Over three years since BOOM! Studios stopped publishing monthly Disney comics in the United States, another publisher has finally stepped up to the plate. IDW Publishing recently announced that beginning in 2015 fans can expect to see the first wave of classic Disney comics in English return, with ‘multiple monthly series’ featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and many more.

IDW CEO Ted Adams said: “There’s nothing quite like Disney. Despite the fact that nearly all of the titles in its library were originally intended for kids, adult collectors have long sought high quality and regularly published collections of classic Disney material. IDW is thrilled to present these beloved stories in quality packages for both entry level comics readers and serious collectors alike.” More »

This month Dutch publisher Sanoma started releasing its weekly Donald Duck comic in digital format on the iPad. Readers must first install the free app Tijdschrift.nl and can then purchase 63 different Dutch magazines, including National Graphic, Cosmopolitan and Donald Duck.

Each weekly digital issue of Donald Duck costs €2.39 or $2.99, which is rather steep considering the paper copies cost only €2.05 in stores and €1.65 for subscribers. Each digital version does have 8 bonus pages. I just downloaded the latest issue 44 of 2011 (see screenshots below) and it has 52 pages instead of the standard 44 pages, including an 8-page bonus story.

This new digital comic is great for Dutch expats like myself. Now I can buy the latest copy of Donald Duck Weekly whenever I want. If I buy every issue it would cost me about €125 per year, which is cheaper than the €179.40 it would cost me to get a real subscription outside Europe. In my opinion it is still too expensive for this to become successful. Sure, the 8 extra pages are nice, but in the issue I downloaded the extra story (H96141) already appeared in the same magazine 4 years ago, which is not much of an incentive to pay the higher price.

Part of the high price must be because of the 30% revenue that Apple takes on everything that is sold through the App Store. That leaves €1.67 per issue for Sanoma, which is right about the amount they get from subscribers. Still, with Sanoma saving money on paper, printing and distribution I think that they should be able to lower the price a bit more. At the very least they should allow existing subscribers to download digital copies for free and offer digital subscription prices where you can download a half year or full year at a lower price.

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Fantagraphics announced earlier this year that it is planning to release a new Carl Barks Library starting later this year. The first book (240-page full-color hardcover) is now available for pre-order on Amazon for only $14.76. Check out this beautiful picture:

The first volume kicks of with some of Barks’ most popular stories from the period 1948 to 1950, including “Lost in the Andes”, “Race to the South” and “The Golden Christmas Tree”.

More information:

• Amazon.com
• Fantagraphics
• Facebook

This coming May, Marvel will launch a new comics magazine titled Disney•Pixar Presents in the United States. The monthly all-ages magazine will feature 96 pages of content, with a mix of brand-new as well as class stories, puzzles, games and more. The magazine will sell for $5.99.

The press release:

Featuring characters from Disney/Pixar’s hit movies Cars, Cars 2, The Incredibles, Toy Story 3, and more, DISNEY•PIXAR PRESENTS will be available at bookstores, retail chains, comic stores and more. The series debuts with DISNEY•PIXAR PRESENTS: Cars Magazine #1.

“We’re excited for the launch of DISNEY•PIXAR PRESENTS, teaming with our friends at Disney/Pixar to bring some exciting new material to fans all over the world and introducing a whole new generation to comics,” said Axel Alonso, Editor-in-Chief. “We’re committed to providing a great product and ensuring these books are available in locations that parents and kids frequent. The Disney/Pixar library includes some of the most popular characters of all time, making DISNEY•PIXAR PRESENTS exactly the kind of comic magazine that kids and parents have been demanding!”

Rev up those engines and join your favorite characters from CARS in DISNEY•PIXAR PRESENTS: Cars Magazine #1 as Lightning McQueen organizes a charity race for young cars with special needs, but he didn’t invite Piston Cup champion Chick Hicks. The snub gets Hick’s competitive juices flowing, and he’s out to show McQueen a thing or two about racing! Will Hicks ruin the good nature of the Radiator Springs Rally Race? Find out this May everywhere books and comics are sold.

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Fantagraphics announced today that is planning to release a complete library of Carl Barks’ stories starting this fall. The hardcover books will contain approximately 240 pages each and will come out twice per year. The retail price will be $24.99. An estimated 30 volumes will be needed to publish all of Barks’ work, making this a 15-year project!

All volumes will collect the Duck Man’s work of 6,000 pages in chronological order, but the volumes will not be released in order. In this interview by Robot 6 the publisher’s co-founder Gary Groth explains that they’ll start with 1948 and that the first volume will be called “Lost in the Andes”, featuring one of Barks’ most popular stories. The second volume to be released will be titled “Poor Old Man”, featuring the first Uncle Scrooge story, and covering the period from 1952 to 1954. This way some of Barks’ best work is available first in the series. Eventually, once they publish all of them, fans will be able to put every book in chronological order on a shelf.

At the Comic-Con last year Fantagraphics announced that it had partnered with Disney to publish a complete collection of Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse comic strips. The first volume of that series is slated for release in May 2011 and can now be pre-ordered on Amazon.

Fantagraphics Books is known for other classic comics collections, including The Complete Peanuts, an ambitious 12-year project that reprints every daily and Sunday strip of Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts.

For more information about this exciting new project check out this article at Robot 6.

Last October, Don Rosa toured through Germany where he signed at several comic shops and at the Egmont stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Check out this wonderful video (with German commentary) by Jano Rohleder.

In the video you can see Rosa holding a copy of the new limited edition statue that was exclusively produced by German Comic und Spielzeug in collaboration with the artist. The statue is now for sale and the company is also currently selling the statue on eBay.

Here’s another video of Rosa drawing Scrooge and Magica De Spell:

Long-running Uncle Scrooge will reach its 400th issue in February! The world’s richest duck first appeared in the Donald Duck story Christmas on Bear Mountain by Carl Barks. By 1952 the character’s popularity convinced publisher Dell to try three one-shot issues featuring Scrooge in a leading role. After the three one-shots Scrooge was given his own title, starting with issue #4 in December 1953. The monthly comic is currently published in the United States by BOOM! Studios, who celebrates the milestone issue featuring artwork by Carl Barks, Don Rosa, Daan Jippes and Giorgio Cavazzano.

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Back in October, BOOM! Studios already let us know that they will focus more classic Disney comics in 2011. Today the publisher announced that a ‘plethora of classic collections’ will be hitting store shelves in the first half of 2011. The covers and contents of four 160-page books were revealed today, featuring stories by some the world’s most famous Disney comics creators.

“When we say ‘Classics Are Back at BOOM!’, we mean it!” Said BOOM! Studios Marketing Director Chip Mosher. “BOOM! is bringing tons of classic Disney stories by such beloved creators as Don Rosa, Floyd Gottfredson, Al Taliaferro among others! The fans demanded it and BOOM! delivers!”

Walt Disney Treasury: Donald Duck Volume 1 collects some of Don Rosa earliest stories, including: Return to Plain Awful, Oolated Luck, Give Unto Others, Recalled Wreck, Mythological Menagerie, Making the Grade, Fit to be Pied, Rocket Reverie, Forget Me Not, Star-Struck Duck, Metaphorically Spanking, The Crocodile Collector, and Fir-Tree Fracas. It also includes a cover gallery and ‘ducky behind-the-scenes details never before told’.

Walt Disney Treasury: Donald Duck Volume 2 continues to collect Don Rosa’s classic run of Donald Duck stories including Donald’s travels across the globe and time, from Norway for the Winter Olympics to the Middle Ages for an epic battle against none other than King Arthur himself.

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories Archive Volume 1 will start a new series reprinting the longest-running comic series in history, in chronological order! Volume 1 brings readers classic Disney stories from famed creators like Floyd Gottfredson, the legendary artist behind the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip, and Al Taliaferro, creator of fan-favorite characters Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Disney’s Four-color Adventures Volume 1 cracks open the Disney vault to find some of the rarest Disney comics ever created! This volume features classic Disney comics and gag strips from such creators as Al Taliaferro, Disney Legend Jack Hannah and many more, reprinted for the first time in decades.

The books are now available for pre-order on Amazon:

• Walt Disney Treasury Volume 1 – $14.99 $10.11 (March 2011)
• WDC&S Archives Volume 1 – $14.99 $10.11 (April 2011)
• Four-Color Adventures Volume 1 – $14.99 $10.19 (May 2011)
• Walt Disney Treasury Volume 2 – $14.99 $10.19 (June 2011)

This oil painting by Carl Barks is titled ‘Halloween in Duckburg’. The 1973 painting is based on the cover of Donald Duck 26, which featured Barks’ story ‘Trick or Treat’ in which Huey, Dewey & Louie team up with a real witch named Hazel to get treats from Donald on Halloween.

The above picture is a scan from the back of issue 3 from 1992 of Dutch Donald Duck Extra, which for a few years printed Barks’ paintings on the back of each issue.

Starting January 2011, BOOM! Studios is changing the format of some of their Disney comics. Earlier this week the publisher announced that ‘classics are back’. We’ve now learned what’s inside their January line-up and it’s good news for fans of traditional Disney comics.

For the past year we’ve been seeing mostly long Italian adventure stories in BOOM!’s Disney comics, such as Ultraheroes and Wizards of Mickey. It now looks like BOOM! is returning some of their titles to a more traditional format, with several short stories in each issue, featuring both classic reprints and new stories that haven’t been seen in the United States yet.

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