In Disney’s last issue, John Patrick from Salt Lake City, Utah, wrote in the Mail Bin column, “I do miss one piece of the Gladstone style. I would like to see the back cover gags return. They helped to add that extra touch to the comic, and I miss them.” Strange, we were just talking about that! Former publisher Bruce Hamilton answers eleven years later: “Thank you for your letter, John, I really enjoyed reading what you had to say since yours is the only correspondence I have ever seen commenting on my decision to do that extra bit for our readers. It’s ironic, too, that it took me a decade to see your letter. I don’t have your address, so I can’t write you personally. But what a hoot it is that you wrote your letter to one of Disney’s comics, rather than a Gladstone Series II comic that began the very next issue! If you don’t see this, maybe someone you know will. If you learn about this, write or call Gladstone and don’t miss reading the “story” behind those back cover strips in the “Side-Note of Trivia” that follows the listing for Uncle Scrooge #279.
In the two-page centerfold of #280 all of Gladstone’s premiere Series II comics are pictured, three with new Don Rosa covers and one with a William Van Horn!
#280 was distinguished by a last Bob Foster-Don Rosa cover interpretation of a Carl Barks classic, “The Strange Shipwrecks,” reprinted from Uncle Scrooge #23, September 1958. This all-Barks issue also has three excellent one-pagers, including one of special note: “Flowers are Flowers,” is credited by Disney as having come from Uncle Scrooge #25; actually, it originally appeared in US #54, December 1964. #280 is also special in that it pictured Ludwig Von Drake in two panels. Barks said about this, “I never used Von Drake except when asked to.” In Michael Barrier’s book, “Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book,” the author notes that the character was introduced on Disney television in the fall of 1961, so it’s likely the gag was part of an effort by Disney and Western (who published both the Dell and Gold Key comics) to promote Von Drake. This last issue -- US #280 -- is in very l imited supply.
$15.00