Norwegian Donald Duck pop-up store

Outside the store

Outside the store

Here's a small image gallery from the Donald Duck pop-up store in Oslo, Norway. It's the first time we've had a store like this in Norway, mostly selling Disney comics but with some other merchandise too. The store is open Monday to Saturday from Nov 10. To Dec 5 this year, with a few events happening too.

 

Event program in English:

November 10. Opening event with artist Arild Midthun having a drawing show for the kids and signing.
November 17. Author Jørn Lier Horst having a talk about an anniversary book and with signing.
November 24. Guinness World Record attempt, world's smallest comic.
December 01. Anniversary party. Donald Duck & Co (the weekly comic) is 70 years.

Here are some images from inside the store:

Artificial turf in the entire store

Various pocket books

Huge image of Donald Duck & Co #1

Books, Barks lithographs and a wall with info about Carl Barks and Don Rosa

Carl Barks lithographs (not for sale)

Carl Barks and Don Rosa wall

Stage area for events

New Donald Duck detective series

Merchandise

Some new books

Cash register

Special area to wrap gifts

I didn't get much at the store as I alredy have most of the things I find interesting in there. But I did get a Donald Duck Junior preview comic (given out for free) and two anniversary books that I haven't seen in regular sale anywhere yet. Also, everyone buying something got the cool bag in the picture below.

What I got at the store

Mickey Mouse 90th Anniversary

Today, November 18th, is Mickey's official anniversary date making it 90 years since the premiere of Steamboat Willie. There's been a lot of interesting books and collections celebrating the anniversary lately, and we've seen the logo above everywhere.

Here in northern Europe we got a special story to mark the event in the weekly/monthly comic books. It's rather flat and boring to be honest, featuring Mickey taking a steamboat trip to his birthday party, with Donald and the boys as passengers as well. And we have Peg-Leg Pete doing his regular business with Mickey and Donald saving the day. For some reason, the story even have Donald Duck as the title charachter (!)

From the Norwegian Donald Duck & Co #46-2018

It's not much more to say about the story, but it has some minor references to Steamboat Willie with the cover and a panel inside – mimicking scenes from the animation.
 

From the comic story and "Steamboat Willie"

Peg-Leg Pete in "Steamboat Willie"

 

We got a small cameo of Minnie in the very last panel, but let's not forget that it's her birthday too!
 

 

And maybe it's the anniversary for the Aracuan bird as well? At least that's what imagine every time I re-watch Steamboat Willie and see the birds on the docks with their singing 😊

From "Steamboat Willie"

Don Rosa's European Tour, autumn 2018

Don Rosa recently finished a busy signing tour in Germany, Finland and Norway. From his event page on Facebook, it looks like the trip went to:

OCT.16 Germany: Sammlerecke Comics und Romane, Esslingen
OCT.18 Germany: Neunte Kunst, Osnabrück
OCT.19 Germany: Comic Combo, Leipzig
OCT.21 Germany: Comicbörse, Berlin
OCT.23 Finland: Suomalainen Kirjakauppa, Turku
OCT.24 Finland: Suomalainen Kirjakauppa, Oulu
OCT.25 Finland: Helsinki Book Fair (Suomalainen kirjakauppa booth), Helsinki
OCT.26 Finland: Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, Tampere
OCT.27 Finland: Suomalainen kirjakauppa Kamppi, Helsinki
OCT.28 Finland: Helsinki Book Fair (Suomalainen kirjakauppa booth), Helsinki
OCT.31 Norway: Outland, Trondheim
NOV.1 Norway: Outland, Bergen
NOV.2 Norway: Outland, Stavanger
NOV.3 Norway: Outland, Oslo
NOV.5 Norway: Outland, Oslo

In addition, there was a private signing event in Oslo, Norway October 29 and October 30. While the regular bookstore/comic shop signings are free to enter, the private events had an entry fee. On the regular signings you could get up to two items from you own collection signed in addition to any prints bought on place. You couldn't get any head sketches or dedications on the regular singing, just on the private ones – but Don had prepared some sketches in advance that was for sale.

I went to one of the signings at the Outland comics shop in Norway, and here you could get a photo with Don too.

 

Practical information sign

I think most (if not all) signings in Norway had a long line where a lot of people didn't make it. The Norway signings went on for about 5 hours during the afternoons and in this period Don managed to sign for about 200-250 people. A ticket was handed out to the first 200 while the rest had to wait in line for a lucky chance to get in at the end. In Trondheim, Norway the signing even made it to the local news on TV, where you can see a line far down the street outside the comic shop!
 

Sreenshot from NRK Midtnytt 31.oct 2018

But from what I saw, Don was super effective and not taking any breaks. And sometimes it almost looked like he was more eager to get the next books in hand for signing than the people waiting in line. So I have to give him props for his effort to speed tings up and sign for as many people as possible during the limited time! The thing that slowed down the signing the most was the sale of prints right before you got to Don Rosa. Helping with this he had Stefan Brenner from comic-spielzeug.de, but some people were slow on deciding on what to buy – and some bought a hole stack of prints! And most people I saw bought something from the stand. Stefan also brought a book "Don Rosa Parodies" collecting the various parody covers created by Don Rosa.

Book with parody covers (sorry for the bad image)

The book is still in work and not ready for pre-order or anything yet. It was a bit busy so I didn't get to ask much about the book, but Stefan gave me his business card and said I should check www.comic-spielzeug.de for updates on the work.

In addition to the prints on the stand, the comic shops also had stuff for sale that needed to be bought in advance or while you were standing in line if you wanted to get it signed. In the shop I went to the majority of the people in line bought one of the Norwegian Hall of Fame books with Don Rosa stories or the Norwegian Life and Times collection from the comic shop for signing. Both are still in print in new editions.
 

The most commonly signed books in Norway this year

My comic shop had a whole pallet of the Life and Times collection, and I think they sold most of it! But the comics shop also had a small number of books from the Fantagraphics collection that I saw people buying, and a lot brought their own comics too. Surprisingly I saw quite a few people bringing the first Norwegian edition of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. As the American 1st edition, the Norwegian one is getting quite hard to find these days and goes for a lot of money.

 

1st edition of the Norwegian Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck

If you brought a hardcover Don Rosa would usually sign one of the blank pages inside the cover, while if you had a comic book he would sign the cover if he did the cover artwork. If he didn't do the cover he would sign inside the comic where his stories are printed.

 

Example of inside signature (images taken from a FINN sale listing)

In Norway pretty much everyone that can read have read a Donald Duck weekly once in their life and everyone knows who the classic Disney characters in the comics are. And there's no need to have a "not DuckTales" sign like he use to have at American conventions.
 

3 different signs used at Don Rosa's American signings

But not everyone knows of his work, they just know he's a famous "Donald artist" (a synonym with "Disney comic artist" here in Norway). And if you bring a Disney comic without any work by Don Rosa, he won't sign that. I heard of several cases of this and I observed one in my line too that tried to get a random Disney comic signed. The result was Don Rosa giving him a small lecture about the whole point of signing was to sign his own work 😊. The guy in front of me brought a French publication where Don pointed out that the publisher had used his name in marketing the comic without his permission, but he signed it anyway. I know Don has refused to do this on some books in the past.

My own first choice of items to get signed was "Don Rosa's Comics and Stories #1" that I've been wanting to get signed for a long time. It's a collections of Don's underground comic "The Pertwillaby Papers", published by CX Comics (Fantagraphics) in 1983. I also told Don that Fantagraphics should do a hardcover collection with The Pertwillaby Papers and Captain Kentucky, but he didn't think anyone would buy that 😊

My own signed copies

For my second item I wanted to go with a recent Norwegian comic, and not the Life and Times collection that "everyone" is getting signed – and I decided to bring one of the "Donald Extra" comics where all have Rosa covers. But when I was about the catch the bus downtown I just couldn't locate my collection of this series! …that's what you get for having too many comics laying around. A bit in a hurry I had to decide on something else and ended up with the first issue of the Barks+Rosa collection pictured above. I immediately regretted this as Don only did part of the cover art and it's also taken from the story and not a real cover drawing. But that's what I ended up bringing.

I usually don't buy any prints when I go to conventions, festivals or signings – but this time I actually got a print too. I decided to go with a Donald Duck poster created in 2004 for the 70th Anniversary of his animated debut (The Wise Little Hen)
 

The European signings are quite hectic and you don't get a lot of time to chat with Don unless you go to one of the expensive private signings. I also have a stack of those blank covers from IDW that would have been fun to get a sketch on. But I guess I have a better chance to get one of those if I go to one of the smaller American conventions than to one of the European signings.
 

*** Thanks to the forum posters on the KVAKK! forum for info and ideas for this blog post. ***

IDW's Giant Halloween Hex #2

This year IDW's Giant Halloween Hex is back, two years after the first issue and completing the trilogy of stories with Magica's family. But I hope it's not the last issue of this series we'll see, I like these kinds of seasonal specials.
 

"Magica De Spell" added to the logo

New this year is that we have Magica's name as part of the cover title, and I think that is great! I can't think of many comics having Magica as the logo title, and I wish we had an issue dedicated to her in IDW's Showcase series while it lasted (the Gold Key series had one).

 

Showcase #30 from the Gold Key series

Another difference from #1 published in 2016 is that we now only have one cover variant while the first one had three. But this change is fine too, I've never been a huge fan of cover variants unless there is something special like a convention exclusive or something like that.
 

All cover variants

The main story in Giant Halloween Hex #2 is Gifts of the Gods!, and as I said it completes IDW's run of the (kind of) trilogy with Magica's family. The first story is The Great Rock of Power-Plus! in Giant Halloween Hex #1, Gifts of the Gods! is actually the second one created, while the third story is The Secret Santa Spell in published by IDW in last year's Christmas Parade. There are a lot of other stories with different versions of Granny De Spell and with Minima. And there exist another story with Rosolio too, but I look at the three mentioned above as a trilogy.

In Gifts of the Gods! we have the family tagging along with Magica's latest scheme to get the Number One Dime. And this time she tries to get it with the help of the "gifts of the gods".
 

But as usual things might not go exactly like planned, especially with the cursed family around…

DuckTales Classics

With the new DuckTales animated series, this is a good time to reprint some of the old DuckTales comic stories from the late 80's / early 90's. We already got the first collections of old stories in Europe last autumn, and not long ago IDW followed up with DuckTales Classics vol.1.
 

3 Norwegian collections published during the last year (left), and the new IDW collection (right)

As the new animated series is a re-boot of DuckTales the IDW comic collection with old stories have “classics” added to the title and is also using the old DuckTales logo – this way trying to differentiate it from the new series.

The first pre-release cover images popping up online actually used the new logo, but I'm glad they changed that. Also it looks like they originally planned to use the cover for The Bedeviled Dime (one of the stories inside) for the collection. But this was changed to a more generic Egmont cover created in the 90's – but according to inducks not known to have been used anywhere before. Not the most important part of the book, but I'm glad for this change too. As a longtime Disney comic fan, I like when the editors dig up old unused material!
 

First pre-release cover (left), second pre-release cover (middle) and the final cover (right)

We also have a small text on the back of the book making it more clear that these are old stories.

But I can imagine some younger readers not familiar with the old DuckTales series getting a bit of a surprise reading this collection, but hopefully that is a good surprise!

The first book in IDW series collects all DuckTales stories drawn by William Van Horn with the comic adaptation of the 1990 Treasure of the Lost Lamp movie as a bonus story at the end, replacing the originally planned reprint of The Curse of Flabbergé.

From the Previews #355 (April 2018) catalog, listing "The Curse of Flabbergé"

I'm sure a lot of fans have waited for a Van Horn collection like this and it's nice to have all of his DuckTales stories collected in one volume. But for me personally the movie adaption turned out to be just as interesting.

I've already read this story before too, but only the European album edit. The story in IDW's Classics collection is the uncut version so that was a nice bonus.

British (left) and Norwegian (right) editions of the movie adaptation

First page of the original editon (left) and the edited edition (right)

Different layot in the edited edition (left) and the original (right)

One of the Norwegian collections pictured at the top of this post (the one with the Mickey 90 logo – on sale next week) have the movie adaptation inside too, but unfortunately just the edited version. 

***

We already have a volume 2 of the IDW series announced for next year, and I hope we'll see more in the future. My wish list for upcoming volumes are some of the smaller stories from the Disney Adventures magazine and DuckTales magazine that have never been reprinted anywhere before.

First preview/test edition of the Disney Adventure magazine, and the first issue of the DuckTales magazine

Some of the studio stories (S-coded stories) never seen on print in English would be nice too (there's a lot of them). And if the editors do a deep dive in some hidden archives, a collection of all the rare DuckTales gag stories printed on American orange juice cartons would be awesome to see on print! I have no idea how many exists, I only got two of the DuckTales ones – but I've seen more on eBay and such.

DuckTales comics on the Donald Duck Orange juice cartons

DuckTales comics on the Donald Duck Orange juice cartons (pictures from eBay)