Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge "Only a Poor Old Man": The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol.12

I'm having a bit of a rough time right now, waiting for several medical appointments to hopefully diagnose that mystery ailment of mine. Thus, I have needed a pick-me-up. Thankfully I still had a Carload Barks Library volume on hand. 

Starring my favorite of the Disney Ducks, this edition contains the first four Uncle Scrooge solo issues by Dell. Though Uncle Scrooge has previously appeared in issues of Walt Disney Comics and Stories and Donald Duck, the contents here are not to be overlooked! There is a Duckburg money bin sized amount of origin story and key first appearances of supporting characters and relics. Glittering Goldie, Scrooge's lucky dime, and his biggest foes, the Beagle Boys! Although, by this time, it would be the 3rd appearance of the Beagles. In the other 2 times, they were cameos with no lines. The title tale 'Only a Poor Old Man's, sees the crooks finally talking and actively attempting to rob McDuck of his vast riches. 

Major events in Scrooge's early days are explored here. His discovery of the massive Goose Egg nugget when a sourdough in the Klondike is retold. We'll also learn some of the major talents the entrepreneur has gleaned over time building his fortune. Fluent in several languages, Scrooge can also communicate with various animal species.

It's not just Uncle Scrooge whose backstory is being developed. Donald is pretty much established. But his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie are beginning to transition from mischievous brats to valuable resources in Uncle Scrooge's globetrotting adventures for fabled treasures. The Junior Woodchuck Handbook begins to see wear and tear in epics that see the ducks discovering Atlantis and a Utopian, or Duck-topian version of Shangri-la. 

The stories are still a bit rough around the edges. It's like the first season of a now classic TV sitcom. The lighting isn't quite right. Background information on a character might be a bit inaccurate from the eventual finished product. Heck, you might even find that some of the original cast will be changed over time. Still, to see the early version of my all-time favorite Disney characters was so awesome. 

(Note: The first three issues were originally published as part of the massive Dell Four Color Series, #s 386, 456, & 495. They are retroactively known among collectors as Uncle Scrooge #1-3.)

The director's cut commentary by several noted 'Duck experts' was as usual. The backstory information and history of Carl Barks was so interesting. I'd love to read a biography about this iconic comic creator. But when these experts start to wax philosophic about how some random item in the background of a single scene was Barks' silent protest against totalitarianism.  Have these experts never taken advice from Sigmund Freud? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Dell Giants #39 'Walt Disney's Merry Christmas'

I found this 1960 Dell Giants over the summer at a used book store. The cover was hanging by a thread and prayer. But otherwise, it was in really good condition. None of the holiday activities were scribbled in and all of the pages were intact. That alone was a Christmas miracle considering how many crafts and games juvenile readers were encouraged to partake in.

This special opens with Donald and his nephews pondering what to get Uncle Scrooge for Christmas. They instead get tricked by their rich relative to board a rocket ship bound for the moon. Only Scrooge forgot to set the ship's coordinates and they wind up stuck on the North Pole!

Then Mickey Mouse plans an ice skating event to raise money for Christmas presents for the local orphanage. The star athlete has refused to go on, leaving Mickey scrambling for a replacement. It comes in the form of Goofy, who turns out to be a real pro; as long as he skates in his sleep. Now too afraid to go back to sleep, Mickey hires a hypnotist to break Goofy's subconscious hang ups.

Brer Rabbit goes around the countryside asking for items to decorate his Christmas tree and winds up becoming an ornament himself in a trap set by Brer Fox. Gyro Gearloose teams with the Three Little Pigs when the Big Bad Wolf creates some gadgets, based on Gyro's blueprints, to kidnap the piggies for a Christmas dinner to remember. Dale becomes a private investigator in hopes of raising money to buy a Christmas present from Chip. He ends up becoming his own client when his deer slayer hat goes missing.

My favorite story was a Disney crossover. True, a couple of the other stories I mentioned had some unlikely pairings that I consider unexpected. But it wasn't as massive as my personal fav. It's got Dumbo and Daisy Duck's nieces helping Gephetto and Pinocchio solve the mystery of the missing dolls. Every time Gephetto completes a toy, it immediately disappears. With time running out before Christmas, the girls become bait to get to the bottom of all this and discovered that the person swiping all the presents is the Witch from Snow White! 4 different franchises all coming together in 1 tale. I loved it!

A couple of the stories in this book could have been set at different times of year. Christmas might have just been added as a place holder for the action. But the final story was absolutely not set anywhere near the holidays. Minnie Mouse and Clarabelle the Cow are reporters for the local paper, sent overseas to cover the birthday party of a princess. Only when the girls get to the palace, they learn that the princess has gone missing! It's a charming mystery. I just don't understand what it's doing inside a Disney Christmas special.

Lots of fun. Festive... mostly. All of the stories were entertaining. But half of them could've been more at place in a winter special which was something Dell did put out from time to time. Very Disney and it's something that I very much welcome into my holiday comics collection.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Donald Duck's Halloween Scream! Mini Comic #2

This mini comic from 2017 features a William Van Horn classic. Donald has decided to become a house painter. His first job is to spruce up a haunted house. Only Donald accepts the job without the knowledge about the home's spooky history. Nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie have heard that the place has a dubious history and they decide to play a little prank on their uncle. But as Donald chalks up the strange goings on in the house as age and disrepair, the nephews turn up the heat only to become victims of a real poltergeist!

I've read this tale somewhere before and it never fails to disappoint. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this story eventually became a Disney animated short. So maybe that's where I remember this tale from. I've checked my entries on this blog and despite having owned this Halloween ComicFest freebie for a long time, I can't find when and how I've come across this story before. 

Carl Barks is definitely my favorite Duck creator. Don Rosa follows. I may have to give serious consideration for Van Horn being my pick for number 3. His art is clean. His word play is brilliant. And I love how his Donald is smarter like Don Rosa's version of the character. I'm just not sure if I like a mischievous Huey Dewey and Louie or not. I think I like it better when they're the experts on everything thanks to their massive time of knowledge, the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. But the guys sure can pull off some great pranks on their Uncle Donald.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: 'Return to Plain Awful'- The Don Rosa Library, Vol. 2

Don Rosa gets a lot of hate from Duck fans. But no matter how much a collector might despise his work, the harshest critic of Don Rosa is Rosa himself. And I just don't know why. 

Rosa is a disciple of the greatest Duck creator of them all, 'the good Duck artist' Carl Barks. And sure, you never want to exceed your hero. But while Don Rosa is no Carl Barks, I think it should be said that Carl Barks is no Don Rosa either!

The artist originally born as Keno Rosa has a style in the vein of Harvey Kurtzman with tiny little inclusions of hidden images and inside jokes- usually in the background. I absolutely love that. Each Duck story of Rosa's that I read, I feel like a detective trying to find all the Easter eggs hidden in every panel. Thank goodness Rosa wrote his own commentary situated at the end of this volume as sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I just can't find where he hid the word 'D.U.C.K.' in the art of the first page. (Note: you should also be on the lookout for hidden Mickey's and portraits of Barks throughout...)

In this volume we get to enjoy a number of adventures throughout Duckburg and the furthest reaches of the globe. The cover story sees Uncle Scrooge tagging along with his nephews to Plain Awful in hopes of securing the market on square chicken eggs. But he'll have to beat rival Glomgold Flintheart to Peru first! 

My favorite story has Scrooge declaring his money bin a sovereign nation. The headaches that come about with tariffs, passports and an invading army of Beagle Boys makes this story so relevant to today's headlines that you would swear that this story wasn't written over 35 years ago.

There's a couple of real hidden gems that I don't feel like Rosa gives himself enough credit for. First is a storyboard for a never published promotional comic highlighting Donald and his nephews' inaugural trip to Disney MGM Studios. As it's Rosa's only story to have Donald and Mickey interacting in the same universe, it's not to be missed! Then there's Rosa's only foray into the DuckTales realm. He only penned it and it's less than 8 pages, but this prehistoric time travel romp with Magica De Spell was so fun!

I needed this book as a bit of retail therapy and a pick-me-up after a very difficult weekend. I had a ball with this book. I laughed, I examined and I appreciated the artwork and I distressed. I just wish Don Rosa knew how much somebody appreciated his body of work. He's ton better than he gives himself credit for!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: 'The Son of the Sun'- The Don Rosa Library, Vol. 1

I was so enthralled by Don Rosa's epic undertaking of making a cohesive structure of the how of Scrooge McDuck made his fortune. Rosa poured over the countless stories of Uncle Scrooge created by the good duck artist Carl Barks and wrote and illustrated what is considered by many to be one of the greatest comic book miniseries ever made. Needless to say, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck turned me from a Don Rosa admirer into a Don Rosa fanatic.

This past holiday season, I decided to add this book to my Christmas wishlist. I was very fortunate to have my bride get it for me, this beginning my opening foray into Don Rosa's portfolio as the second best good duck artist. 

The Don Rosa Library is a chronological omnibus of Rosa's career as an employee of Gladstone Comics. In this volume roughly covering the years 1986-1987, Rosa has returned to creating comics after having to quit for several years to run his family construction business. A chance encounter with an issue of Gladstone's run of Donald Duck inspired him to take a huge gamble and offer his services as a creator of Uncle Scrooge stories. Having passed his audition, Gladstone hires Rosa to craft a full story. 

Using an old script he wrote years ago, Rosa decides to set his story firmly in the universe established by Barks. 'The Son of the Sun' has a dateline of the 1950s, right around the sweet spot era when Barks was crafting some of his best Uncle Scrooge adventures and when a young Keno Rosa was experiencing those tales his older sister had collected over the years. The main antagonist would be the Scrooge antithesis, Flintheart Glomgold, who challenges McDuck in a race to see who can find a fabled horde of fabled Incan treasure in Peru.

This volume contains about 2 dozen other works starring Scrooge along with nephews Donald, Huey, Dewey, Louie and the uber-lucky Gladstone. Not every story was written by Rosa, but it's all of his handiwork as Gladstone Comics quickly began to rely on Rosa as their go-to artist. 

I love the Complete Carl Barks volumes of Disney Duck stories. But what makes this book superior to them is the commentary. In the Barks volumes, the commentary is by a number of scholars who try to equate a can of soup in the background of a single panel to the artist's opinion on social economics in Communist countries. I don't care for that sort of exposition. But I do love learning about the backstory and history of how and why a story or character was created. By having Don Rosa narrate his personal commentary, it's almost 100% the type of facts and figures I want to learn about. Plus, it's where I learned that Gladstone Comics was named after the character of Gladstone Gander!

Being his earliest Disney works, Rosa is a bit harsh on himself here. Well, they do say that we're our own harshest critic. I just wish Rosa could see his brilliance even in his rawest forms. There's a panel of Glomgold pointing a gun at off panel Scrooge while he's escaping a crashing plane that I kept coming back to again and again. So powerful. So much movement. So full of anger and emotion. Got to be one of my top 10 comic book images all time.

I've long wondered how to classify Don Rosa's art style. He puts so much detail into his work like a George Perez. But he also puts tiny jokes into the background like a Harvey Kurtzman. In the words of the master, he considers himself a student of the school of underground comix. That's fine with me.

I'm looking forward to volume 2! Can't wait to see Rosa's evolution and learn more inside information about one of my favorite characters ever!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Comics Digest #3

My biggest problem with a comic digest is if they are a holiday issue, that they're never 100% full of holiday material. It's not like Gladstone was hurting for Christmas stories. They could have made this whole 96-pager 1987, about Christmas, if they really wanted to.

The cover is obviously Christmas themed. It's a great gag by Walt Kelly. The opener is about Christmas. It's a Carl Barks classic that sees Donald Duck jealously battling his lucky duck cousin, Gladstone Gander, in a competition to see who is going to win the Christmas turkey raffle. Though in all honesty, you could have replaced Thanksgiving with Christmas in this story and you'd never know the difference.

6 stories remain. They star Disney comics mainstays such as Hazel the Witch, Mickey Mouse and the L'il Bad Wolf. And then there's a full length adaptation of Lady and the Tramp and I couldn't be in a more festive mood about it. 

I didn't realize it, but the 1955 animated film is book-ended by Christmas. Lady is gifted to her mistress on a snowy Christmas morning. Then the story ends a couple of years later with Lady having given birth to a litter on Christmas. These 2 scenes do not make Lady & the Tramp a Christmas movie. But I am counting it as part of the holiday cheer that comprises this book. 

(Side note: adding to Lady & the Tramp's connection to Christmas, a stuffed animal version of Lady was all the rage in the Christmas of 1985. Burger joint Hardee's offered versions of the pup along with a plush Pinnochio, Bambi and Dumbo. I remember how myself and all my classmates just had to have the whole set of 4!)

I should have reviewed this book a couple of years ago. I bought it 2 years ago after a trip to the mountains during Spring Break. I read it later that year. But somehow I accidentally filed it in my Christmas read box before giving my rating of the book. Overall, not a bad find for only a buck in a thrift store I had never visited before. And now it can go back into the correct section of my collection.

Worth Consumimg!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Donald Duck "Trick Or Treat": The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol.13

I ordered this one specifically in time for Halloween. Featuring the complete, unabridged, almost 100% unedited version of Carl Barks' adaptation of the Donald Duck cartoon 'Trick or Treat', this volume is a treasure. Dell, Disney or both felt that Barks' introduction was too scary. Thus, a full page and a half was scrapped and redone in a more friendly time. Tasked with 32-pages to fill based on an about 8 minute long cartoon, Barks padded the middle with the inclusion of a 6-armed ogre named Smorgasbord. Again, someone high up didn't like it and those pages were just removed and the story was trimmed to a 24-page book.

Over the years, many of the original lost pages were recovered. Thanks to Fantagaphics and Rich Tommaso, all except for the last panel were recovered, remastered and re-added to present the Good Duck Artist's original vision. (As of now, only the last panel has never been found.)

'Trick or Treat' is a masterpiece; both on celluloid and in print. I'm so glad that I waited and saved some of my Amazon gift cards to get this book. After the main story there's a couple of one-pagers involving Halloween and an 8-pager that isn't really a Halloween tale. But it does involve some strange goings-on to make it a seasonal read for this time of year.

Halloween isn't the only holiday covered in this book. Thanksgiving sees Donald fleeing to Europe to avoid having to host lucky cousin Gladstone Gander for Turkey Day. Christmas sees Donald trying to trick Uncle Scrooge into paying for his holiday feast. There's even some Valentine's Day love in the air when Donald takes a job as a mailman and must deliver a Valentine to his sweetie, Daisy. Only Donald didn't send her the card! Gladstone did!

Daisy makes a couple more appearances in this book, which also sees the introduction of Daisy's nieces, April, May and June. Daffy inventor Gyro Gearloose besieges Duckburg with some of his out-of-control creations. And there's tons of nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie and my favorite, Uncle Scrooge to be found in this cozy little volume.

My love for the stories is unparalleled. However, I'm starting to get a little annoyed with the expert commentary on the stories. They're all so negative and snobby about it. Sure, you're an academic and that's how you are trained. But I want to know more about the backstory. The inspirations for these tales appeal to me. I don't need to know how the position of Donald's wrist in panel #6 of the third story is a commentary on the plight of Nebraskan hog farmers. Just give me the facts, PLEASE!

As jaded as the experts say Carl Barks was, there just isn't substitute for the amount of joy his world has brought me over the past 40 plus years!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

What If... Donald Duck Became Thor #1

Back in 2007 or 2008, I was in Charlotte, NC for HeroesCon. Don Rosa was in attendance. He was selling prints of famous DC and Marvel comic covers that he had 'Disney-fied' with the Ducks of Duckburg. One such print that really struck my fancy was a parody of Journey Into Mystery #83. That famous comic introduced the Mighty Thor to the Marvel Universe and in Rosa's take, he had Donald Duck welding Mjolnir against those evil Rock Men from Saturn. Oh, how now I wish I had bought a copy of that print. But it was out of my price range.

Anyways, jump ahead to right before the pandemic. So it's probably 2019, I think. It's been a decade since Disney bought Marvel. They had been nice for a while, allowing the contracts over their licenses to be assigned out of house. But now Disney was ready to solidify its properties to only being produced solely by companies under the Mickey Mouse umbrella. It's one reason why IDW lost the rights to the Disney catalog even though the company was doing a fantastic job.

At right about the same time, Disney decided to go after artists who were making money off of unsolicited and unlicensed intellectual property. Disney was having some success getting a lot of independent, small artists to stop making Etsy type goods for sale without any royalties going to Disney. It looked like the days of buying a Star Wars themed tee from Teefury or a sketch of Pinocchio from a dealer at a con were over. That is until Disney made the mistake of going after Don Rosa 

Lawyers issued Rosa a cease and desist order. Unless he started paying Disney a chunk from every unlicensed Disney print he sold, Rosa had to stop selling things like that Donald Duck as Thor picture. Undaunted, Rosa dug into his ledger. But instead of paying Disney for what he owed, the controversial Duck artist showed where Disney and several subsidiaries still owed him for unpaid work! 

Then COVID. Disney backed off of their all out war over unlicensed works produced by craftsmen and artists. And they quietly tried to forget ever challenging Don Rosa. However, Mr. Rosa didn't forget. Just like Scrooge McDuck, the artist had been short changed on services rendered and wanted his money - with interest! A compromise was apparently reached. While the terms of the deal have never been officially disclosed, word on the streets from Disney Duck aficionados was that Marvel world release a Donald as Thor cover and possibly a What If... type story with some proceeds going towards paying back what was owed to Don Rosa.

When I saw this book being solicited over the Summer, I assumed that this was what fans on message boards and in person has been talking about. It's one reason why I pre-ordered it as soon as possible. Only, there's no mention whatsoever about this storyline being the idea of Don Rosa! The Thor created byline naming Stan and Jack are on the credits page. There's also special thanks to several people for developing this one-shot. Only Rosa isn't one of them. So did the artist get screwed over again? Is Disney trying to be hush-hush over the unpaid work? Or are the fans I interact with about all things Donald and family just an urban legend? 

The cover looks almost exactly like Rosa's print. The story is essentially an exact retelling of the 1962 first appearance of Thor, only with Ducks. Unlike the previous What If special that saw Donald becoming Wolverine, there's not really anything new to Donald's discovery of Thor's hammer, disguised as an old cane that turns him into the god of Thunder when struck. Heck, I just realized that Thor's human alter ego, Dr. Donald Blake has the first name as this issue 's hero!

The artwork is done in that more modern style of Disney Channel animated series like Mickey's House of Mouse; meaning that all of the characters look classic, except for way too heavy inking. If this was a Kingdom Hearts comic, I might be more of a fan. But it just doesn't work for Donald nor his nephews. However, artist Giada Perissinotto's design of the Stone Ducks of Saturn's World Destroyer blows the classic design of the Asgardian Destroyer out of the water... big time!

It was an enjoyable read. I just wish that we got more of an overview of what Donald's career as Thor would have been like instead of a complete rehash of JIM #83. Hopefully, What If... Minnie Became Captain Marvel will give readers a more original story and mean that there's more Disney/Marvel mashups to come!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

What If... Donald Duck Became Wolverine #1

Marvel's What If Donald Duck Became Wolverine checks off several boxes for me. It's a one-shot. It's a Disney Ducks book. It's a What If. It's also a book that I've been looking forward to since seeing it's announcement a couple months back.

Fairly simple premise. The title of the book says it all. Building off of the similar trait of being  complete and destructive hot heads that can heal quickly from any injury, Italian Disney comic writer Luca Barbieri postulates what if the Old Man Logan storyline was set in the Disney animated universe. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this 2024 release. There was only 2 things that I wish was better. First was the names of the characters. They call the star of the book Donald-Wolverine instead of an amalgam of the two names. All of the characters who are Disney/Marvel combines are named this way. I would have liked a little bit of What The?! added to the story by calling the main character 'Donarine' or 'Wolverduck.' I think it would have been a funnier element to the story.

My second qualm was over the artwork. Giada Perissinotto's work wasn't terrible. It was just startling how different the characters looked in this more sleeker style than compared to that classic matte look established by Carl Barks and perfected by Don Rosa. Plus Perissinotto's more polished look just doesn't work with all of the characters. Grandma Duck looks nothing like herself; instead favoring Daisy Duck, if she was dressed up as one of the Golden Girls.

What If Donald Duck Became Wolverine jointly celebrates Donald's 90th birthday as well as Wolverine's 50th anniversary.  I had a lot of fun reading it. I really appreciated the segment that showed Donald-Wolverine over the course of his career in different costumes. Though I think Perissinotto missed a great opportunity to not have included a crucified Donald-Wolverine as an homage to Marc Silvestri and Dan Green's cover to X-Men #251. 

I'm really digging that Marvel is giving the What If treatment to other franchises in Disney's ever growing war chest. I'm holding out hope on a 'What If Star Wars Invaded the Marvel Universe.' (I've got a ton of ideas, so call me Marvel!) But until then, I've got to wait until next month for What If Donald Duck Became the Mighty Thor! It's going be great!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #22

A while back, I was at my favorite comic shop, checking out when I saw this stack of Disney digests. I'm a fan of the books from Gold Key and Dell. I know that these treasuries are in high demand. Plus I just adore the Disney Ducks. So I took a chance and asked if they were for sale. Thankfully they were; but the owners hadn't come up with a price yet. After a touch of friendly haggling, we agreed upon a fair price and based on how much money I had left to spend, I bought 3. 

Wouldn't you know, I then misplaced these for about a year and I would have forgotten all about them if I hadn't been working on organizing my comic book collection during my summer break. 

The cover for this June, 1970 volume is what sold me. It's got Donald and Uncle Scrooge in a victory pose on the very center of the cover. While Scrooge is dressed as a champion prizefighter, his contest to prove he's got more money than anyone in the world isn't quite so pugilistic. Challenged by Flintheart Glomgold, McDuck must liquidate his assets to prove that he's got more money, by volume, than that of his legendary foe. With assists by nephews Huey, Dewey, Louie and Donald, Scrooge has to outfox Glomgold who's clearly cheating. Only without proof, it looks like McDuck's going to lose the contest. Should Scrooge fail, he has to eat his opponents hat, which for the Scottish businessman is a fate worse than death or losing all his money to the Beagle Boys!

A pleasant surprise running throughout this book was the team-ups. In one adventure Tinkerbell saves Dumbo the elephant from the clutches of Captain Hook. In another, Jiminy Cricket visits his bug friends of Silly Symphonies fame for a picnic! Chipmunks Chip and Dale have had a number of capers driving Pluto and Mickey Mouse crazy. But they've never teamed with Bambi's best friend Thumper to get the upper hand over Mickey and company before... At least to my knowledge!

Something Disney was noted for was its nature films. In this issue, we get part 3 of the comic book adaptation of 1953's Bear Country. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, it's not a read where you have to know everything that has happened beforehand in order to enjoy it. There are also non-fiction one-pagers called 'Real Life Adventures' about dolphins and robins along with a longer essay on famous trains. Being that he was a lifelong railway enthusiast, I wouldn't be the least surprised to find out that old Walt Disney himself wrote that segment. 

Peter and the Wolf, Little Hiawatha, Li'l Bad Wolf, Pinocchio, Cinderella and many more stars of Disney's A, B and C level tiers appear in this digest filled with some puzzles, jokes and stories galore. A really enjoyable gem that felt like those Christmas mornings when I'd open a grab bag of comics up as a gift and just pour over the contents inside while the world outside melted away.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories: 75th Anniversary Special

This year is the 90th anniversary of the debut of that rascally Disney character Donald Duck. So when I saw this issue for sale, at a local coffee shop that sells comics, I thought that this was a tribute issue to Donald. Instead, this book from 2015, is an 75th anniversary salute to Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in all of it's various incarnations thanks to the license being passed through several publishers, including IDW, the latest and currently last company to produce the long anthology.

There are a total of 10 stories and shorts in this giant sized collection, split over a dozen segments. While Donald and his nephews kick off things in a story about a war of pranks amongst the ducks, Disney's brightest star Mickey Mouse stars in a 3-part story divided throughout the book. Titled 'Ridin' the Rails' from 1955, whomever did the restoration job on that story should have won an Eisner or other similar award. They made Mickey and Goofy and Grandma Duck look so modern and not from a 60 year old book. 

Some forgotten characters such as Little Hiawatha and Bucky Bug from Silly Symphonies, the Li'l Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs and Walt Kelly's World War II rapscallions, the Gremlins, all make appearances that fall under IDW's editorial trigger warning that some material in this book may be culturally insensitive but kept in the retrospective for historical purposes. Less offensively, there's visits by Scamp, the young son of Lady and the Tramp as well as a lesson on dinosaurs presented by Ludwig Von Drake!

But really this is a Donald Duck book because he appears in 3 stories. Along with the aforementioned opener, Donald is given the runaround by the antics of Chip and Dale before wrapping things up with Huey Dewey and Louie once more. In that story, the fellas take on Magica de Spell in a caper that doesn't even star Uncle Scrooge, even though the enchantress is trying to steal McDuck's singing flea! Even the variant cover stars Donald Duck. But where is Uncle Scrooge in all this? He's a WDCAS icon who made his very first appearance in any form in the pages of this series. He belongs here! At least Scrooge's creator Carl Barks is featured...

Be sure to read David Gerstein's article at the end of this issue. It dives into the history of the long running anthology and has some interesting in-depth info. So good, I'd love to read a book about the history of Disney comic books.

This 75th anniversary collection was a good read. But to not have Uncle Scrooge involved, other than his name in passing, seems a tad unforgivable. So I'm going to knock a couple of stars off of my rating. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney Comics and Stories: Donald and Mickey- Quest for the Faceplant

IDW presents a rather charming collection of comic stories starring Mickey Mouse, Donald and his family and other iconic characters from titles originally published previously all over the globe.

Obviously, Donald Duck is the star of this collection. The best two stories costar Donald's cousin Gladstone who's literally a lucky duck! Usually Gladstone and Donald are rivals. But in the opening story based on the cover, Gladstone teams with Donald to photograph a rare plant that's about to bloom for the first time in years. With Donald's photography equipment and Gladstone's luck, the pair seems to have the edge over the competition. That is until they meet up with another contestant out to win the large cash prize: Scrooge McDuck!

Donald then gets a chance at being lucky for once when his wish to be as blessed as cousin Gladstone is mysteriously granted. It's a classic episode of blunder, satire and screwball comedy when Donald's luck runs out unknowingly right before he's about to perform the most insane stunt ever imagined!

In the Mickey arena, there's a pair of mystery stories. One involves the Phantom Blot. The other, Peg Leg Pete. Both co-star Horace Horsecollar, which is kinda odd, since Goofy tends to be the sidekick in those stories. Instead, Goofy have been saved for an adorable story in which he creates a series of mysteries for Mickey to solve in order for the busy amateur sleuth to finally have an exciting day of fun.

Stories starring some of the more lesser known characters of the Disney Universe include the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs, Bucky Bug and his insect friends, Brer Rabbit and his country-time enemies, and an adorable one-pager starring Chip n' Dale. Plus, there's plenty of fun with Donald's nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, including an epic sized riverboat adventure starring a character called Garvey Gull. A brand-new character to me, the jury is still out as to whether I find this little guy to be charming or annoying.

The love for the international Disney comics keeps growing within me. I think I have Don Rosa to thank for that. But IDW should get a little bit of the credit as well.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge "Maharajah Donald": The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 4

I actually finished this book about 2 months ago. However the theft of my goat was heavy on my mind and I was too distracted to review it at the time. Only after doing some organizing of my piles of books to review did I realize that I had overlooked this very fun entry in the Complete Carl Barks Library.

The title story sees Donald taking a trip to India. He's supposed to be going alone. Except his nephews Huey Dewey and Louie stowaway. Once in India, Donald is unexpectedly made the ruler of a small kingdom in a caper that combined hijinks, international law and a hint of racist stereotypes.

As I've mentioned before, Barks' works are indeed peppered with cultural stereotypes and prejudices that would make today's youth request the cancellation of the amazing cartoonists career. Thankfully, Disney and Fantagaphics has decided not to cull away these works in hopes of creating dialogue about how much our societal norms have changed as well as point out how much further we've got to go.

There's holiday stories a plenty in this book. The nephews win a turkey for Thanksgiving. Only it's a live bird and the boys are too attached to it to kill it. In a fantastic Christmas set story, Donald is a lighthouse keeper who forgot to buy gifts for the boys. A looming maelstrom prevents Donald from going ashore on Christmas Eve. So any chance of a Christmas to remember rests on an albatross tasked with delivering a letter to Santa.

Now all of these stories come from comics that are quite valuable and really hard to find. But it's the inclusion of the Donald Lighthouse story along with a tale in which involves Donald, an atomic bomb and a sneaky spy are what makes this book really worth it's cover price of $35! Both stories are freebie premiums that mostly found their way into the waste bin. The Christmas story was given away by various toy stores and department stores during the 1946 holiday shopping season. The Atomic Donald adventure was part of a 4-issue set of minis included in a box of Cheerios cereal.

Oh, and how can I forget Donald's houseboat adventure titled 'The Terror of the River'. His experience with a river bound sea monster contains some of the most epic images crafted by Barks! It's breathtaking!

Maharajah Donald contains some of the earliest Donald Duck stories produced not by Disney, but Carl Barks as well. There's only 3 volumes of earlier material out there. There's no sign of a sophomore slump or early development kinks here. Without Uncle Scrooge, who's still a couple of years away from debuting at this point, many of the stories in this volume are about as close to the adventuresome duck epic formula that made me such a fan of the Disney Ducks back in the 1980s!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge "The Seven Cities of Gold": The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 14

According to the expert commentary at the end of this book, the time period covered here was a very difficult time creatively for creator Carl Barks. For those of you wondering, we're talking 1955-1960. Apparently, Barks and the editors at Western Publishing butted heads over the contents of several stories. All of a sudden, the editorial staff began nitpicking over every little thing and especially took issue with anything that they deemed to be too violent.

The commentators don't seem to know why the sudden change. How good a comic book historian can these experts be if they can't make the connection that Western Publishing was freaking out over concerns brought about by the Comics Scare of the 1950s and the newly established Comics Code?!

True, I purchase and read the volumes of the Carl Barks collection out of order because I shop for the books based on current affordability and not sequence. Maybe in a previous or later volume, the commentaries will dive into the Comics Code. I just think if you're going to question why about something, you really either need to figure out the reasoning or don't call yourself the authority on something. It just makes for poor research. But that's probably just the history major in me coming out.

Within this difficult time, it's said that Barks' productivity waned and his creativity stagnated. I just don't see evidence of that in this book. In fact, for someone who grew up on DuckTales, this volume seems to align with that classic 80s toon the most out of the several volumes in this set I now own!

Several amazing adventures starring Uncle Scrooge and his nephews Donald, Huey, Dewey and Louie take the ducks across the globe including an epic trek all over planet Earth in search of the fabled Philosopher's Stone. Then there's the sci-fi adventure The Mysterious Stone Ray starring those dastardly Beagle Boys. My favorite was The Golden Fleecing which I believe was adapted for the Disney cartoon series! Plus the origins of Scrooge's steamboat days are explored in action packed story titled The Great Steamboat Race. 

When I reviewed Don Rosa's The Complete Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, I commented how much I disliked the talent making Scrooge so ornery. Yet, this volume here confirms that Carl Barks was behind the anger because in reality, he was a very disgruntled man. I'd really like to read a biography about Barks. Though I'm not all that sure if such a thing exists. And if it does, I surely hope it's not written by the 'expert' who neglected to connect the damage Dr. Wertham did to the comic book industry in the 1950s to all the in-fighting between Carl Barks and his editors. For if it is, I might have to take a pass.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Mickey and Donald: The Big Fat Flat Blot Plot (Family Comic Friday)

Years ago, I wasn't a big fan of the IDW Disney books. While full of modern reprints compared to the classic works that comprised the Gladstone and Gemstone titles, the stories were from overseas; primarily from Italian and Danish publishers. The artwork was fantastic and clean. Just the English translations didn't have the right syntax. However, I believe I would like to amend my original view of these works.

I had read an early entry in IDW's run of Disney works. The publisher had the license from 2015 to 2020. I had gotten my hands on the company's first issue of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. As with pilot episodes, things were a little rough. However, after reading this collection, which features IDW's first two issues of Donald and Mickey, you can tell that those early issue language barrier kinks have been worked out.

I've read a lot of Disney stuff lately. I've experienced having a beloved pet stolen and really needed some lighthearted things to read to help with the emotional toll of it all. An amazing assortment of comics starring the cast of characters from the House of Mouse have been such a mood lifter for me. As I review these books, I've done a ton of research on them and I've learned that even though the United States is considered the fore front of super hero comic books, our love of Disney comics is nothing compared to the rest of the world- especially Europe!

European Disney fans put us Yanks to shame. Now that I understand that those markets are actually leading the way instead of following in our footsteps (I know, that's such an arrogant American way to think), I appreciate these books so much more!

One way the international books overtook the American titles is their portrayal of Mickey Mouse and his eternal foil, the Phantom Blot. Mickey's creator, Walt Disney, made it virtually impossible for the mouse to be anything but a goody-goody. Why do you think Donald Duck was created? It was to be the bad boy when Walt mandated Mickey to be the saint! In the States, the Phantom Blot was merely a hooded thief who was constantly apprehended by Mickey Mouse. Mostly by shear dumb luck. Thankfully, the rest of the world hasn't been hindered by those domestic restrictions. 

With that freedom overseas, the Phantom Blot became a criminal mastermind that required a ton of pluck and a little bit of snarkiness on the part of Mickey Mouse to apprehend him. In the United States, Mickey would probably break down and beg for mercy on the Blot's part at a parole hearing. In Denmark, Mickey would jump on the parole board's table and proclaim,  "Are You Nuts???" 

In the title story, the Phantom Blot has figured out a way to reduce himself and his stolen loot to 2D thanks to some ingenuity. Eating this formulated candy, the Blot can go back and forth from 2D to 3D. Thanks pretty darn clever. But the villain points out that anything his flattens that is inorganic remains that way forever. You'd think after the first time you did this, you'd maybe stop stealing new stuff until you could figure out a way to change the booty back! However, I think the Blot just keeps doing it to get under the skin of both Mickey and the inept Mouseton Police Department. 

Mickey's other main foe, Peg Leg Pete, also makes an appearance in a super-sized story. Mickey and Goofy find a treasure map and take a job as a ship's mechanic and galley cook in hopes of getting close enough to search for it. Turns out that the captain of the boat is Pete and he's looking for the buried jewels as well!

Being a Donald and Mickey book, there's plenty of Duck to be had. The all-out war with his next door neighbor Jones erupts in a pair of stories. Donald also finds out what can go wrong for the entire city of Duckburg when he takes a day off from his hot dog stand. Lastly, Donald tries to find a job for a character named Princess Oona; a prehistoric ancestor that Gyro Gearloose brought into the present but can't seem to get back home!

Speaking of characters, this volume ends with a character called Eega Beeva. From the 1940s, but totally unfamiliar with me. Is he a highly evolved human from the year 4000? Is he an alien? Is he both? You decide! 

I really enjoyed this book. I feel that my original misgivings towards IDW's Disney run was a little premature. If I can find more of these on the cheap, I will definitely get them. Tons of fun for the whole family and pretty darn wholesome too!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Donald Duck "Balloonatics": The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 16

I'm learning that as I read my way through the complete works of Carl Barks, the 'good duck artist' is not one to let a good trope die. In not one but two stories, Donald Duck becomes a part of the hot-air ballooning community. 

First, the nephews are trying out some new miniature dirigibles made by Gyro Gearloose, which wreak havoc on Donald who's trying to get some very much desired R&R. In typical Donald firebrand fashion, the boys' Uncle gets revenge. And by revenge, Donald goes overboard with a hot air balloon in his likeness and about double the size of any inflatable you might see at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Plus, it's armed to the teeth!

Story #2 has Huey, Dewey and Louie find a hunting falcon that's just too timid to be a hunter. As the boys try to help the bird find his confidence, Donald enters a contest by being held by the Duckburg Parachute club in which he hopes to win the prize for most original sky dive. Hopefully that will involve the use of a hot air balloon, some vintage balloonist digs and one nervous bird of prey.

Other adventures starring Donald, his nephews and sometimes their spinster uncle, Scrooge McDuck involve a hunt for a sea monster, searching for precious stones in the desert and an investigation into the mysterious destruction of test rockets. There's a classic Turkey Day story in which Donald and cousin Gladstone Gander compete for a chance to earn Thanksgiving dinner with Daisy. It's a tale I've read before but I don't mind a re-read. It's one of Barks' all-time best tales!

There's a couple of stand-out segments in this volume. The complete reissue of Dell Four Color #1161 'Walt Disney's Grandma Duck's Farm Friends', has Barks' presenting a quartet of stories set at Donald's father's family homestead. First, the farm gains a new resident in the form of a gigantic elephant that Uncle Scrooge was gifted from a dignitary. A new chick on Grandma's farm causes mischief along the country side when he's revealed to be a genius with good intentions but some poorly planned ideas. Gladstone makes a visit with intentions of becoming a matador. Then finally, with the nephews visiting Grandma, disaster hits in the form of both a blizzard and the appearance of the Beagle Boys on the lam from the law!

Lastly, readers get to enjoy a half-dozen Junior Woodchuck stories guest-starring Uncle Scrooge in 4 of them! These tales were from when Barks had officially retired from comics. Gold Key had lured the creator back to script duty, but arthritis and age had made it impossible to carry on his quality of work. At the time these stories were published in the 70s, original readers complained of how uninspired the artwork appeared. With their reprinting, Fantagraphics presents new artwork by Danish artist Daan Jippes. The remastered artwork looks like that of Barks and yet, there's something modern about it. Barks was known to be a minimalist when it came to backgrounds. Jippes crafts a masterful background in every panel! Really jarring stuff- in a good way!

The new tales have an Uncle Scrooge more full of piss and vinegar than many of us are used to. His inclusion in those Junior Woodchuck stories were crafted right as the world was about to celebrate its first Earth Day in 1970. (So in a way those stories are holiday themed!) Scrooge McDuck is more like a robber baron, than a penny-pinching businessman, in these stories to the point of almost unlikability. Thankfully, Huey, Dewey and Louie and their scout troop pals save the day and Scrooge's soul in these very different Duck tales. 

With this volume, I'm not sure of a couple of things. For one, why is this a Donald Duck book and not an Uncle Scrooge edition? Would it have even been so bad to have had this volume starring the nephews instead of Donald or Scrooge? Also, if this is a collection of the complete Carl Barks' works of the residents of Duckburg, why the time jump? The Grandma stories were published in 1961. Barks' ecological stories were published a decade later. This is volume 16 of a 26 volume collection. So why put the Junior Woodchuck stories here and not in volume 25 or 26? I'm not complaining about their inclusion. I just don't understand the thought process of the editing team as to having them here and not later on down the line.

A great read that just confuses me as to why certain stories are published out of order if this was supposed to be a omnibus of Carl Barks works about the Disney ducks.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Complete Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Vol. 1 (2024 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

A chance encounter with a Gladstone comic book in 1986 changed the life of cartoonist Don Rosa forever. 

Don Rosa grew up showing great artistic talent. Rosa went through grade school and high school submitting strips for various educational and local publications. Despite working towards a degree in civil engineering at the University of Kentucky, Rosa continued to fine tune his craft submitting art for a pair of fanzines devoted to Carl Barks and the Disney ducks as well as the college paper, The Kentucky Kernel where Rosa contributed a strip devoted to political satire. Despite not considering himself a political cartoonist, Rosa won an award in 1969 for his work and was later named one of the top college artists in the nation by The Journal of Higher Education.

After graduating, Don Rosa went to work at his family's construction business which was started in 1900 by his grandfather, an Italian immigrant. Rosa was resided to work primarily in the family business while moonlighting part time as a cartoonist with a weekly strip called The  Adventures of Captain Kentucky that appeared in The Louisville Times. However, the endeavor was far from satisfying for Rosa and in 1982, the cartoonist retired outright.

It appeared that fate had destined for Don Rosa to work the rest of his days selling the Italian tile and marble products that his family had become legendary for. Then one day fate changed Rosa's career path once again. Upon stumbling upon a Disney comic published by Gladstone, Rosa learned that Disney was once again publishing books based on their properties in the United States and were in need of American writers and artists to fill those pages. Rosa grew up a fan of Carl Barks' Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge adventures and he felt destined to be the one to usher in the next generation of Duck tales. Rosa contacted editor Byron Erickson who agreed to a tryout. The result was a globetrotting search for treasure between Scrooge McDuck and the dastardly Flintheart Glomgold in 'The Son of the Sun.' In 1987, Rosa's Disney debut was nominated for a Harvey Award for Best Story of the Year.

After a few more stories, Rosa prayed ways with Disney as the company had a policy that would not return artwork back to the artist. However, Rosa's affiliation with the residents of Duckburg was far from over. The hit syndicated cartoon DuckTales brought forth a resurgence in both the original works of Barks, along with Rosa's newer adventures. After learning about how popular his Disney stories had become in Europe, Rosa freelanced for the Denmark based Gutenberghus, now know as Egmont. 

In 1990-91, word started to spread that Disney was wanting to issue a miniseries on the long and stories life of Scrooge McDuck. Rosa encouraged Egmont to select one of their employees for the task as the international publisher had an impressive team of artists and writers that could execute the job successfully. Egmont's editors agreed and recommended Rosa for the job. Beginning in 1991, Rosa crafted The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. 

The 12-chapter miniseries chronicled Scrooge's Scottish childhood fraught with poverty and lessons in hard work through his numerous failures in business until Scrooge finally struck gold literally in the Yukon Gold Rush of the late 1890s. The story comes to a close right where Carl Barks introduced the world to Scrooge McDuck in the 1947 story 'Christmas on Bear Mountain.' Having become the richest person in the world, Scrooge lives alone as miser until he decides to test his remaining relatives, nephew Donald Duck and his grand-nephews Huey Dewey and Louie, in order to see if they are worthy of inheriting his countless riches.

Building upon the foundation Carl Barks laid decades earlier, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck answers questions long posed by Disney comic readers. How did the Beagle Boys come to be a perennial thorn in the side of Uncle Scrooge? Why does Flintheart hate McDuck so much? Why is that first dime so important to Scrooge? Plus, the entire family tree of Clan McDuck is explained, giving away many of the secrets of the old family castle as well as finally understanding where Granny, lucky duck Gladstone Gander and other residents of Duckburg relate to Scrooge McDuck and his kin.

In 1995, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck won the Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story from appearing in issues of Anders And & Co. from 1992-1994. American audiences would be introduced to the story in the pages of Uncle Scrooge #285-296 beginning in late 1994. 

Over the following years, Rosa would craft several 'fill-in' stories that added to the mystique of Scrooge McDuck's life but do not have to be ready in any order in relation to the 12-part miniseries. An emergency surgery as the result of a detached retina would be the final straw in a career marred by low pay, creative differences and royalties in regards to intellectual property rights leading Rosa to ultimately retire from comics in 2008. He still continues to tour the convention circuit and conducts semi-annual signing tours in Europe where he enjoys superstar status.

Completing this review completes Task #6 (Best Single Issue or Serialized Story to Win an Eisner Award) of the 2024 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Donald Duck "The Black Pearls of Tabu Yama": The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 19

Maybe it's just me getting older and my tastes have changed. Maybe now owning nearly 12,000 comics and graphic novels that I realize that I don't have to own every comic book ever made. Or maybe it's just because I really love Scrooge McDuck and his nephew Donald. All I know is when it comes to a book that just warms my soul, I'd much rather read the complete works of the legendary Carl Barks than just about anything new that comes out on comic book shop shelves.

In this delightful volume, readers start off on a Pacific island adventure set during Christmas time with Scrooge Donald and Huey Dewey and Louie looking for the famed black pearls of Tabu Yama. The heartwarming ending is extremely predictable and yet this has immediately become one of my all-time favorite holiday reads to star the Ducks of Disney.

Lucky duck cousin Gladstone appears in at least 3 stories in this book. First, he'll race Donald around the world in a rocket ship for a pair of dueling scientists. For the last 2 stories, Uncle Scrooge is added to the mix as both Gladstone and Donald attempt to convince the wealthy businessduck to buy their prospective investment properties. Then the trio compete against each other in a series of competitive burro events for the rights to a lucrative uranium mine  For a character absolutely despised by Barks, he sure uses Gladstone Gander an awful lot.

Readers are also introduced to a new rival of Donald Duck in the form of the literal swine, P.L. McBrine. First, McBrine unleashes a pickle shortage in Duckburg by releasing a parasite that feasts on cucumbers. Donald and his nephews head overseas to bring back a wasp that is known to feast on those invasive bugs. However, McBrine is on their trail in hopes of keeping the Ducks from succeeding so he can make a killing by selling pickled rutabagas!

McBrine returns, now using the name McSwine as a customer scheming to take milkman Donald's job by making false complaints to the manager of the Duckburg dairy. Yet in an unexpected twist, Donald kinda snaps and exacts revenge on McBrine by issuing him his just desserts. As satisfying as it is to see Donald get the best of one of his foes with relish, it's no wonder that Disney and Dell passed on this story and was shelved for nearly 2 decades before being published in the Netherlands circa 1974.

Almost 2 dozen tales of various lengths abound in this nearly 200 page collection, along with covers and commentary from noted Disney comic historians on each adventure. 

Such a delight. I don't care if these reproductions show biases and stereotypes. Well, I care, socially. It just doesn't bother me to see how far we've come from those days of yore. It's how we learn from the mistakes of history and with that, I can't wait to get my hands on more books in this oddly published series of Barks' complete Disney Duck works. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Disney Uncle Scrooge & Donald Duck in Les Miserables and War and Peace (Family Comic Friday)

Topolino is Italian for 'little mouse'. It's also the name of Italy's long running Disney comic book that features original material starring your favorite House of Mouse characters including Goofy, the Phantom Blot and Pluto. In this volume devoted to Disney-fied 19th century European classical works, the stars are all from your favorite family of ducks! Uncle Scrooge, Donald, Daisy, nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie and many more appear in these comical adaptations of Les Miserables and Crime and Punishment. This being an Uncle Scrooge heavy work, you can rest assured that his biggest foes, the Beagle Boys are on hand to create some mischief as well!

Material from the pages of Topolino have been covered by me previously on several reviews of American Disney works. I usually state that poor translations from the original Italian text into English are the main problems with those works. Phrases would seem stilted or out of place. That's just not the case here.The previous works I reviewed were published by IDW Publishing. Here, Fantagraphics, who've been doing an amazing job releasing the complete works of Carl Barks and Don Rosa, are the publishers and their translations have been phenomenal.

Both original novels deal with some very mature and violent subject matter. Les Miserables sees a single mother forced to sell her body to pay for her daughters room and board as well as the cold blooded murder of a young street urchin. While the main plot of Inspector Javert seeks to apprehend the fugitive Jean Valjean is still covered in this comic adaptation, the violent uprising in the streets of Paris has been replaced with a farcical search for the missing crown jewels of Charlemagne. Don't worry, there's still plenty of adventures to be had in the sewers under those Parisian streets.

As for War and Peace, I've never read the book nor seen an version of it in film. (With Les Mis, my wife and I have seen the musical about a half dozen times.) So I don't really have a good idea of how much material was replaced with more family friendly situations. However I cannot find evidence of the main character of the original Leo Tolstoy work trying to hide his horde of gold by melting them down into cannonballs and then having to retrieve the spent projectiles from the battle field after they are accidentally used during the Napoleonic Wars.

Both stories were written and illustrated by Giovan Battista Carpi. He's considered to be the Italian Carl Barks. The quality of these two parodies proves that belief. The plots are brilliant mixes of the original source material and the world of adventure created by those American masters whose stories first appeared in the pages of Dell and Whitman Disney comics decades ago.

In no way should this collection be used as a replacement for reading the originals. However both works are nearly a thousand pages each. Plus a lot of the terms and sentence structure are over 125 years old. Younger audiences might have difficulty relating. Unlike Classics Illustrated and Pocket Classics, these Disney adaptations should not even be used as study aids. But this book could very well be the link to interest young readers to want to read more about both the authors and their masterpieces. Sometimes humor is needed to peak interest into serious issues and this pair of parodies are hysterical. 

Perfect for all ages; especially fans of either version of DuckTales!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Donald Duck Adventures #38

Living legend William Van Horn crafts the cover feature in this 1996 issue of Donald Duck Adventures.

The story has Donald attending an auction. Most of the stuff is out of his price range, except for a tiny chest that sells for all of 50 cents. When Donald opens the chest back home, he discovers a medallion that bears a treasure map. Donald's nephews are able to determine that the map is of an area in Florida and the medallion was crafted by Spanish explorers in the 1500s. Spanish explorers might mean buried treasure of Spanish doubloons and precious stones.

So Donald and his nephews head down South where they learn that the medallion points to a fabled area of swamp called 'The Hauntland'. According to Native legend, a terrible horror haunts the swamp and locals swear to steer clear of it. Determined to find riches and glory, Donald presses on. Only he won't find buried treasure. What Donald will find is the discovery of the century and it was only several million years in the making. 

The next story again has Donald seeking riches. His new dog, a massive Saint Bernard, is eating him and the nephews out of house and home. When Donald learns of a money making opportunity back on Bear Mountain, he takes his dog up for a try out. As the last Saint Bernard was injured making a delivery run, Donald has his work cut out for him including an encounter with one of Bear Mountain's namesake grizzlies!

Both stories were great duck tales starring Donald Duck along with Huey, Dewey and Louie. However, this comic book does show a decline in quality. 1996 is just a few short months away from publisher Gladstone Comics' ultimate demise in 1998. One cost cutting measure taken by Gladstone was to replace the glossy paper of the cover with the same dingy newsprint used to make the interiors. The whole thing looks like those flimsy free comics you'd get as a kid at Shoney's or Red Lobster. Nostalgic, sure. But the stories in this issue deserved more respect.

The cover promises chills. Not very much a scary story as it's a fanciful story set in a spooky place. It's rather magical, honestly. And the back-up story was a hoot.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.