"Donald Duck Meets Princess Oona" and "Oona's Shopping Maul"

Of the many things the IDW foax deserve credit for, one of them is their determination to introduce hitherto-unknown-in-English recurring characters to an Anglophone audience: Gideon McDuck, Eurasia Toft, Charlie Doublejoke, Portis, Belle Duck, Reginella, Garvey Gull (okay, so I could live without ever having known of Garvey Gull--WHATEVER). Add to that list: Princess Oona the Caveduck, a character introduced by Egmont in 1995, who continues to appear semi-regularly to this day. We've already seen her first two stories published, and I believe more are on the way. I have heard intimations that certain individuals may not be huge fans of the character, but I would like to take this opportunity to place myself--based on these two, at least firmly on the pro-Oona side of the divide. Today, we'll be covering both her first and second appearances! Two stories in one means two times the fun! Maybe.  I refuse to take responsibility if two times the fun is not had.  But we'll do our best.

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"The Art of Security"

And now, as an exercise in...something, we will see if we can write one thousand words about a randomly-chosen Barks one-pager ("randomly-chosen" in the sense that I opened the CBR file of an issue of Uncle $crooge at random and chose the first one-pager in sight, on the inside front cover). As it happens, we ended up with one called "The Art of Security," initially published in 1956 in U$ 13, along with "Land Beneath the Ground." I'm not going to guarantee that my words will be GOOD words, but they'll definitely be words. Assuming I'm successful at this. And if I'm not, you'll never see it, so that's neither here nor there. Do THESE words of metacommentary on the entry count to the thousand-word goal? NO THEY DO NOT. THAT WOULD BE CHEATING. And I made it square etc. Word count doesn't start 'til after the first image.

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"The Atombrella and the Rhyming Man"

And now...the story you've all been waiting for! Perhaps. I've been reading the most recent Gottfredson collections on and off since I've been back in the States, and this story just screamed for me to cover it. It's not actually the first time I'd read it--previously I'd done so on the late lamented Beru's Disney Comics; yes, I KNOW it was legally dubious at best, but it was a great resource and HELLA convenient for yer Disney comics bloggers. Alas, today it's long gone. Beru I hardly knew ye.

AT ANY RATE, having read it in the Fantagraphics book, I definitely got more out of it. So here it is.

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