Europe

Panini in the UK has added two new Disney magazines to its portfolio: one a new launch and the other an existing magazine it is taking on from BBC Magazines. Disney Presents launches with content on Enchanted to tie in with the release of the film on DVD. In addition, Panini is taking on the publishing of WITCH magazine from the BBC from May 14th.

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One year after Walt Disney Company Italy ran a 10-part series in its weekly Topolino magazine, titled Wizards of Mickey, the series is being published in the Nordic countries by Egmont. Wizards of Mickey, which was created by Claretta Muci and Stefano Ambrosio, is renamed by Egmont in Norway to “Donald Duck – Magiens mestere”, kicking Mickey out of the spotlight. Apparently, Donald Duck is far more popular in the Nordic countries than Mickey is. The first chapter comes out this week and features a redrawn cover putting Donald in front of Mickey:

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De Beste Verhalen van Donald Duck (“The Best Stories of Donald Duck”) is a series in the Netherlands that has been reprinting Carl Barks stories since 1975. Last week the 132th album in the series came out, and with it Dutch publisher Sanoma has announced that, with almost all Barks reprinted, the series will soon come to an end. More »

Italian weekly Topolino (“Mickey Mouse”) has started the second series of comic stories in the Wizards of Mickey saga that stars Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck in a new world of wizards and castles. The first chapter, written by Stefano Ambrosio and drawn by Marco Palazzi, appeared in issue #2680 of Topolino this week. The new series, titled “The Dark Ages”, is accompanied by a large advertising campaign in Italy; check out this great promotional website. The first series of Wizards of Mickey started in October 2006; you can download all ten chapters of the first series on this official website.

German publisher Ehapa has relaunched the official website of Germany’s weekly Micky Maus magazine, at www.micky-maus.de. The website features a fresh new look with an animated header that shows Duckburg and contains mini games. The site has many activities, including a drawing course, an interactive map of Duckburg, games, puzzles, and much more. In March, the website of monthly Lustiges Taschenbuch was also renewed. More »

The Karikaturmuseum in Krems, Austria has an exhibition titled “Donald Duck … and the duck became human, The Drawings and Poetic Works of Carl Barks”. The exposition is from 25 March to 4 November 2007 and has more than 400 original works of art, including 290 from the collection of Gottfried Helnwein.

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 »

Subscribers to the monthly 256-page Lustiges Taschenbuch in Germany were offered the unique opportunity to order a copy of Lustiges Taschenbuch Exclusiv, a special edition of the popular series of pocket books, with ten Italian comic stories never-before-published in Germany. Subscribers received a newsletter with their Lustiges Taschenbuch issue #360 at the end of January, that included a form allowing them to order the ‘Exclusiv’ edition for €6,90. The special comic book is a limited edition and will not be available in stores. More »

Duck Out, een vrolijk voetbalblad (‘a happy soccer magazine’), was launched in the Netherlands this week. The 52-page magazine features comic stories and editorials about soccer, such as games, player profiles, posters and contests. The first issue, which sells for €2.99, has 32 pages of comics. More »

Ehapa Verlag in Germany launched a new series of hardcover books this month reprinting the Goofy history stories that were produced by the Jaime Diaz Studios in the late 1970s. These stories feature Goofy as a famous historical person. Each book prints five of these long 44-page stories. More »