Archive for March, 2007

This week, Gemstone’s Uncle Scrooge #364 (buy for $7.⁵⁰) features three Easter-inspired Uncle Scrooge stories. In Pat and Carol McGreal’s “Scrambled Eggs”, Scrooge’s antique Fibbergee Egg gets swapped with a decorated ostrich egg; in Lars Jensen’s “The Nest Egg” huckster architect Lardo J. Porkington rooks Scrooge into building an egg-shaped money bin; and finally Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard’s “The Egg and Why” has Scrooge’s Number One Dime swallowed by Fethry Duck’s hungry hens! The issue also has two Beagle Boys tales, starting off with a feature-length Carl Barks classic from 1963, “Case of the Sticky Money”, in which the crooks are suddenly rich and nephews Huey, Duey and Louie invent a strong super glue. Following this unusual premise, we meet the B-Boyz, the future Beagle Boys, when Gyro Gearloose travels “Into the Future” with his time-machine-borne descendant, Chip. More »

Today would have been Carl Barks’ 106th birthday. He is considered by many to be the best comics creator of all time. He created many characters, including Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander, The Beagle Boys, Gyro Gearloose. The quality of his scripts and drawings earned him the nick names The Duck Man and The Good Duck Artist. Fellow comic writer Will Eisner called him “the Hans Christian Andersen of comic books”. Barks died in 2000 at the age of 99. More »

When shopping at a Real,- supermarket in Germany yesterday, I came across a display of Disney food products, by ‘Disney Magic’. There were many different items (pasta, juice, popcorn, etc.), but the most interesting one for me as a fan of Disney comics was “Dagobert’s 1. Taler”, or “Scrooge’s First Taler” (Taler is the fake currency used in German Disney comics). They are cookies in the shape of coins with a big one on them. Disney comics are very popular in Germany — today nearly one million fans in Germany read Micky Maus every week, and a recent study has shown that approximately one-fifth of parents also enjoy reading along. More »

Spring Fever is the first of a new seasonal special from Gemstone. The annual series will feature spring-themed stories. This year’s volume (out on 25 April; pre-order here for $9.50) contains the stories “Mystery of the Swamp” – a classic Donald Duck adventure by Carl Barks, “Lost on a Dog and Nap in Nature” – Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck short stories by William Van Horn, “Spooks Island” – a vintage Mickey classic from the 1950s. The cover is by Dutch artist Daan Jippes. More »

On Free Comic Book Day, participating comic book shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their stores. This year’s 6th Free Comic Book Day will be on Saturday 5 May 2007. Gemstone Publishing’s contribution this year will feature a story by 2006 Eisner Award Hall of Fame honoree Floyd Gottfredson’s; “The Robin Hood Adventure” (1936) takes our hero, Mickey Mouse, to Medieval times, where he must prove himself a warrior — sword-fighting, jousting, and risking his life to rob the rich! More »

This year Gemstone Publishing will start a new series of trade paperbarks that will pair Carl Barks’ classic Scrooge adventures with Don Rosa’s modern-day sequels! The first Uncle Scrooge Adventures book in the series will come out on June 25th (pre-order here) and will feature Barks’ 1957 story “Land of the Pygmy Indians” and its 1991 follow-up “War of the Wendigo” by Don Rosa.

Egmont, the world’s largest publisher of Disney comics, reported satisfactory financial results yesterday. In 2006, Egmont’s Kids & Teens division broadened its portfolio of leading children’s and youth media in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland to include yet more channels and genres. Revenue remained the same as previous years despite the changing media habits of children and young people. More »

This month’s issue #678 of Gemstone’s Walt Disney Comics & Stories (buy for $7.50) features the fourth and final chapter of Eisner Hall of Fame artist Floyd Gottfredson’s “Mickey Mouse Joins the Foreign Legion”. Crooked sergeant Pegleg Pete and his accomplice, Trigger Hawkes, plot to desert Mickey’s squad at Sikh Abed oasis. How can Mickey outwit a mob of 250 gun-toting robbers? Don’t miss this red-hot Gottfredson classic! More »

Check out DCW’s new Disney Comics Search Engine that searches dozens of Disney comics-related websites using Google’s Custom Search. Now if you want to search the web for information on Disney comics you don’t have to sift through hundreds of unrelated websites. This page searches only websites that are 100% about Disney and mostly about Disney comics. More »

This week Egmont Ehapa Verlag in Germany launched a new website for its immensely popular 256-page monthly Lustiges Taschenbuch. The colorful new site promises to bring background information on the artists and writers behind the magazine’s Disney comic stories. This March the artist of the month is Massimo Fecchi, who drew the opening story, “Unter Rittern!”, in this month’s issue number 361. More »