"Donald's Gift"

 For whatever reason, or more probably no reason, this one comes after "Christmas Maximus" in the movie but before it in the comic.  Right.

So...the story here is that Donald gets SICK of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," because apparently it's the only Christmas song in Duckburg.  I think it's a pretty inoffensive song, and I like the part where they threaten to keep singing if you don't give them figgy pudding (for the record, that's the only verse that doesn't figure in the movie).  But if I had to hear it and only it all month, I think I'd be in a similar headspace as Donald, and everyone else seems kind of nuts for not just tolerating but actively celebrating this madness.

There's not much of a plot.  I think this'll be a rather short entry.  But the main conflict is Donald alienating everyone around him by not being sufficiently worshipful of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

Since various commenters brought this up, I should say that I'm pretty good with this coloring.  Sure, it looks rather distinct from the usual, but...that's okay.  It's fine for this book to have unusual aesthetic sensibilities.  It certainly makes that bottom panel stand out.

In the cartoon, there's this thing where every noise he hears from any source sounds like the song.  That's a rather cool idea--probably my favorite thing in the whole story, honestly--but of course, it would have been very difficult to translate that to comic form.  It does make it look like he's going crazier in the original version than in this, but I don't know how to finish this sentence.

The ending is very abrupt here.  Honestly, making this entire thing fit in twenty-eight pages without making the stories incoherent is an impressive achievement, even if it meant some undesirable cuts.  But those are felt in various places, and certainly here.  We really need Donald to suffer a little more than that to be invested in his redemption.

Which, well, here it is.  The cartoon actually makes it clearer: "I've heard this song so goddamn many times I can teach you."  That's a paraphrase.  But I have to admit, it's not a bad plot device, even if Duckburg having one (1) Christmas songs seems questionable.

The thing I don't like about this story is that it feels sort of bullying.  Look back at that first panel of Mickey, a look of malign intent on his face, telling about how Donald sure learned his lesson.  Sure, I think Christmas is a fun holiday, but for God's sake, it can't be mandatory.  That's when things start to feel like East Germany.  If you jerks didn't want Donald to go nuts, maybe you could've imported a second Christmas song!  Ever think of THAT?  Huh?