Friday, December 17, 2021

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First we got Mickey All-Stars from Fantagraphics – originally made for the French publisher Glénat, just like Mickey's Craziest Adventures and A Mysterious Melody (but they were published in English by IDW)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




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