Disney Princess from Joe Books

The first issue of Disney Princess from Joe Books came out this week. All artwork is by Amy Mebberson, while writing is done Amy, Georgia Ball and Geoffrey Golden.

I’ve been curious about this project for quite a while now. We got the first look at some strips back in 2014; then planned to be a series of digital comic strips and a subscription service.

Strips planned for a digital subscription service - Images from bleedingcool

That plan was never realized and instead we now got this printed comic book with strip stories. None of the early preview strips with characters from Frozen, Wreck-It Ralph and Lilo and Stitch are included in the first comic book, so it seems the project was changed to be princesses only too. I don’t think Elsa (and Anna) have joined the official lineup of Disney Princesses yet, but maybe we’ll see the above strips under another title in the future.

As I’ve already said a few times now, the comics in this series are comic strips like the ones we use to see in the newspapers, and not the regular type of comic book stories. Each strip has its own gag, but some also make small story arcs together.
 

Inside Disney Princess #1

As seen on the image above, the first issue started with two single strips from Snow White and The Little Mermaid. Then the next two are the first strips in a 6-part story arc with Aurora and her fairies.

Also, you can see the strips are printed sideways with two on each page. We got a total of 22 pages with comic strips like this in the first issue, while the rest (11 pages including the back cover) is a preview for an upcoming Zootopia cinestory book. I really hate these kinds of previews, it’s basically 11 pages of ads for just one publication and not what I intended to buy… I hope they don’t do it again. But even if they wasted 11 pages of the comic, $2.99 is not that bad a price. Still, IDW’s Disney comics (at $3.99) will give you a lot more comics for your money compared to this one.
 

Back cover and Zootopia cinestory preview

If you have followed American Disney comics during the BOOM! run and now IDW you might have seen work by Amy before. She’s done a lot of covers (like the Oswald one in my last blogpost) and also stories based on Disney•Pixar movies and the Muppets. Her best known work however is probably the popular series of Pocket Princesses. But while Disney Prinsess from Joe Books is an official licensed comic, Pocket Princesses is a fancomic. Both the humor and drawing style are very much alike though, so if you love Pocket Princesses you’ll probably like the new comic book too!

But there are also a lot of differences between the two. In Pocket Princesses they are all one happy gang hanging out together, and rarely interacts with anyone else than other princesses. In the official comic strips however each "universe" is separated from the others, so you won’t find Merida and Rapunzel discussing their morning hair or something like that. Instead all other characters from the movies are used to interact with, and I like the clever way they are used a lot! Even if the princesses can be a lot dorkier than in the movies (especially the older ones) they still remain the same personalities as in the movies, and don’t just do something randomly funny but things you’d actually expect them to do. And the same goes for the supporting characters. Gaston is still a douche, Scuttle still pretends to know everything about human objects, and the Three Good Fairies makes a mess out of baking and sewing. So the comics will be a lot more fun if you have seen the movies (but who hasn’t?)

The character design is also a bit different from the movies. In a short interview in the December Previews catalog, Amy said Disney had approved her design to be a "cuter, more comedic “chibi” style". It’s not totally chibi like Disney Cuties or a manga style like Kilala Princess, but expect large heads and big eyes :) The princesses still looks very much like themselves, so being a bit "off model" to be cuter is fine by me.

I tried doing a comparison with the movies (left), the comic adaptation of the movie (middle) and the new style in the comic strips (right).

In Europe we’ve had an ongoing Disney Princess magazines for more than 10 years. But the stories in those are dumbed down, the princesses all live in a perfect world and if you’re not a pre-teen girl you’d probably not find anything interesting inside. The new series from Joe Books can’t be compared to those magazines at all! The humor worked fine on me, so I think both adults and kids can enjoy the comic strips in the new series. I’m going to get the next issue too!

The future of the series:


Some notes on what to expect from this series:

• 3 more issues have already been announced in Diamond’s Previews catalog. Order codes: JAN161536, FEB161608, MAR161538. So it seems they are planning to release a new issue each month.
• According to a tweet by Amy, 8 issues are planned.  
• Also, according to another tweet the comics are going to be available digitally too. I know some comics by Joe Books are available on iTunes in the same category as other Disney comics. But hopefully they’ll end up on comiXology too; that I think is a better platform for buying digital comics. 
• The website inside the magic got an exclusive preview and ended the article with "[...]the comic will feature new stories starring all eleven Disney Princesses. Further titles will include “Frozen,” “Finding Dory,” “Star vs. the Forces of Evil,” and “Harvey Girls." What this really means I have no idea, my impression was that all issues were going to be under the Disney Prinsess title.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in "Just Like Magic"

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in "Just Like Magic"

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #726 had something very special. For the first time in its 75 year history the comic features Oswald the Lucky Rabbit! Not just on the cover by Amy Mebberson, but also in a story written by David Gerstein and drawn by animator Mark Kausler.

The character was created for a series of short cartoons produced by Walt Disney Studios in 1927 and 1928, but the rights belonged to Universal pictures. When Disney stopped creating Oswald cartoons others continued and the character went through several redesigns over the years. In 2006 as part of a trade Disney finally got the rights to the Oswald character as well as the rights to the old cartoons produced by Walt Disney Studios.

Well, that’s the short story. So in Disney’s entire comic book history, up to 2006 they never had the rights to the character they once created and no Oswald comics under the Disney logo were created. After 2006 we’ve seen a few stories based on the Epic Mickey video game, but "Just Like Magic" is the first (and so far only) comic story created in Oswald’s old animation style.

The story didn’t get printed in English until this Christmas, but it’s actually 5 years since its first printing. The story was created for a Norwegian Christmas comic in 2011, where David also has been the editor since the start of the series in 2001.
 

Cover of IDW's WDCS #726 and the Norwegian "Walt Disney's Julehefte 2011"

"Just Like Magic" in different layouts

As you can see on the image above, the story was originally created for a 3-tier landscape layout, the traditional format for Norwegian Christmas comics. But a later 4-tier printing was probably thought of when creating the story, because the panels can easily be rearranged to this format without having to cut or extend anything. That is, until you get to the end. Then you’ll be one panel short and that’s why it looks like this in WDC #726:
 

Panel from WDCS #726

To get the panel a bit wider with less white space on the sides the panel has been slightly enlarged and the bottom trimmed a bit compared to the Norwegian print. But that’s the only alteration of the art I could spot comparing the two prints.
 

Panel from "Walt Disney's Julehefte 2011"

As I said earlier "Just Like Magic" is drawn in the same style as the old cartoons. When I first saw this story in 2011 I thought it was a bit strange looking, but that’s probably because this was right in the middle of the popularity of the Epic Mickey game, and I had gotten used to the new modern design. I didn’t think the same when re-reading it in English, I actually like the style! If I remember correctly I had also just read the comic adaptation of Epic Mickey when getting the Christmas comic, so I had that to compare to. It was only available digitally (still not printed in English I think) and I had to borrow someone’s Apple device to get to buy it through iTunes… Now you can get it more easily on comiXology, and it’s also printed in some countries.

Cover for the digialt edition of "Epic Mickey - The Graphic Novel"

Oswald and Ortensia in the Epic Mickey Grapich Novel

As you can see, Oswald and Ortensia had a more modern design in the graphic novel. Here’s a screencap from "Oh What a Knight", where the characters looks more similar to the ones in "Just Like Magic".
 

From "Oh What a Kight" (1928)

A rare appearance of Ortensia’s father in "Rival Romeos":
 

From "Rival Romeos" (1928)

If you missed out on WDCS #726, you can also find "Just Like Magic" in the trade paperback with the unusual long title "Donald and Mickey The Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories 75th Anniversary Collection" (puh..). The trade paperback has a gallery of covers at the end too, but for some reason the Oswald one is not included.

"Kite Weather" in The Carl Barks Fan Club Pictorial volume 9

The Carl Barks Fan Club Pictorial vol.9

I got The Carl Barks Fan Club Pictorial vol.9 in the mail today. For those unfamiliar with this publication it's a fanzine (I think I would call it that) mainly about Carl Barks' work, but with some other Disney-related articles too. It’s published by Event Horizon Press for the Carl Barks Fan Club, but you don’t need to be a member of the fan club to get these. They are published using Amazon’s CreateSpace self-publishing service, and are pretty easy to get not just on Amazon but from various online book sellers. Also, I believe this is a print on demand service, so there’s no problem getting back issues.

Even if I’d call this a fanzine; the editing, reproduction quality of scanned items and printing is better than any other fanzine I’ve seen! So it’s really a professional made product you’ll get. In addition to articles, scanned letters and other rarities we’ve also got a fair deal of comics printed in this series. Not just Disney ducks but also some of Barks’ non-Disney work have been reprinted. My favorite issue so far is volume 3 I think, where we got scans of the original script for The Candy Kid side by side with the comic pages. That was really fun to read, even if Carl Barks’ handwriting is not always that easy to decipher…
 

"The Candy Kid" (script and comic) from The Carl Barks Fan Club Pictorial vol.3

What I find most interesting in vol.9 is Kim Weston’s new take on restoring Kite Weather to a 3-tier format. That’s the format Carl Barks originally drew the story, but due to paper restrictions and less pages in each comic the story was edited to a 4-tier format for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #42. Gladstone already did a restoration to the 3-tier format and that’s the most common version of the story being reprinted I believe. But now we have another version by Kim Weston that he thinks is closer to how the story originally looked. Exactly how the original art looked, we’ll probably never know. It’s going to be interesting to see how Fantagraphics will reprint this story in their collection.

The image under is a comparison with the Western layout to the left, Gladsone’s restoration in the middle and Kim Weston’s restoration to the right. (click on the image to get it a bit larger)

"Kite Weather" by Carl Barks

New European "English Edition" comics

German and Norwegian edition of "English Edition" #1/2016

A new series of Disney comics with the undertitle English Edition just started. So far a couple of issues have been published in Germany and the first Norwegian issue will be in sale on Monday (Feb. 29). But other countries might follow ( ..just speculation from my side). In Norway 6 issues are scheduled for 2016.

Pocket books in English have been published in both Germany, Norway and a couple of other European countries for a few years. They mainly contained Egmont 3-tier stories, with a few Italian ones inbetween. The new series however is in regular comic book size and have 4-tier stories.

The new series compared to the old pocket book series

The first Norwegian issue had two Carl Barks stories and three "D-coded" Egmont stories previously not published in English. As the comics are targeted at people not having English as their first language, the dialogue might have been simplified a bit. Comparing the dialogue in the Barks stories, we can see that slang have been changed to more proper "school English"
 

But other than that, not much seems to have been changed.

The comics also have selected glossary at the bottom of the pages.

Here’s the splash panel for "No Trouble At All" by Noel Van Horn, printed for the first time in English (I think):

Unknown British print of "Christmas on Bear Mountain"

Nothing is more irritating than to buy a second hand comic only to discover that some of the content is missing. Usually this is soon forgotten, but one case has been bugging me for years!

As part of a lot, I got this British Mickey Mouse comic published by World Distributors.

World Distributors #13

The front cover was taped on and the back cover was missing. And to compensate for the missing back cover two random page leaves from another comic was taped on (!)

Extra pages taped on at the end

I already got another copy of this comic, so at first it didn’t bother me that much. But curious as I always am, I tried to figure out where the extra pages came from, and that’s where the mystery started.

The stories are easy enough to identify. The Mickey one is The World Under the Sea from Dell Four Color/One Shots #194, and the one with the ducks is the Barks classic Christmas on Bear Mountain. The page numbers are 59, 60, 63, 64 and judging from what pages of the stories they are, both stories seems to be from the same comic; printed after each other. I tried to do a search in the I.N.D.U.C.K.S. database, but no comics are known to have both these stories printed. At least not in English.

While trying to solve the crime done to this comic, I noticed the word "jolly". That got me thinking "did Barks really write that?"  Comparing to the original he sure didn’t, and the dialogue is clearly changed to be more British.
 

British dialogue compared to the original

So, like the issue the pages are taped on to, the extra pages are probably from a British publication too and not from an American import. The dialogue change got me even more curious. Now it’s not enough to just know where the mysterious pages came from, I really want to read the British dialogued version of the story too!

I suspect it’s printed the late 50’s or in the 60’s. The fact that the comic has more than 64 pages got me to think about Giant Super Mag, another British series from this period.
 

Giant Super Mag

But based on size and paper type I think I have to rule out any unknown issues in that series. If anyone got an idea about what comic the orphan pages are from, please let me know!

***

Update Feb 25, 2016: The mystery is solved, check the comments! Apparently the pages are from a British book called The Walt Disney Treasure Book, published by Odhams Press.

The lettering in this book was partly used to restore "Christmas on Bear Mountain" for Fantagraphics’ Carl Barks collection, resulting in one British word being included by accident.
 

The original Dell Four Color print to the left, Fantagraphics' restoration to the right

"Fun Books" from Joe Books

So far Joe Books have published 3 paperback books called "Fun Book". Before getting the books I found little to no information about what they really contained, so this blogpost will be a short summary of the contents for anyone interested. Then you can decide if it’s worth buying. Personally I don’t think I’m going to get more of these.

Frozen

Frozen was the first one out, and I mostly got it out of curiosity when I read that the book contained comics. Of the 240 numbered pages, the content is as follows:

• The comic adaptation of the movie Frozen (48 pages)
• 13 short original comic stories  (32 pages) 
• Game pages (32 pages)
• "Scenes from the Frozen Cinestory Comic" (71 pages)
• "Frozen Fever Cinestory Comic" (32 pages)
  

The movie adaptation is also published in its own comic by Joe Books. The other print is a regular sized comic and on much better paper, so I’d recommend getting that one instead if that’s the only part you are interested in.

Frozen comic adaptation, published by Joe Books

 

The Fun book compared to the regular comic

The part with the original comic stories is what I personally am most interested in. As I already had the comic adaptation, that part was in fact the only part I found interesting! They are all short gag-based stories, but I thought it was fun to see how the movie characters could be used in new stories.

Original Frozen comics

The game pages are just simple puzzle games for kids (but the whole book is probably targeted at kids and not me..)
 

Game pages

The "Scenes from the Frozen Cinestory Comic" part is a waste of paper in my opinion. It’s made up of lots of screen caps from the movie with speech balloons inserted. And we just get selected scenes from the movie in this book. They are all taken from the "Frozen Cinestory" book, also published by Joe Books, that contains the entire movie told this way. I’ve never liked this concept, and printed on cheap non-glossy paper it’s even worse. The movie Frozen also has a lot of dark scenes that are not suited for being printed on paper at all! In a lot of the panels in this book you can barely see what’s going on. It’s better to go watch or re-watch the movie instead of wasting time reading this.

Cinestory in the Fun Book

Frozen - The Cinestory, published by Joe Books

The book end with "Frozen Fever Cinestory Comic" where all the screens are from the Frozen Fever short movie. This part is not included in the "Frozen Cinestory" book pictured above.

Frozen Fever Cinestory

Inside Out

This book is built up pretty much the same way as the Frozen book. We have:
 

• The comic adaptation of the movie Inside Out (48 pages)
• 6 short original comic stories  (16 pages)
• Game pages (10 pages)
• "Scenes from Inside Out Cinestory Comic" (121 pages)
• Disney•Pixar Comics Treasury preview (23 pages)

The Inside Out comic adaptation might be available in English digitally somewhere, but I haven’t seen it printed in English anywhere else.

 

Inside Out comic adaptation

Again, the original stories are the parts I’m most interested in. But we got less pages of that in this book compared to the Frozen one.

Original Inside Out comics

The cinestory scenes are taken from another cinestory book I guess. But I only got the Frozen one so I can’t compare. At the end of the book we get a preview (ad) for the "Disney•Pixar Comics Treasury".
 

Preview for Disney•Pixar Comics Treasury

The preview is parts of (i.e. no complete stories) the Finding Nemo and the Monsters University comic adaptations. And if the this kind of preview works you’ll end up buying this 800 page monster book:
 

Disney•Pixar Comics Treasury

The Good Dinosaur
 

• The comic adaptation of the movie The Good Dinosaur (48 pages)
• Scenes from The Good Dinosaur Cinestory (142 pages)
• First part of the Inside Out Cinestory (30 pages)

So no original comic stories or games in this book. Here are the same scene as seen in the comic adaptation and the cinestory:

 

The Good Dinosaur comic adaptation

The Good Dinosaur cinestory

February themed covers from IDW

Themed covers, February 2016

Ever since IDW started publishing the monthly Disney titles, they have all been printed with a themed cover variant. Each month have its own theme from one of the Disney parks. Last year the themed covers were the retailer incentive variants, while this year they are the subscription variants.

The February themed covers features the California Screamin' roller coaster at Disney California Adventure. And they are all made by different artists:

Donald Duck Art: Patrick Block Colors: Ronda Pattison	Mickey Mouse Art: Alessandro Perina Colors: Mario Perotta
Uncle Scrooge Art: Massimo Fecchi Colors: Rikki Simons	Walt Disney’s Comics Art: Silvio Camboni Colors: Mario Perrotta

First I have to say I’m glad Pat Block is back in business! Some of his earlier works are among my favorites. He and his wife Shelly did a cover for BOOM! too, but before that I don’t think we have seen any official Disney work since "The Case of the Missing Mummy". I hope we get to see some new stories by him and Shelly too!

But if I try to range this months covers I’m afraid the Pat Block one is my least favorite. Especially Daisy looks weird I think, and the roller coaster car looks nothing like the real one. But a fun detail is that I think Pat has drawn himself and Shelly in the background. At least the couple to the right looks a lot like them!

Judging by the artwork the Mickey Mouse cover is my personal favorite, while gag-wise I like the Uncle Scrooge one best.

I’ve never visited this Disney park myself, so I did some image searching on the internet to compare to the covers. I wonder if any of the artists actually have been there, or if they did the same to do research. As I said, the roller coaster on the Donald Duck cover is far off model, and the three other covers also show us how the roller coaster used to look like, not how it looks today.

I found these two images showing the old look compared to the current one.

I also noticed that the coloring of the cars was different, but it looks like the paint job actually has changed over the years.