The five ducks row a rubber life raft in red-hot ocean waters near a growing and erupting volcano that’s spouting fire, lava and black smoke in the near background on this startling cover. Donald and the nephews look at it with fascinated horror. Only Scrooge McDuck is smiling. This dramatic, inspired cover was laid out as conceived by Bob Foster and penciled and inked by Don Rosa. The 14-page story inside was both written and drawn by Don. Fans of Rosa know what to expect. Others should read for themselves to decide where to rank it in among the all-time Disney narratives.
A funny short by Carl Barks follows (a Donald story from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #194, November 1956, an untitled 10-pager which Disney calls “Skywriting for Scrooge,” publishing it as an Scrooge story to make it more appropriate for the comic). This is one of Barks’ “Mastery” stories, where Donald Duck believes he is “the best smoke-writer Duckburg ever saw!” The term “sky-writing” became the term of choice, because, as Huey says in panel two: “Some people think his smoke is helping to make smog!” (Before WWII when Los Angeles began to experience “smog” no one realized the automobile was the #1 culprit. Everyone assumed the haze was a blend of smoke and fog, hence “smog.” By 1956 they were becoming suspicious of everything smoky that they could see. Anaheim was chosen as the site for Disneyland because it was far away from the “smog” polluting L.A. Barks was current on the news, as usual.) A great pair of stories. Gladstone’s inventory, however, is rapidly dwindling on #276.
$15.00