Boom! Studios

Do you remember Darkwing Duck, the terror that flaps in the night? The 1990s superhero duck from Saturday mornings on ABC returns in his own comic book mini-series from Boom! Studios this June. Lanchpad McQuack, Gosalyn Mallard and the fiercest of Darkwing’s rogue gallery all join the daring duck of mystery in an all-new, completely original four-issue mini-series: Darkwing Duck: The Duck Knight Returns.

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This week Boom! Studios released issue #703 of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories with the first part of The World to Come by Italian writer/artist Andrea “Casty” Castellan. If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, check out this preview of the first 10 pages to whet your appetite.

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CastyOn February 10th, Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories issue 703 (published by Boom! Studios in the United States) will start a new multi-part story arc titled “Mickey Mouse and the World to Come,” which was written and drawn by talented Italian artist Andrea Castellan, who goes by the name of Casty.

I had a chance to ask Casty some questions about his career as a writer/artist and his work for Disney. Casty shared with me his early start in writing comics, where he finds his inspiration, and details about an upcoming story that may be of interest to duck fans!

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Yesterday Boom! Studios released the first book collecting Don Rosa’s legendary epic story The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. The hardcover album ($16.49 at Amazon) was released earlier than expected, but in case you haven’t seen it yet here are some pictures of this fabulous new book.

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Boom! Studios in the United States is launching two new monthly series this month: Wizards of Mickey and Disney’s Hero Squad.

Wizards of Mickey #1, on sale January 27th, will continue the epic tale of magical adventure that was started in Mickey Mouse & Friends issues #296 – #299. The stories proved popular enough to garner its own stand alone series. Wizards of Mickey follows the adventures of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy as they compete in the Grand Wizard’s tournament, determined to win all the pieces of the Sorcerer Supreme’s crown and free Mickey’s master from the clutches of the evil Phantom Blot! You can pre-order Wizards of Mickey #1 for $2.39.

Disney’s Hero Squad, which will also go on sale on January 27th, continues the Ultraheroes stories that were started in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #699 – #702. The series features Super Goof, Duck Avenger, Eega Beeva, The Red Bat and more coming together as Disney’s mightiest band of heroes, ready to stomp out the bad guys wherever they may lurk! Pre-order Hero Squad now for $2.39.

“The fan response to Wizards of Mickey and Disney’s Hero Squad has been completely insane,” says BOOM! Disney Editor Aaron Sparrow. “These characters have reached a whole new audience, and fans, old and new, have clamored to have these stories in their own dedicated series. Well, you demanded it and we delivered.”

So what will happen to Mickey Mouse & Friends and Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories? The first one will take a break for a while as Boom prepares the next wave of Mickey Mouse stories. This will delay the series milestone #300 issue, which would have been next. Comics & Stories #703 will see the debut of a new series by Italian artist Casty titled “Mickey Mouse and The World to Come” (I TL 2721-3P, “Topolino e il mondo che verrà”). For a preview of Casty’s work see this fan-made website about his work.

From this website you can even download a wallpaper for the story that is coming to Comics & Stories:

On November 18th, Boom! Kids will release the next issues of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories, which will feature the second chapters in the Wizards of Mickey and Ultraheroes series. Just like the first issues there will be two regular covers and a limited edition cover for each issue. Note the limited cover for WDC&S is the penciled version of Cover A, which I think is pretty neat.

To celebrate the milestone 700th edition of Walt Disney Comics, Boom is bringing us a a double-sized issue at no additional cost. Besides the regular 32 pages of the second chapter of Ultraheroes, it also has a special back-up feature by William Van Horn, an 8-page story titled Close-ups.

The next two issues of Walt Disney Comics will wrap up the first arc of the Ultraheroes series, which will spin off into its own special series in January with Disney’s Hero Squad: Ultraheroes #1, a trade paperback now available for pre-order on Amazon for $9.99. That same month Walt Disney Comics will start a new 4-part story arc starring Mickey Mouse in The World of Tomorrow, a newspaper strip by Floyd Gottfredson from 1944 an Italian story from 2008 written and drawn by Casty.

Mickey Mouse 297 Cover A	Mickey Mouse 297 Cover B
Mickey Mouse 297 Cover C	WDC&S 700 Cover A
WDC&S 700 Cover B	WDC&S 700 Cover C

Amazon has some new artwork of two of Boom! Studios’ upcoming hardcover books: The Life & Times Of Scrooge McDuck: Volume 1 and Walt Disney’s Christmas Classic. Each of the two books can now be pre-ordered for $16.49.

The Christmas book, which comes out in three weeks, has a neat “Look Inside” feature that allows you to see some pages inside. It looks like Boom has selected a nice variety of classic Christmas stories. The contents are:

• Santa Claus’s Visit by Jack Hannah
• It’s a Wonderful Christmas Story by Romano Scarpa
• Mister and Mistletoe by Al Taliaferro
• Best Christmas by Carl Barks
• Mickey’s Christmas Mix-up by Don Gunn
• Santa’s Stormy Visit by Carl Barks
• Mickey’s Christmas Trees by Don Gunn
• Three Good Little Ducks by Carl Barks
• Christmas on Bear Mountain by Carl Barks

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On November 4th, Boom! Kids will launch their new Donald Duck & Friends series with issue #374 (pre-order here). It’s the first new issue of Donald Duck & Friends in almost three years. The series originally started in 1952.

Boom is kicking off Donald Duck with another series from the pages of Italian Topolino. This 142-page saga is titled DoubleDuck featuring Donald as a secret agent. It was written by Fausto Vitaliano and Marco Bosco with art by Andrea Freccero, Francesco D’Ippolito, Marco Mazzarello and Vitale Mangiatordi.

Here is a preview of the covers and the first five pages of the story: More »

On October 14th, Boom! Kids will launch the Uncle Scrooge series with issue #384 (pre-order here). It’s the first new issue of Uncle Scrooge in almost a year. The ‘richest duck in the world’ made his debut in the Carl Barks story “Christmas on Bear Mountain” in 1947. Barks used Scrooge a few more times in other Donald Duck stories and by 1953 the character had become popular enough for the publisher to grant him his own title.

While all other three of Boom’s classic monthly Disney comics are featuring long Italian 3-tier stories, this is the first comic to use 4-tier stories produced by Egmont Comic Creation in Denmark. However, as you can see in the scans below, Boom has cut up the story to show three tiers on each page. An interesting choice.

Boom is kicking off Uncle Scrooge with a series written by Swedish author Per Hedman with art by Argentinian artist Wanda Gattino. In the 6-part saga (this issue of Uncle Scrooge has the first chapter and part of the second) Uncle Scrooge and his nephews criss-cross through Europe in search of treasure as they are being chased by Magic De Spell who is, as always, after Scrooge’s Number One Dime.

Cover A is by Tino Santanach, Cover B is by Daniel Branca and an exclusive third Don Rosa cover is available at the Baltimore Comic-con this weekend.

I’m so excited that Uncle Scrooge is back! Head on over to Things from another World to order this first new issue of Uncle Scrooge for only $2.39. Here is a preview of the covers and the first five pages of the story. More »

This week, Boom! Kids in the United States is launching the new incarnation of one of the longest-running and most famous comic books of all time, Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories. Boom’s first issue, number #699 (available here), kicks off with the first chapter of a multi-part series titled Ultraheroes, which was produced by The Walt Disney Company Italy for the Italian weekly Topolino.

One of the writers of Ultraheroes is Giorgio Salati. I had a chance to ask Giorgio some questions about his work for Disney and writing Ultraheroes.

Disney Comics Worldwide: How did you get started writing Disney comic stories for Disney Italia?

(above portrait of Giorgio
by Marco Ghiglione)Giorgio Salati: After some novel and film script writing courses that I attended after high school, I realized that comics were the kind of media I really wanted to write for, having been a passionate comic book reader throughout my youth. That’s why I followed comic book writing courses at Scuola del Fumetto in Milan.

Teacher Riccardo Secchi — now a colleague and a friend — taught me this beautiful profession with a mix of passion and discipline. One day he told me: “You’re good at writing funny dialogues; you’ll sure fit Disney’s style”.

That was good news to me. I’ve been a Disney fan since I was born (my father is a Barks fan!). I got the e-mail address of a Disney Italia editor and sent him about ten plots and a pair of scripts. He called me and said something like: “Ok, you can write Disney comics. Now send me something that fits.” Gulp! Ten plots rejected! I pulled myself together and wrote new stories which fit (the main characters were Donald & Daisy Duck and Goofy), so… I signed a contract! It was the summer of 2003 and it was like a dream come true.

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