Wednesday, June 22, 2011

"The Starstruck Duck"

Surely the most important thing to come out of Boom's recent Don Rosa paperback is the first US printing of "The Starstruck Duck," which is effectively the last Rosa story to be so. Okay, not technically, if you want to get obsessive about it: there's "Gyro's Beagle Trap," a one-page promotional thing for some German magazine you've never heard of that doesn't really make sense unless you're familiar with said magazine's logo; there's the "unofficial speedskating story," which has never been published ANYWHERE official and so really shouldn't count; there's the exclusive final page of "The Quest for Kalevala" that didn't appear in the US printing; and, if you want to really get into the thick of it, the un-serialized versions of the handful of stories that have only appeared in the US as serials have a few panels that we haven't seen. And there's various non-story art that we haven't gotten, either. Phew. But I think few would argue that "The Starstruck Duck"--a full ten-page story, albeit one that exists only in sketch form--was the most significant lack, and now that's been remedied. I know that Don isn't really happy with Boom reprinting his work like this, but I hope he will forgive me for having bought the book anyway. My completist tendencies left me with no choice, and as a result, I got to read a really neat little story that I would otherwise have missed out on. Yes, being sketches, the art is minimalistic; nobody looking at it without any context would have any clue that it was Rosa. But I found that it was very easy to imagine the finished story. It definitely has that Rosa feel. This was a small but acute thrill to me.
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All due credit to Boom...

Somehow, instead of US404, they originally sent me another copy of US400. Hey, I told them, and not only did they quickly send me a replacement copy (without any having to mess around with returns), they also threw in a free copy of the "Mysterious Stone Ray"/"Cash Flow" one-shot. That's pretty classy.
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Saturday, June 18, 2011

"The Mascot Mystery"

Hey I've got an idea! Let's write about old, forgotten duck stories that nobody cares about! That's my ticket to the top, baby!
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Friday, June 10, 2011

"Mickey Mouse vs. Kat Nipp"

First, a little programming note: as you'll see if you compare them to the ones in the book, these images are not those images. They're somewhat lower quality. That's because I didn't really want to subject the book to the indignity of being held open and scanned so often, so I just grabbed these off the internet. Also, that way was a lot quicker. Anyway, you ought to own the book anyway, so what are you complaining about?
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Thursday, June 2, 2011

The intersection of Disney comics and American naturalism

Beginning to read the Gottfredson book, I came across this, from "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley:"
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