New Releases

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.

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)

BOOM! Studios’ Mickey Mouse and Friends has been on hiatus since January 2010, but on September 22nd it comes back with a bang as the long-running series reaches its 300th issue. The comic opens with the first part of “300 Mickeys” (written by Stefan Petrucha and drawn by César Ferioli), in which Mickey’s pal Eega Beeva returns from the future with a duplication ray.

After a 2-page article with texts by editor Christopher Meyer, Italian artist/writer Casty, Dutch artist/writer Daan Jippes and Disney historian David Gerstein, the issue continues with the classic comic strip “Tanglefoot Pulls His Weight” (written by Ted Osborne and art by Floyd Gottfredson), which is reprinted in complete form for the first time ever in the USA. Tanglefoot was beautifully restored by David Gerstein.

The milestone issue also features three brand-new covers! The standard edition ($2.99) has a new cover by Casty; the deluxe edition ($6.99) has a special cover by Daan Jippes; and Daan also provided an exclusive cover for the New York Comic-Con variant edition of the issue.

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

BOOM! Studios is releasing a new trade paperback this week with the graphic novel adaptation of Tim Burton’s 2010 film Alice in Wonderland starring Johnny Depp. The comic was created in Italy by Alessandro Ferrari, Max Narciso and Marieke Ferrari and the project was overseen by Burton himself. The book contains the 63-page story and a 32-page ‘making of’ with behind-the-scenes information and artwork of the adaptation and development of the comic book.

You can find a 10-page preview of the story below.

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Ehapa Comic Collection in Germany is publishing the Reiseführer Entenhausen mit Stadtplan (“Duckburg Travel Guide with Map”). Information in the guide is solely based on stories by Carl Barks, who created Duckburg and many of its inhabitants. The city that we now know as the home of Donald Duck and the famous Money Bin was first mentioned in his story High Wire Daredevils in 1944.

The 48-page softcover book will be available in Germany on August 10th for €19,95. It has also been seen on Amazon.de, where international orders are possible.

(via F.I.E.S.E.L.S.C.H.W.E.I.F.)

In anticipation of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, German publisher Ehapa is releasing two special issues of Lustiges Taschenbuch with football-themed stories. The first is Lustiges Taschenbuch Extra released on May 21st (€6.99). The 300-page book contains 12 stories, but most of the pages are filled with a new 221-page saga written by Riccardo Secchi titled 2010 World Cup Cubed, which is currently also running in Italian Topolino. This is actually the second issue of LTB Extra; the first one came out in 2006 in conjunction with the World Cup in that year.

Issue 403 of the regular Lustiges Taschenbuch series, in stores on June 1st (€4.99), is also football-themed with 8 Danish and Italian stories by Giorgio Cavazzano, Casty and others.

Lustiges Taschenbuch is one of Germany’s most popular series. The 250-page monthly books have a circulation of approximately 240,000 copies and a readership of 418,000 (source).

This week, BOOM! Studios releases the second volume in their hardcover collection of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa. Scroll down to see a 14-page preview of this book, which can be ordered from Amazon for $16.49. The deluxe hardcover book, which will be released on Wednesday, April 14th, collects the final six chapters of the 12-part Eisner Award-winning series:

• Chapter 7: Dreamtime Duck of the Never-Never
• Chapter 8: The King of the Klondike
• Chapter 9: The Billionaire of Dismal Downs
• Chapter 10: The Invader of Fort Duckburg
• Chapter 11: The Empire-Builder from Calisota
• Chapter 12: The Richest Duck in the World

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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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BOOM! Studios has lots of paperback and hardcover Disney books coming out starting later this year, including ones with classic Carl Barks stories and a reprinting of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa is slated for February. The publisher revealed yesterday that it will release its first Disney hardcovers at Comic-Con ’09 in San Diego next week. Hardcover collections of The Incredibles: Family Matters, Cars: The Rookie and The Muppet Show will be available at a limited numbered set of 250 and writers Mark Waid, Alan Porter and Roger Langridge will be doing signings of these exclusive editions (see schedule).

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Out now is the fifth installment of Gemstone Publishing’s Christmas Parade. This brand-new 80-page trade paperback features some jolly Christmas stories, starting off with Carl Barks’ 1947 story The Thrifty Spendthrift, a hypnotized Scrooge recreates the famous “Twelve Days of Christmas” song in real life. Other tales include a Mickey and Goofy epic with a sci-fi twist by Romano Scarpo entitled Memoirs of an Invisible Santa and in Pat and Shelly’s Cookery Countdown it’s Donald Duck’s turn to create an explosive Christmas Dinner. All this holiday fun is now available for only $9.50 and makes a great Christmas gift.