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.

#DuckRock – music inspired by Disney ducks

Next month a Norwegian rock group called StarratS of UfotofU will release the digital album "#DuckRock – a Tribute to Duck Artists anywhere…". As the title suggest, the music is inspired by Disney comics, and several characters like Scrooge, Donald, Gyro and even Moby Duck get their own song! Some of the songs with lyrics can be checked out on their project webpage.

For more information there’s also an interview on the Norwegian comic page Serienett. But it's written in New Norwegian, a variant of Norwegian so google translate have some trouble translating part of it.

Looking at the first promo art, it’s clearly inspired by Don Rosa.

Promo art for #DuckRock

We can see the same polar light and skyline used in several of Rosa’s covers and the opening panel of "Hearts of the Yukon". We can also see Castle McDuck, as we know from Barks' "The Old Castle's Secret" but also from Don Rosa stories like "A Letter from Home".

Opening panels for Don Rosa's "A Letter from Home" and "Hearts of the Yukon"

The same background scenery was also used on Tuomas Holopainen’s album "Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge". I’m not sure if that is just a coincident or if StarratS of UfotofU also is inspired by Holopainen’s album.

Cover for Tuomas Holopainen’s album "Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge"

Then we have the release party poster that is a reference to the first issue of the Norwegian weekly Donald Duck comic.

#DuckRock release poster and the cover of Donald Duck & Co 1/1948

For more "eye candy" (as they call it) check out the page I linked to earlier :)

IDW’s Mickey Mouse logo

It’s time for a random blogpost. A comment on my last post made me pull out Mickey Mouse #292 from the archive (aka. comic collection). Sooo what does MM #292 and MM #310 have in common?
 

Mickey Mouse #292 and Mickey Mouse #310

#310 is the first issue of IDW’s Mickey Mouse run, and also the first time the current Mickey Mouse logo was used on the cover. But it’s not the first time it is used in the comics! Inside #292 the logo is used for the story "The Incredible Black Comet".
 

Inside Mickey Mouse #292

I might be completely wrong about this [just a little, check the comments], but I believe this is the first time it is used as a comic story/comic issue logo. But originally the logo is way older. It’s taken from a 1928 poster, and the logo is (kind of) a compressed version of the opening screen on the very first Mickey cartoons.

January 2016 issues from IDW

January 2016 issues from IDW

I might be a bit late with this post, but my local comic shop hasn’t received this week’s new Disney comics yet. So here are some quick comments on last month’s issues instead.

Uncle Scrooge #10 (414)

I’ve read everything in this issue before, so to me it was a boring start of this year’s IDW comics. But for those who haven’t there’s a lot to enjoy! The main story is an old weird Italian story drawn by Romano Scarpa. I like that IDW bring new life to these oldies, and even if the plot often make no sense or just is a sequence of crazy events they are fun to read. "The Eternal Knot" is also a good example of how Scarpa bring motion and action to every panel, there’s no "wooden" characters just standing there talking in this story!

As usual when I have another copy of a story, I like to do a quick comparison. And it looks like IDW did another silly gunfire censoring in this story. In my Norwegian copy we can see a lot of bullets flying when the hermit fire his blunderbuss. They are removed in the IDW print.

But you can clearly see the hats are filled with bullet holes later.

I wonder if this issue of Uncle Scrooge originally was intended for February but for some reason moved. "The Eternal Knot" is a love story and we also get another Beagle Boys love story later in the comic. And the Crosstalk article even mention Valentine’s Day when t talking about the issue, but Valentine’s Day isn’t until mid-February...

Donald Duck #9 (376)

This was my most anticipated issue in January. I’ve been wanting to read the first Zantaf story for a long time, but it hasn’t been printed in a language I can understand until now.

"Tycoonraker" is also the second "McDuck Intelligence Agency" (MIA) story, so to get the most out of the story I would recommend to also read "Moldfinger or The Spy Who Ducked-Out On Me". It’s printed in Boom!’s first (and only) volume of "Donald Duck Classics". The book was really overpriced in my opinion, but you might be able to find a used one.

I expected more of an origin story of Zantaf, but he is just introduced as another mad scientist without much background information. So I guess I liked the story more as the second MIA story than the first Zantaf story. But now that we got introduced to the character I hope we get to see him again.

Mickey Mouse #8 (317)

"The Chirikawa Necklace" is a real Mickey mystery story, and a favorite of mine. It’s highly recommended! This story also features three (later recurring) characters of Scarpa’s creation. We have the first appearance of both Aunt Melinda and Pete’s girlfriend Trudy in addition to Atomo.

But I think the name Doctor Proctor must be added by the translator. Proctor was a regular character in the Mickey newspaper strips, but not used at the time this story was created I believe.

Proctor in "The Chirikawa Necklace" and in the daily strips

We also got the Super-Goof story "Polar Opposition!" in Mickey Mouse #8. I’ve read this one before too, but now I got to see the first page! That page was cut when the story was printed in Norway, while the original page 2 was reorganized to be the first page.

The Norwegian print comared to page 2 in IDW's print

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #727

WDC #727 features chapter 7 of "The Search for the Zodiac Stone", with Goofy’s French double. But did you know the cover originally was intended to be even more evil looking than it is? Andrea Freccero posted a sketch for the cover on his blog in October last year. And compared to the final cover we can see the saw was removed.

Sketch and final cover by Andrea Freccero (sketch from Freccero's blog)

Changes to the monthly IDW titles

"Pirates of the Caribbean" cover variants

Last week we got three of the four monthly IDW titles published on the same day. They all have a design change compared to earlier issues, where the IDW logo is smaller while the issue number is larger. This change is not just for the Disney titles though, but for all IDW comics.

Logo and issue number on Mickey Mouse #7 and #8

Another change this month is that IDW stopped making the 1 of 25 retailer incentive variants. Instead the themed covers are now used as the subscription cover. This is good news, because now I can actually get the themed covers, like the Pirates of the Caribbean covers seen in the picture above! My local comic shop would never be able to sell 25 copies of a single Disney comic, so they can’t even get the 1/25 variants. And trying to get them on eBay or online comic shops is impossible without spending the entire comic budget on one single issue. So I’m glad they stopped making those.

But for those wanting more variants; don’t worry. In April IDW has an "art appreciation month", and one of the comics getting a special cover variant to celebrate that is Donald Duck #12 (yes I know the pre-release cover is numbered #11, but I believe that is an error). And I’m sure we’ll see some convention covers or other exclusive covers later too.

Donald Duck #12 - Art Appreciation cover (pre-release image)

The Floyd Gottfredson Library volume 7 & 8

I like to get the box sets of the Floyd Gottfredson Library from Fantagraphics, and usually I get them in the mail right before Christmas. This year however I didn’t get them until after I got home from the holiday vacation, so I still haven’t found the time to read all of it. But from what I’ve read so far I have just one thing to say; you need to get these books now!
 
The 4th box set collects all the daily Mickey strips from May 1942 to July 1946, and as usual the books are packed with articles and bonus material.
 
The highlight from what I’ve read so far are the rare gag-a-day strips made for British newspapers. I had no idea they even existed! As the British newspapers ran the daily strips seven days a week instead of 6 days a week, 11 filler strips were made. They re-used art from previous adventure strips to make new gag stories, and it’s a lot of fun trying to compare the art.
 
Here is one example. The following two panels are from the British filler strip, published July 13, 1930.

 

The art is from 3 different panels in "Mickey Mouse In Death Valley” (found in Floyd Gottfredson library vol.1)

Among all the goodies in this box set is an "Appreciation by Casty" article.  The article is illustrated with two great covers made for the Norwegian "Mikke Mus & Langbein" ("Mickey Mouse & Goofy") Christmas comics.

 

But the cover for "The Black Crow Mystery" printed in the book is actually not the version used in Norway! As you can see on the picture of the two comics in question, in the published cover the crow holds a club, while in the illustration used in the book he has a bomb instead.

 

Norwegian Christmas comics with Casty covers

I might come back to this box set in a future blogpost. But I’ll end this one with a side note.

There’s also an "Appreciation by Cavazzano" article in volume 8, illustrated with a cover drawing from Topolino.

But did you know that this cover was almost used for an American comic too? The planned but canceled Walt Disney’s Comics #720 from Boom! was supposed to have the cover and the story "Topolino e il surreale viaggio nel destino" (featuring Walt Disney and Salvador Dali). According to the article the English title is "The Persistence of Mickey", but as far as I know no English translation has been published yet. If any archival editors (hint hint) read this, I hope we get to see it some day!

Planned but canceled issue of Walt Disney's Comics

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"