014 to get the cover Don Rosa made for this story instead.

Comics from from Fantagraphics, given away on Free Comic Book Day 2014 , promoting the Don Rosa Library

If you look closely, you can see that the two variants of the FCBD comic above actually have the same artwork! It's just rotated.

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Another fun thing with the Vietnamese comic is that it's bi-lingual in both Vietnamese and English. And the way they did it is by numbering all the dialogue and adding the English text at the bottom of the page.
 

Englsh text printed at the bottom of the pages

I expected the English text to be simplified, but it looks like they used the original dialogue here.

Dialogue in Vietnamese

English text from the bottom of the page in the Vietnamese comic

Original American dialogue

But why...

 

Also, if you look closely at the two versions of the first panel above, it looks like they used the Egmont edit in Vietnam, where that panel was slightly cut to make space for editorial text at the bottom of the page. But that wasn't really necessary in this print.

ZiZ the Amazing Electric Bulb-Head Robot

 

Ever heard of the character ZiZ? I hadn't until I read some old British Disney comics, but there the name is used for Gyro's helper. I haven't seen it used anywhere else and guess it was invented for this occasion.

The name is used in a series of text stories in Walt Disney's Weekly, first appearing in, and announced on the cover of #6/1961

Walt Disney's Weekly #6/1961

 Here you can read the full first story:
 

(click to enlarge)

 

If you know your Barks, then you can probably tell that this is an adaptation of the story That Small Feeling.
 

Panel from "That Small Feeling" by Carl Barks

 

And we get similar text stories in the following numbers of Walt Disney's Weekly with the last one in #14/1961.
 

More stories with ZiZ

All comics containing text stories with ZiZ

 

Seeing the name ZiZ in these comics got me wondering if Gyro's helper really has an official name? The robot is usually referred to as Little Helper, but I don't think Carl Barks ever used that as a name – and I'm not sure when it was first used. I tried to do a quick read of some of Barks' Gyro stories and only found the helper referred to as Gyro's helper or just Helper in the comics.

But in a plot idea the name Bulby is used.
 

I think Egmont's official name for the character is Little Helper.

Original art for D 4480, The Missing Screw

And that name was also used as the title character in IDW's Disney's Comics and Stories #754

But is it really a name or just something the robot is referred to as being?

Two Danish Anniversary books

Personally I've always found it a bit weird celebrating an author, celebrity or any other well-known persons birthday. And especially if you keep doing it after they have passed away. But recently we got two different anniversary books published in Denmark – to celebrate two of the best-known Disney comic creators.

First we got Carl Barks 120 år at the end of last year, as it's now 120 years since he was born. Then we got Don Rosa 70 år to celebrate Don Rosa becoming 70 years old this summer.

Both are really nice 400+ page books in hardcover and I got a bit surprised by some the content. So I figured I'd write a few words about them on here.

Let's start with the Carl Barks book. As expected, it mostly has a selection of his Disney comic work, dived into sections like the 40s, 50s etc. Each decade has a newly written introduction article, and there's also a lot of other thematic articles in-between.

Several classics inside

 

From Carl Barks' stories that he didn't draw himself, I was glad to see that this book didn't just focus on the later Jippes versions (like some of the library series do) but instead reprinted an entire story drawn by John Carey and one finished by Tom Anderson and Vicar.
 

Two stories written by Carl Barks, but finished by others

In addition to the Disney comics there are also some content from the Calgary Eye-Opener, story boards for Barks' time in the animation department, oil paintings and a story with Barney Bear and Benny Burro.
 

Some of Barks' non-Disney comic work

 

The book even managed to squeeze in some new material as well. First we got an article about the new panel that was discovered a couple of years ago, and the restored one-pager as first seen in Kalle Anka Extra (check out my blog post about this)

Then we get an article about Pip Squeeks with the same text as in Egmont's Carl Barks Library, but with a lot of (13 images) model sheets that I don't think I've ever seen on print before!
 

 

Over to the Don Rosa book, this one also has a selection of Don Rosa's Disney comics. In addition we get rarities like Return to Duckburg Place (translated to Danish), a few pages with Captain Kentucky (also translated), the unofficial speedskating story, the unfinished Disneyland story and the 2015 tribute story drawn by Marco Rota.
 

There's also a ton of bonus material in this book. The most notable and also never before seen on print includes:

* A 12-page long birthday interview with lots of private photos.

A new long interview

* A 12-page long fax document with figurine sketches by Don Rosa, reprinted in full-page size.

A couple of pages from a 12-page fax with sketches

* 12 pages with fan drawings in full-page size

Two fan drawings

* Sketches for the entire story "Attaaaaaack!"

Sketches for "Attaaaaaack!", reprinted in its entirety for the first time

I didn't expect this much new bonus material in the book! It really is a worthy anniversary book with a lot of editorial work behind. If you can read Danish, I highly recommend both this one and the Carl Barks book!

Recent "off-model" Disney comics

Disney comics has traditionally been drawn in a very similar style by different artists by using model sheets or trying to mimic the style of others before them. Italy have their Disney Academy and Egmont also have a kind of mentor program for new artists. But this year (2021) we have seen several examples of very off-model comics compared to what we are used to!

First we got Mickey All-Stars from Fantagraphics – originally made for the French publisher Glénat, just like Mickey's Craziest Adventures and A Mysterious Melody (but they were published in English by IDW)

 

Two other books from Glénat, published in English by IDW

The book was originally created to celebrate Mickey's 90th anniversary in 2019, but didn't get an English translation until this year. The whole book has an interesting concept where 47 different artists made one page each, but together they form a long story. With the exception of the very first and last page the other pages doesn't really have much to do with each other story vise, and can be read as single one-pagers. But every page starts and ends with Mickey entering a door to a new place.

All the different artist uses their own style and it's fun to just flip through the book and look at the different styles and drawing techniques used. Some of the pages have a fun gag while others just have "things happening" without much of a story.



 

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Doorways to Danger was published by IDW this summer, and it looks like that will be the last Disney comic from this publisher.

This is a 92 page (if I counted correct) long adventure story with both Donald and Micky with friends participating in a tv-show.
 

If you get used to the art style it's a decent story and got me immersed. But personally, I can't say I'm much of a fan of this style.

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At the end of the year we got the first two volumes of a new Minni Mouse series, with a 3rd volume planned for next year. [edit: looks like the 3rd got cancelled]
 

These are published by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic and probably targeted at someone a little bit younger than me 😊  
 

They really went for the big-eyes=cute look here!

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We also got two books titled Duckscares, under the Disney Spookyzone logo this year. They are not comic books but is illustrated with Huey, Dewey and Louie in a very off-model style, so I figured I include a few examples from this series too.