We’ll mix Bob Foster’s descriptions of the contents of this 64-page experiment by Disney Comics with Gladstone’s. #571 was double-sized, but sold for a nickel less than twice as much, an attempt to see if larger, more diverse comics was what the fans wanted. (The illusion of the 5-cent mark-down was a fallacy because the regular $1.50 comics were sold with a cost factor that included expensive covers, whereas the big books still had only one cover and cost Disney much less to produce in comparable quantities.) The comic begins with Larry Mayer’s art that was based on a cover by Walt Kelly (Comics and Stories #42, March 1944), but Mayer took few liberties (it’s likely the new drawing was commissioned because they didn’t have time to get stats of the original). We are puzzled, however, why they reprinted a kite story by Carl Barks from 1946 when the same issue as Kelly’s cover also had “Kite Weather” by the Old Duck Man, a very, very funny 7-page Donald Duck short!
Moving on, a Li’l Bad Wolf reprint “by fan favorite, Gil Turner” is next. Third, as described by Foster, is “Donald Duck’s Atom Bomb, the rare Carl Barks story done for a 1947 Cheerio’s Giveaway. Coloring by Susan Daigle-Leach.” What is not said is that this is a reprint of the altered version from Another Rainbow’s Carl Barks Library forced on us by Disney management, who considered the original “mean spirited.” That’s a stretch, of course, but it’s another example of Disneythink: it’s okay, even in a historical collector’s edition, to change the ending to something more in keeping with today’s “political correctness.” Nuts.
Fourth, The Unbirthday Party, is “a twelve-page story featuring Alice and other characters from the Wonderland tea party (Four Color comic #341, illustrated by Al Hubbard.” There’s some marvelous stuff in this 1951 reprint by Hubbard, one of the truly grand hands of the early Dell comic book era. Then comes Bubbles, the Water Baby, a Story of Mermaid Lagoon, “an eleven-page gem from Peter Pan’s Treasure Chest with fabulous art by the great Harvey Eisenberg.” No exaggeration here!
This landmark issue concludes with Chapter Four of “Mickey Mouse and the ’Lectro Box,” from a 1943 newspaper strip continuity written by Bill Walsh, penciled by Floyd Gottfredson, and inked by Dick Moores! -- plus a one-page report on “The Disney Legends Award,” article by Bob Foster and photos by Foster and Scott Wolf. The ceremony had such luminaries as Julie Andrews, Fess Parker, Roy E. Disney, Michael Eisner, Scrooge McDuck (in person) and standing next to him, Carl Barks! Barks is pictured in three color photos, including one placing his handprints in cement. This is a must have issue (certainly a should have).
$8.00