disney

I wonder if Dutch Swamp Thing comics change Alec Holland’s last name to, like, “Wyoming” or “Sacramento” or something.

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So pal Dorian recently took a trip to Holland and Germany and all sorts of fun places, and whilst there he picked up all manner of Donald Duck comics and digests, including this one that he brought back for me:


Apparently this is a Donald Duck comic available exclusively at the Rijksmuseum Ruks Museum (or Rijksmuseum, if I’m understanding my Googling properly) [EDIT: see this correction to my bad eyesight] in Amsterdam. You can get your own copy directly from the museum here, though I shudder to think of the shipping charges.

Anyway, that page provides the following description for the comic:

“Donald Duck takes readers on an adventure along the Rijksmuseum’s famous works of art. This children’s book introduces Donald to iconic Dutch masterpieces, including Rembrandt’s Night Watch. This comic not only provides entertainment for children, but is also a playful way to learn about the Rijksmuseum’s art.”

…which I presumed by paging through the publication and looking at the pictures, since the entire thing is in Dutch, a language in which I have absolutely zero proficiency. It looks fun, however, and in a region where Donald Duck comics still retain their popularity, I imagine this museum edition fits right in.

Here are a couple of interior panels from the book, like this shot of Donald with a couple of pieces of art that…I don’t know if they’re based on any specific real pieces of not…I mean, not that there’s a statue with a weird duck face, but maybe one of similar design?


Ah heck, I don’t know, maybe there are duck statues like that in the museum, I don’t know what’s goin’ on over there.

And is Mickey Mouse in this comic? Sure, Mickey is in this comic, and Goofy too!

And here’s a thing that threw me off for just a second…Daisy Duck’s nieces, April, May and June, get some wild localized names:


I imagine this’ll be explained to me in the comments, but using the Dutch names for the months as their names (“April, Mei, Juni”) might have worked okay, unless there were some real objections to using those words as specific names for people. Even duck people. I have no idea. But they all run up against Magica De Spell in their story.

Oh, and in looking this up, I found a page (in Dutch, which my browser or Google or the magical imp that lives in my monitor translated) which lists at the end the variety of names by which the three nieces are called in different countries.

So big thanks to pal Dorian for picking this up for me…I know he saw some stunning pieces of art and beautiful scenery and all that. But I still think most amazing of all was him telling me just how many different types of Donald Duck comics there were, and how widely available they are to the general public. What a different world that feels like.

I didn’t mean “long tail” as a joke.

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First, sorry I missed posting on Wednesday…some days I can fight the effects of this new medication, some days I can’t, and that was a “can’t” day. Even as I type this, today is a “well, maybe day” so we’ll see what happens.

Second, there were a couple of specific things I wanted to point out in an addendum to my Peter David post from Monday.

For example, I really should have noted his Disney work on 1992’s Little Mermaid:


…a character he loved so much that I believe it was the reason he named one of his daughters “Ariel.” This, and the spinoff Sebastian series he also wrote, remained popular back issue items for many years.


David also wrote a series of Star Trek novels called New Frontier, based around a crew assembled either from supporting characters from other Treks and original characters David pulled from the always-expanding Trek lore. Its mix of deep cut continuity, irreverence, and sci-fi adventure makes it kinda/sorta a proto-Lower Decks, if you sort of squint right.

Anyway, there were some comic book spinoffs from these novels, including the first one pictured above, a David-scripted one-shot released by DC imprint Wildstorm in 2000. A five-part mini-series came out from IDW in 2008, also written by David.

As far as sales go, these didn’t have quite the long tail that the Little Mermaid books did. However, the fans of the books who also read comics were very excited to have these. And I was too! New Frontier was an entertaining extension of the franchise that I hope isn’t forgotten.

Spidey cars, Living Lasers, Aero / it’s a duck-blur!

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Just been a week for surprise comics news, I guess, as Marvel has finally announced that they’ll be doing an Uncle Scrooge McDuck comic: Uncle Scrooge and the Infinity Dime. Multiple covers, natch, with the “main” cover as such:


…and feast your eyes on the Alex Ross variant cover:

Now, if you read the description of the comic at the link, it certainly sounds like the most Marvel-type comic they could be doing with this Disney property. Is there a multiverse involved? Of course there is.

Speaking with a pal of mine, he asked “just who is the audience for this?” And ideally it should be children, and at my shop I get enough children passing through that children’s comics are a viable product line for me. I know this may not be the case at some shops, either by accident or design, but I think overall the target audience for this book may not getting exposed to it.

However, ain’t nuthin’ wrong with getting some of those Marvel readers to try out Uncle Scrooge too, either through some of that DuckTales nostalgia, or the fact that it’s being written by noted comics scribe Jason Aaron, or that Alex Ross cover, or that it’s being sold as a (quoting from the press release) “time-honored Marvel adventure,” and so on. Just getting the big push from Marvel may get more people to try it out aside from the usual Disney fans.

It looks like it’ll be fun, and. it’ll be a welcome return of Scrooge and Donald and the nephews to comic book stands. I hope it’s successful enough to generate follow-up comics, and that it creates new fans, especially young ones, for Disney comics.

I’ve seen several comments online hoping this means actual team-ups between Marvel’s heroes and the Disney gang. I would prefer this wouldn’t happen, but I can’t deny that they’d likely sell well until Marvel does too many of them. But I’ll tell you what, Donald Duck Vs. Howard the Duck: Battle for The Pants — Marvel/Disney, I would write that for (almost) free.

And the comics retailer in me has a wish or two of his own, like trade editions of Marvel’s previous forays into adapting Disney’s animation, like their Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast series. Or Marvel’s two Roger Rabbit graphic novels…people still like Roger Rabbit, they’d sell!

• • •

In even yet more news, DC Comics is returning to Wednesday on-sale dates for their new comics, starting this July. Just as well, since hardly anyone noticed the change to Tuesdays in the first place. I mean, there were a few early birds, but otherwise folks just waited ’til Wednesdays.

DC should do their own version of these Marvel variants from around the time DC originally made the move in 2020.


“DCs Back on Sale Wednesdays!” variants would be all the rage, I just know it.

And that millionaire’s name? Probably Nat.

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So my man in the street, Huggy Bear pal Nat, informed me a while back that the Dollar Tree chain of stores has been carrying Disney comics. And not old copies of, say, warehoused copies of unsold Gladstone comics or anything.

Instead, these are newly-published comics produced by a company called Peachtree Playthings, which appears to specialize in producing products based on various licenses.

Far as I can tell, these are repackagings of previously published material, such as the above DuckTales comic, which contains a story that originally saw print in the U.S., Italy and France in 2017. And then there’s Spy Power which, if I’ve looked this up properly on Inducks.org, was originally published in Germany in 2020.

These are standard comic book size, 24 pages plus covers, full color on nice paper. The only ads appear to be in-house. The covers are slick and thicker than your normal comic book’s. I’ve seen 2021 and 2022 copyright dates on these books.

Nat has noted that he’s not seen too many of these at any single Dollar Tree location…apparently they haven’t been at the store right across the street from where my store is located. But when he does find them, they’re only a couple in stock and they’re mixed in with the coloring books, so whether he’s finding them at the end of the sales cycle where only a few are left, or they’re not getting a lot in stock in the first place, who’s to say. And the copies Nat’s been finding have seen a little battle damage, so you mint hounds seeking out copies of these have your work cut out for you.


Some of these have apparently been around a bit…that Frozen up there is issue #5, and there’s a next issue ad inside for #6. Even the Spy Power comic has a next issue tag, and from what I see on Inducks I’m not even sure how much more material they have to reprint.

I’m not sure what the distribution is like on these. Just from Nat’s reports, it sounds like it’s pretty spotty but perhaps they’re available in more quantity and more consistently in other areas. And I was going to say something along the lines of these being relatively “rare” as Disney comics go, but again, I’m just basing that on local conditions. Plus, I don’t know what the print runs were like on, say, some of IDW’s Disney periodicals. But I think it’s safe to say anyone hoping to send these off to CGC is going to be disappointed, unless they find that Only Mint Copy in Existence and to them, I say “Congrats, New Millionaire.”