Duck the Halls: A Mickey Mouse Christmas Special

After a little break (about half a year now) from the animated Mickey Mouse series, we got a Christmas special earlier this month. Originally intended to be a short episode in the main series [Huffington Post interview] this episode was instead developed as an extended 21 minute special. I haven’t heard any official confirmations about a new season of shorts, but they are working on another Halloween special for an October 2017 release.

In this special episode we learn that Disney ducks also migrates south to warmer climate during the winter. When Mickey, Goofy and Minnie starts to prepare for Christmas, Donald decides to stay with them to experience the holidays – leaving Daisy to travel south by herself. One interesting thing to note is that Huey, Dewey and Louie are not together with Donald when they are about to travel – instead they are already present down south with Uncle Scrooge when Daisy arrive.
 

Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Daisy and Ludwig taking a bath

Also present down south is Gus Goose. I think this is the first time we’ve seen him in the new Mickey Mouse series. His character design looks closer to the "classic" look seen in old animation and in the comics than the rest of the gang.

Gus Goose

There are a lot of other interesting things to note in this special too. We get a flashback scene with Mickey as a kid and Pluto as a pup.
 

Mickey as a kid and Pluto as a pup

We also see the house Mickey lived in as a kid, with a silhouette of Mickey’s parents.

We don’t get to see their faces, but we see them again as a silhouette together with the rest of the family.
 

Mickey's family

And we also get the names of some (to now) unknown family members.

Mickey's family (click to enlarge)

If you’ve seen Stanley Kubrick's movie The Shining you might recognize the twins.
 

The Twins

There are also several references to old Disney cartoons. The horses in Duck the Halls are modeled after the horses in Once Upon a Wintertime (1948/1954)

The toy soldiers are modeled after the ones in Babes in Toyland (1961).
 

Santa Claus looks like he’s modeled after the Santa in Santa’s Workshop (1932).
 

And there's a cameo appearance of Bambi and Thumper on the ice, a reference to the ice skating sequence in the Bambi movie (1942).
 

We also see Mickey and Donald on the ice, a scene that is not directly referring to, but might be inspired by the 1935 short On Ice
 

And is this a Darkwing Duck reference??
 

Anyone spotted any interesting references I missed?

Mickey's debut in the Derby Daily Telegraph

From the Derby Daily Telegraph, March 17, 1930

The first daily strip serial with Mickey Mouse started March 17, 1930 in the British Derby Daily Telegraph. Only two months after the first American print, it might be one of the first British newspapers to have the Mickey strips.

Before the first comic strip, the newspaper was advertising the adventures of Mickey and his wife Minnie for more than a week.

From the Derby Daily Telegraph, March 8, 1930

In the same newspaper as the first strip, they also got a little bonus comic on the last page. Probably made by a local illustrator they got the adventures of Mickey Taxed, "with apologies to the creator of Mickey Mouse". I'm not sure if the caricature comic is referring to a recent event or just generally to the Great Depression and economic situation at the time. But the person on the last panel is probably a caricature of a politician (didn't manage to find out who).
 

From the Derby Daily Telegraph, March 17, 1930

Duck Avenger #2 from IDW

Duck Avenger #2 - all cover variants

This month we got the 3rd issue of Duck Avenger, or #2 as the cover say (the first issue was #0).

After getting to know the time travelling villain Red Raider in last issue, the Evronians are now back again!
 

From IDW's Duck Avenger #0 and #2

And if you read issue #0 you might remember the short intro taking place on another planet, ending with the silhouette of an unknown person. We get the continuation of this backstory in #2, and get to know who this person is.
 

Yeowch!

The story in issue #2 is mostly just introducing Xadhoom. After a bit of a bumpy start, the Duck Avenger and Xadhoom soon find out they have a common interest.
 

Xadhoom and Duck Avenger

Having read ahead in this series, I know this is not the last we have seen of her – and the story about her people is far from over. There are some really great storylines with Xadhoom to look forward to, so this month's story is just the start.

Mickey's Craziest Adventures

When I first heard about the French publisher Glénat's project to publish Disney albums with local artists, I didn't think I'd ever see an English translation! So out of curiously I almost got the French albums this spring. But when IDW announced at Emerald City Comic Con that they were doing the series too, I figured I'd wait for an edition I could actually read. Well, now the wait is over and I finally got hold of a copy.

 

I knew the book was going to be in hardcover an a bit larger than usual comics – but when I got it in my hands it was a lot larger than I expected! The comics are also printed on thick paper and the production quality is really great!

Here is a size comparison to the last issue of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories:

Mickey's Craziest Adventures is not just a comic adventure story; there is a "story" behind the story too. The intro tells how comic writer Lewis Trondheim and artist Nicolas Keramidas found an incomplete set of the forgotten comic series Walt Disney's Comics and Stories: Mickey's Quest at a garage sale.
 

The cover of two "discovered" comics from the 60's

Wanting to share the rare serial Mickey's Caziest Adventures "Lewis worked hard to adapt the humor of these masterpieces as best he could" while Keramidas made a new cover. And the actually story is supposedly facsimile copies from the discovered comics (of course it's not – the entire story is written by Lewis and drawn by Keramidas). I thought this was a fun and creative way of making a story, but the part about Lewis adapting the story sounds a bit silly for this edition. As it's a translation from French with American dialogue – that wouldn't have been necessary if the French dialogue adaptation (by Lewis) was from discovered comics in English…

As the "discovered" run of comics was incomplete, we do get time gaps in the story, and part of the story is missing. The story starts with Chapter 2, 4, 7, 8, 10 etc. while the in-between parts are "lost".  But the story works fine without those parts. Each page is also its own gag page even if all are parts of the same adventure story.
 

To get an old feel of the story, elements from old real comics are used. If you look at the Mickey's Quest covers, the Mickey part is taken from an old Mickey logo found on Gold Key comics. The "Comics and Stories" text is also from Gold Key comics, while "Tan Elg" looks like one one of the Dell logo variants. And the header on each comic page reminds me of the ones we used to see in the British Mickey Mouse Weekly.

 

Similar logo title in Mickey's Craziest Adventures and Mickey Mouse Weekly

To get an old feel the coloring is also done with lots of dots, probably to imitate the four color printing technique used in the 60's. But here I think they went a bit overboard. A real four color offset printing would look like upper part of the image below, not completely covered with dots everywhere.

But it's not a big deal; I like the overall look and feel of the coloring. And it probably works a lot better on thick matte paper like used in this book than the glossy paper used in the monthly IDW comics, so I'm glad they decided to go with that.

I enjoyed this book a lot, so it's definitively something I'd recommend checking out. Yes, the characters are drawn off model and the art is different than anything we are used to in classic Disney comics. But that is to be expected in this series. I'm already looking forward to Mysterious Melody, the next book in the series – and I hope IDW will continue with more. So far 4 albums are published in France.

November 2016 comics from IDW

November 2016 comics from IDW

We got a lot of great stories in the November issues from IDW! Here is a quick summary of what we got with some notes.

Donald Duck #18 (385)

IDW's Donald Duck #18 - all cover variants

Originally scheduled for October, but it didn't get on sale until November 9. Inside the issue Donald and Fethry get a new assignment from the Tamers of Nonhuman Threat. Loosely based on a 1943 cover by Walt Kelly, the 8th TNT story takes us back in time to England. And the nonhuman threat this time is none other than the Gremlins.

We've got three TNT stories so far after IDW started publishing Disney comics, and there are still threats to be dealt with (stories that have been published in Europe). So I don't think we have seen the last of TNT in IDW's Donald Duck.

For more Gremlins I recommend the mini-series Return of the Gremlins published by Dark Horse. In addition to a new serial they also include the early Walt Kelly stories with the Gremlins from Walt Disney's Comics & Stories. And for more information about this series and the backstory about Disney Gremlins, check out this great article over at Mouseplanet.
 

"Return of the Gremlins" published by Dark Horse

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #735

IDW's Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #735 - all cover variants

This issue of WDC&S is a bit different from the other's we have seen from IDW. So far we've had one long story taking up most of the pages, and then some shorter backup stories. But #735 got a collection of "10-pagers" instead (that is 10+10+12+7 pages).

It the first one, Gladstone and Disraeli, we get to meet Gladstone's cousin Disraeli Duck, who has a completely different approach to get everything he wants. But can he rival Gladstone? The character might be named after Benjamin Disraeli, a British Prime Minister whos biggest rival was William Gladstone.
 

Disraeli, Gladstone and Donald

And apparently Disraeli is from the "wrong" side of the family.
 

Then we got another story with Butch the reformed crook. Last year (in IDW's Mickey Mouse #3) we saw Professor Ecks and Doublex having trouble staying reformed. Can Butch do better?

In You Vindaloo, You Lose a Few Donald is trying to make the hottest curry dish in history.
 

Finally we got a rare treat at the end of the issue. Bringing Home the Bacon (named for this print) is the second daily strip serial with Scamp, originally published in the newspapers in 1955.
 

Uncle Scrooge #20 (424)

IDW's Uncle Scrooge #20 - all cover variants

Tyrant of the Tides, the main story in this issue takes us on adventure where Scrooge is trying to find the wreck of Napoelon's "Nautilus".

19th century drawing from Wikipedia and the same blueprint in the story

The story was originally printed in the Italian Topolino #3000, where most stories had something to do with the number 3000. I guess "3000 Leagues under the Sea" is the reference in this story.

And that huge sea monster you see on the cover (and in the story) looks very similar to the one making trouble for another Nautilus...
 

***

We also got Astray for a Day as a backup story. It's another story with Rumpus as the lead character (we got one in IDW's Uncle Scrooge #15 too). This time he is trying to cure his sleep walking.

Yoicks!

Mickey Mouse #14 (323)

IDW's Mickey Mouse #14 - all cover variants

Dark Mines of the Phantom Metal is the 4th story in Casty's series of stories with Eurasia Toft. All stories are standalone stories taking place at different times and on different locations, but we do get hints about what to come and references to what have happened before. So they all seem to be connected somehow to a larger storyline. All but the first story also ends with a new mystery and "that's a story for another time".

 

As Dark Mines of the Phantom Metal starts with a panel showing Atlantis in the horizon, I thought we were going to get some answers to the mystery around this legendary city. We do get a great story this time too, but we still (at least I do) ends up with more questions than answers about Atlantis.
 

It's been 7 months since we got the last story in IDW's Mickey Mouse #10 & 11. So the wait hasn't been that long. But The Shadow of the Colossus was originally published in 2005 and Dark Mines of the Phantom Metal in 2011, so European readers had to wait a long time for the continuation! And it seems the French publishers got tired of waiting...  In Le Journal de Mickey #2923 they published their own story with Eurasia Toft where she teams up with Minnie to actually discover Atlantis!
 

Le Journal de Mickey #2923

Unlike Scrooge, Donald knows how to handle some tentacles...

I got curious about this story, so I got a copy this summer even if I can't read French. The story seems to be part of a series of stories with Mickey and Eega Beeva traveling in a space ship, and in this story they spy on Minnie and Eurasia using a monitor – watching the adventure unfold.

As Minnie and Eurasia seems to discover Atlantis in this story I guess it will have to be looked on outside the Casty canon – or I suspect we will have some real consistency issues later.
 

The island in the French story looks a lot like an island in the next Casty-story btw.

Island from "Minnie à travers les profounders" and "Topolino e il raggio di Atlantide"

That's probably just a coincident, but I haven't read the next story yet – just saw a few preview pages online. I hope IDW doesn't wait too long to publish the new one. I'm really curious and excited about what comes next!

In addition to the Eurasia story, we also have a one-pager drawn by Dick Moores. Comparing the logo and style to other Goofy-stories from the early 50's I think this story must have been intended for one of the first Mickey Mouse issues (as its own series) or one of the Mickey or Goofy titles in Dell's Four Color/One shots series. But the IDW print is the first known American print of this story! We've had other stories like this, like a Barks one-pager intended for Uncle Scrooge #19 – but cut to make space for subscription ads. It would have been interesting to know where the Goofy story original was intended to be printed, and why it wasn't used. Maybe the reason is that the joke is so dumb the editors rejected the entire page... (I'm not sure if I got the joke)

 

Donald Quest #1

IDW's Donald Quest #1 - all cover variants

Set in the alternate universe of Feudarnia, Donald Quest is a new fantasy serial taking place on floating islands in space. The small rocks they are living on are too small to have own gravity or atmosphere, but maybe they have minerals like the "Hallelujah Mountains" in the movie Avatar and are floating in a magnetic vortex. Or maybe normal physics doesn't apply in the world of Feudarnia? Who knows?
 

Floating islands

In the story we have meteorbeasts, beastbusters trying to catch them and busterbots to help doing that.

Meteorbeast, Beastbuster and Busterbot

With villains attacking, heroes appearing and Donald trying to get out of his debts, everything is set for both action and adventures. And that's as much as I want to say about the plot to not spoil anything :)
 

I have to admit I'm usually a bit skeptical to duck and mice stories where the characters are not themselves. That is any literature parody story or alternate universe stories like Donald Quest. So to sell me on such stories they have to have really great artwork and be visually appealing. Donald Quest definitively gets a "check" on that part! And the story is fun and interesting too. So I'm looking forward to reading the next chapters in this saga.