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| Fantagraphics' Uncle Scrooge #1, all cover variants |
When IDW stopped publishing Disney comics five years ago, I wondered if we would ever see a continuation of the "core four" series again. That being Walt Disney's Comics & Stories, Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. And I must admit I didn't really think that would ever happen… But here we are with Uncle Scrooge #1 (legacy #461) from Fantagraphics in stores, and with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck joining the party in the coming months!
While having their own numbering starting with #1, they will also continue the legacy numbering the same way as IDW did. So, while the last Scrooge issue from IDW had the number 56 (460) the new one is now 1 (461). And both numbers are printed on the cover even if the legacy number is printed really small.
The first issue of Uncle Scrooge is published in four different cover variants, with the A, B and C variants in regular sale and the D variant being a 1:10 incentive variant. This means the comic store has to order 10 copies of any of the other variants to get one of these. Usually, those variants are sold for a bit more than the cover price if you buy them online, but if you make a deal with your local comic shop you can probably get them for the same price. While the regular variants have ads on the back, the D variant is a wraparound cover going on both sides. Other than that, the inside content is identical.
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| Back cover for all 4 variants |
In total including the covers the comic book has 44 pages with 40 of those being used for the comic story! Not many other publishers can beat that! Usually, we get a lot of ads or preview pages for other comic books inside.
And speaking of other publishers – with the new Scrooge comic from Fantagraphics we now have the strange situation of having two different series of American Uncle Scrooge comics in the store at the same time – from two different publishers! The other one is the Earth's Mightiest Duck mini-series from Marvel. This might be a bit confusing for some, especially as they have almost identical logos (if you look closely there are some minor differences). But the two series are two different things, just sharing the same title character.
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| First two issues of Marvel's Uncle Scrooge: Earth's Mightiest Duck |
To kick off this new series from Fantagraphics we get the first part of Flintheart Glomgold's Sinister Secret!, with two more parts to go. I think it was a good idea to start with a short series to hopefully get new readers to buy the following issues too. But not too long to discourage anyone from following it. Ex. The Search for the Zodiac Stone! that ran in 12 parts from WDC&S #721 to #732 might be a bit too long for these comic books ["the core four"].
If you have been following Disney comics from IDW and Fantagraphis the last decade, Flintheart Glomgold's Sinister Secret also feels like a natural story to publish. One thing IDW was great at, and Fantagraphics with their Disney Masters series as well, was to lay the groundwork for future stories by printing first appearances and other key stories that other stories are based upon. But I felt we missed out on the big payoff with this strategy when IDW stopped publishing Disney comics. Well, Flintheart Glomgold's Sinister Secret is one of these payoff stories so to speak. It has references to and builds upon several other stories.
First, we have Shellfish Motives (last printed in IDW's Donald Duck: Timeless Tales 1), with the first appearance of Gideon and the first time American readers got to see The County Conscience.
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| The County Conscience office building |
The story is not a direct sequel to, but could also be seen as a follow up to Scrooge's Last Adventure by the same creator team (last printed in IDW's Uncle Scrooge: Timeless Tales 3). That story got a lot of hype when it came out in Italy as Flinthead Glomgold was a previously rarely used character in Italian comics. And he still was at the time Flintheart Glomgold's Sinister Secret! was created too.
Then we have The Unsinkable Kildare Coot! in last year's Disney Masters #23, with the first appearance of Kildare.
And at last, the story has several references to The Second-Richest Duck by Carl Barks (Fantagraphics' Carl Barks Library #16).
All these are stories I recommend as a warm up before reading Flintheart Glomgold's Sinister Secret! But of course, they are not needed to understand and enjoy the story on its own.
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| Recommended warmup reading |
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Nerdy details? Of course there are!
If you looked closely at some of the images above, you can see that there is a cameo appearance of Jiminy Cricket on top of The County Conscience office building and behind Kildare inside the office. So it seems he is some kind of mascot figure of the newspaper. We saw this in Shellfish Motives too.
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| Panel from Shellfish Motives with Gideon on the right and Jiminy Cricket as a statue. |
As Jiminy was Pinocchio's conscience in the animated movie, this makes sense. And the original Italian name for the newspaper also was Il Grillo Parlante which translated means "the talking cricket".
In the first part of Flintheart Glomgold's Sinister Secret! we don't actually get to see Scrooge's brother Gideon – he is just mentioned. Earlier it has been hinted that he is younger than Scrooge, and we got this confirmed in this story.
But in the Crosstalk editorial text in the beginning, we also get to know that Gideon was born after Scrooge went to America! I don't think this fact has ever been stated in any stories before, but could act as an explanation for why he is missing in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and such.
The following panel from the story however kind of suggest that they lived together as kids.
Another interesting detail in the story is this description of Huey, Dewey and Louie.
I can't remember that they have been described this way in any classic comic stories before – but this is exactly how they are described in Quack Pack!
