While I enjoy the final day of New York Comic Con 2015, I'll remind you that this week will see UNCLE SCROOGE # 7 from IDW! On Wednesday, October 14, 2015 to be exact!
And, just in time for Halloween, comes "Mummy Fearest", featuring Scrooge and his tastefully competitive, esthetically aware rival Rockerduck! You'll find yourself getting "wrapped-up" in the story rather quickly!
It's by the great Romano Scarpa, translated and dialogued by Yours Truly, with a cover by William Van Horn!
And, while we're at it, don't forget the still-on-sale UNCLE SCROOGE # 6 (need I say) from IDW! It pairs Marco Rota and Thad Komorowski for some great undercover infiltrating fun!
And click for greater detail on that magnificent, gag-laden, fourth-wall destroying cover by the amazing Jonathan Gray! This may be IDW's greatest cover yet, surely in terms of just how much it offers the onlooker! It's certainly MY favorite of the current run!
Get 'em both folks - they're Scrooge-a-rific!
Yes, I really said: "Scrooge-a-rific"!
38 comments:
If IDW dosen't change it's release schedule we are about to have a awesome wedsnday. Currently IDW has MM#5, U$#7 and the WDC&S 75th anniversery special all scheduled for the 14th.
Scampi and Tortellini? I love those guys!
Oh, that's lunch? Well, those other two are good, too!
I'm in US #7, too! I translated the 8-page backup, "Of Mice and Magic" (my title). I made it well-known I was no fan of the story while writing it, but David said he liked it well-enough, and I liked the WIP copy I saw, so what do I know?
Clapton:
ANY Wednesday on which there is an IDW Disney release is an “awesome Wednesday”! But, yeah, this one’ll be… um, awesomer?
TCJ:
“Scampi and Tortellini? I love those guys!”
I guess that would make UNCLE SCROOGE # 7 a “delightfully yummy” issue! And let’s hear it for us “Italian creators”! …Of food AND comics!
Thad:
I wasn’t sure what the backup to UNCLE SCROOGE # 7 would be, but glad to have you sharing the issue! Looking forward to experiencing something new (to me) in that issue! Gotta love your referencing that great animation book by Leonard Maltin that has been my “guide” for over three decades!
I think we tend to have something of an “unusual relationship” with the stories we work on. (Gosh, that sentence sounded weird!) When I first completed “Mummy Fearest” I absolutely loved it. Then, as the editing process wore on, didn’t like it so much. Now that I’ve seen the finished product in PDF form, I absolutely love it again. Human relationships should be so uncomplicated and straightforward.
…Oh, and did you know you’ll be appearing in a “delightfully yummy” issue? :-)
Just checked. It looks like only UNCLE SCROOGE and MICKEY MOUSE this week!
But, hey... That's pretty darned great!
Romano Scarpa, Bill Wright, Don R. Christensen, Thad Komorowski, and me? I'll take it!
Joe: Mickey and Uncle Scrooge makes for a good double feature. I hope that when the WDC&S anniversery special DOES come it is the same day as the new issue of WDC&S... I dunno I think it would be oddly opprorite. Oh and Joe next time you go to your comic book store check out "Dead Vengence" it's a nice little throwback to The Golden Age of comics. I got issue 1 last week and had a ball reading it.
Clapton:
Needless to say, I will next be going to my comic shop this Wednesday, when my UNCLE SCROOGE is out! So, tell me (and the rest of us) just a little more about “Dead Vengeance” before I go. Who publishes it? What’s it about? …etc.
Here's a link to a good review of Dead Vengence. http://comicbastards.com/comics/review-dead-vengeance-1/
You know what else I just realised... This month the disney titles have recived a page increase. Mickey Mouse #5 is comfirmed to be 42 pages. Uncle Scrooge #7 is comformed to be 40 pages. Donad Duck #6 is scheduled to be at LEAST 40 pages (the 2nd part of Duck Avenger + Birthday Bugaboo). I don't know if WDC&S is also reciving this page increase but my guess is that it is, considering that, according to previewsworld the issue contains part 4 of the Zodaic Stone Saga and "a new Daan Jippes Donald Duck Adventure". :)
HERE is Clapton’s link for great ease of access.
“Dead Vengeance” looks like it taps into a few of my “movie interests”… Prohibition-era films starring Robinson, Cagney, and Bogart – and Tod Browning’s “Freaks”, so it’s certainly worth a look. All the more so, if the creator is the same “Bill Morrison” from Bongo Comics (The Simpsons)!
For UNCLE SCROOGE # 7, “Mummy Fearest” is 32 pages. Figure 4 more for ads and editorial pages. I guess that would make Thad’s backup story 4 pages. 40 pages – check!
More pages, same price! Just another thing that’s SO GREAT about IDW!
Joe: Even better- Thad's story is 8 pages. http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=H+78dd04b
Again, HERE is Clapton’s inducks link for greater ease of access.
So, if “Mummy Fearest” is 32 pages, and Thad’s story is 8 pages, that makes 40 PAGES OF STORY CONTENT! And, with the additional ad and editorial pages, it would be at least 44, maybe 46! And, on extremely high-quality paper, too!
Great deal, for your 3.99, I’d say! Yay for IDW!
Clapton—I'm afraid Mickey #5 won't have 42 comics pages. We transformed "Man-Eater Mountain," originally a 42 page serial, into a one-part 40-page story by eliminating three half-page recap panels, and a couple of rather repetitive panels in the last chapter.
For those who buy our later TPB edition, however (collecting Mickey #4-6), we'll have the original serial version there! So those who want it that way can still have it.
At the very start of the IDW line, we were allotted 34 comics pages per 40-page comic. But sales were good enough that we were able to bump this up, so lots now have 36 or 38—and a *few* in this month's group have a full 40 pages of comics. But we can't realistically do that all the time, nor can we go up beyond 40. We got limits... alas!
Still, for right now at least we're generally able to give you a book that has far more pages than the competition, so I'm satisfied. (-:
Ramapith: I can live with 2 pages of recaps and filler skimmed from man-eater mountain. Yo, David do you remember that not to long ago I actually requested for this story to be reprinted on DCF? I'm really looking forward to this issue! Um just curious though... Is there any other additinal content being included in any of the TPBs. And while I'm asking you questions... I have a therory and if you can say anything about this I would like to know if there's any truth to this. When I saw that the Christmas special was titled "Mickey and Donald's Christmas Parade" instead of the tradditonal WDCP I instantly wondered if the change was made to create brand recognition for "Mickey and Donald" so it could be revived as a monthly title next year. Any chance of that happening?
Clapton—at the time that you asked for "Man-Eater Mountain" on DCF, I in fact already had it on the schedule for reprint! But we hadn't yet had that schedule officially greenlit by Disney, so I wasn't in a position to say nuthin'.
Other additional content in the TPBs: in our UNCLE SCROOGE 4 and 5, "The Grand Canyon Conquest" was missing two panels that we cut to make way for the 1/4-page recap panel at the start of SCROOGE 5. The TPB version of the story is the one-part, 44-page original with those two panels reinstated.
CHRISTMAS PARADE gets Mickey's and Donald's names because, we think, character names help the book appeal to new audiences. That said, we don't plan to introduce a MICKEY AND DONALD title at present.
I see that I may want to check out your TPB line, Rampaith, as I suspected that a few panels may have been dropped from The Grand Canyon Conquest to make room for a recap after looking it up on the Inducks (okay, so maybe I'm a bit obsessive...). I have been enjoying the variety of material in the IDW Disney line, and I'm happy to see that you care enough to restore cut material in the TPBs. Thanks!
Ramapith- Ok I kinda figured that M&D being revived wasn't really a possbiiblty the longer I sat on that thought. Now I have a question for everybody - if there were to be a 5th IDW monthly title- what title would you like to see introduced/revised.
Clapton:
Since you’re asking “everybody”, my vote would be for SUPER GOOF! It needn’t even be a “monthly”. Bi-monthly, or quarterly (as Gold Key used to do) would be fine. Even an annual, or series of specials, would do.
And, need I say that one of the best Super Goof stories that I’ve seen in a VERY long time, is headed your way in the upcoming “Mickey and Donald Christmas Parade”!
Get your goobers ready for that one!
Call me crazy, but I'd like to see a Huey, Dewey and Louie Junior Woodchucks title. We'd get a chance to see more of Daan Jippes' redrawn Barks stories (unless they've all been printed already), and it would give the three smartest members of the Duck family a chance to shine. Maybe we could combine both my idea and Joe's and have a Super Goof/Junior Woodchucks crossover? (Ow...that makes my head hurt. I can almost see a 1970's Gold Key/Whitman cover for that one...make it go away!)
Indeed, we have not seen all the Jippes-redrawn Barks JW stories in English yet, and I'd be all in favor of an occasional "HDL:JW" title if it would get those out faster. Vitamin Z! Vitamin Z!
I'm always looking for more stories where the female characters shine, but on the whole I don't think a 5th title named after a female character is a good idea. The French and Italian "Minnie" books were too much of a pink ghetto for the girlie stories...though I did find half a dozen or so really good female-led stories in those books.
I find myself fantasizing most often about specials, such as themed TPBs: underwater or outer space adventures, or best dog stories (Bolivar, Snozzie, Pluto, Scamp, Dalmatians, etc.), or stories about ghosts or lake monsters. (The German LTB Spezial books do some of this sort of thing.) I have this theory that such books might sell better to newbies than the TPB regular-issue-collections, at B&N or wherever. And this might also be a format for good female-led stories: a TPB collection of Eurasia Toft stories, once a whole bunch have been printed in regular issues, or a TPB titled "Minnie the Adventurer".
Deb and Elaine:
I’d also be happy with a Jr. Woodchucks title. Like Super Goof, it was another long-running title that originated back in my Sainted-Silver Age-Sixties. Especially so, if it led off with a Barks / Jippes redraw of a ‘70s Gold Key era Woodchuck tale.
I believe there was one story where the ‘Chucks were up against alien criminal Tachyon Farflung that I would LOVE to dialogue, as I had so much fun with “Tachy” way back in Gemstone’s UNCLE SCROOGE # 370 (2007). That may have been the only Tachyon Farflung story not to see print in the USA.
Meanwhile, anyone who wants Woodchucks will find them in a major role in this week’s UNCLE SCROOGE # 7, the subject of this very post! A post dedicated to that issue in greater detail should be coming directly after the New York Comic Con 2015 series wraps-up, so start revving-up those comments for when it appears!
I like Elaine’s idea of themed TPBs, as long as the stories therein are diverse and non-repetitive while remaining within an overall “genre subset”. For instance, an “Outer Space” collection would be well served by the upcoming stories that will appear in MICKEY MOUSE # 6 and CHRISTMAS PARADE (Super Goof), as they are different enough in approach, with a later Barks story like “Looney Lunar Gold Rush” or “Interplanetary Postman” (let alone my cherished “Twenty-Four Carat Moon”), and maybe a “TNT” (Donald and Fethry) story.
And, speaking of MICKEY MOUSE # 6 (as I do quite often, don’t I?), it will feature a great female character I’ve named “Iris-One” in next month’s “Plan Dine from Outer Space”. As this story, and the Eurasia Toft ones seen thus far, are all by Casty (…not to mention the “author character” in Casty’s “Orbiting Nightmare” story, published by BOOM!), Casty would seem to be a creator predisposed to good female roles in his work!
Finally, if I can have a “few more votes” on that theoretical new title – and it’s my “party”, er… Blog, so why not? Let’s go for a “sixties sweep” and have MOBY DUCK, or (belter yet) THE PHANTOM BLOT! I’d be lining up to work on either title. There are (I’m told) a series of nicely drawn Italian Moby Duck stories, and there’s no shortage of Italian or other European Mickey Mouse stories that could be “rebranded” as PHANTOM BLOT tales! I’m sure a BEAGLE BOYS title could be similarly cobbled together. Why, it could be the “Gold Key Sixties” all over again! Oh, rapture! …Somebody stop me before I go off the giddy cliff! TOOOOO LAAAATE!
But, hey… Moby Duck DID appear on that DONALD DUCK Convention Edition “special cover”, and will appear again on an alternate cover to DONALD DUCK #6, so maybe there's some life left in the old salt!
I looked up Moby Duck on Inducks. From about 2001 to 2005 there are a bunch of italian stories parring up Moby and Fethry as sailors. I would love to see those alas I doubt Moby will ever be popular enough to have his own comic again. Just an idea folks but maybe we could have a "revoulving" 5th title that would focus on a diffrent charchter each month. That way we could give Minnie and Moby and all those other guys that need some time in the limelight a chance to shine. Oh I have another idea! How about "Super Goof and Duck Avenger" with each issue alternating between a lead SG or DA story. And while I'm thinking of Disney Comics that should be published... Publish that orignial Jonathan Grey story! I know that it costs more to create new material but it looks like the IDW line is selling well so I'm sure a SMALL amount of original material wouldn't hurt.
Until then I could just be grateful for what were getting now :) (Yeah right I want MORE, MORE MUWAHHAHAHAHA!!!)
Of course you “want more”, Clapton! You wouldn’t be a fan worth his stripes if you didn’t! We ALL do!
Your idea of a “revolving” 5th title is one that actually IS workable. Anything and everything that anyone wants to see could eventually find its way into that title. And, I think that if the contents were tightly held to Duck and Mouse-world characters, which would include just about every property mentioned in this thread, it would be successful. Probably less so if it featured Scamp, Chip ‘n’ Dale, and the like.
…And, no more “Ultraheroes” and “Wizards of Mickey” please! We’ve had more than enough of those for one lifetime! Though, I might make an exception for “Double Duck” if David or Jonathan were to suitably dialogue it.
Oh my little stars and heavenly comets; I am so very out of the Disney comics loop. Joe, this may be one post, where, for me anyway, the comments surpassed the original post in terms of thought provocation from all the participants, mixed with "huh, when did that happen?"
Where to start? Hmmm, okay concerning a 5th title. A little background: back in the late Disneyazoic period, aka the late 70's, when even I was growing exceedingly tired of a lack-luster, half-hearted effort shown by Gold Key in US Disney comics, I saved my allowance, odd-job and birthday money to do the following: I subscribed to some of the German titles (justifiable to others as we had lived there and I was taking the language in high school) and the Australian titles. The Australian publisher was, in my estimation, unique among those publishing Disney comics at the time. While they did take a good number of the US issues part and parcel to incorporate into their monthly Walt Disney Comics (our WDC&S), Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck lines, they also had an anthology series that collected, among other things, many of the US titles outside those three. In addition, they featured issues put together with the "Disney Studio" comic program and occasionally something that was obviously an Italian story translated. And since there were no, I repeat, no ads, even the issues lifted from the US had something extra to take the place of the ads. To be honest, Gold Key had something similar with Walt Disney Showcase, but that concentrated mostly, but not exclusively, on the Disney movies in current release. Thus an anthology series has precedent and may have real merit, allowing IDW to test the fan base for things we evidently would all dearly love to see.
I had to break my lengthly comment into more than one part!
Like Joe, I think to be successful, it will have to stick rather closely to Ducks and Mice. That said, there is still room for a lot of variety, especially if you gravitate towards the antagonists for Don, Scrooge and the boys and then Mickey and Goofy. So Beagle Boys, Magica, Flintheart, Rockerduck, Brigitta (yes, I am fairly certain for Scrooge a love interest constitutes an antagonist), Phantom Blot, Pete (and any number of henchmen, or -heavens- maybe Trudy), Emil Eagle, Idgit the Midg(uh, vertically-challenged) and Dangerous Dan McBoo, etc., etc., on top of Junior Woodchucks, Daisy and Donald (instead of Daisy as a constant source of trouble for Donald, I think a relationship more like Lucy and Ricky -with Daisy just as scheming but maybe less scatter-brained than Lucy-,could produce some really funny stories), the aforementioned Moby and even Buck Duck (remember him??). And Fethry is hilarious when he's done well. I appreciate Elaine's contributions to the themed-oriented titles, especially ones that include a recognition that Disney comics fans come in more than one gender! And anthologies as TPB, such as the German LTBs, which are almost all at least loosely gathered around a title theme, may be just popular enough to generate a series - maybe?
An interesting thing about the Australian anthology, or Giants as they were called (a misnomer by the time I collected them as they were no bigger than the regular titles), was they had no set frequency and weren't dated outside a copyright, so their total number per year varied wildly. The only way to keep track was the fact that they were number sequentially.
My "huh?" moments: WDC&S 75th Anniversary issues (besides the regular WDC&S) and Mickey and Donald's Christmas Parade??? Why does no one tell me these things? The reality, evidently, is I just don't know where to look to see these things announced!
Yes, Clapton, I know you want more and so do I, but, with Thanksgiving coming up next month, let us be truly grateful for what we have and are about to receive! The more we talk these books up with people who may constitute a target audience, whether it be kids or adults, the more potential sales can be generated. Enough to warrant a fifth book? Who knows? Always worth the effort.
Well, it's way too late, so I'll stop there. Good night Joe and everyone!
Chuck:
One of the great things about comics fandom is that everyone has a different origin story, and yours, going the German route in America – and in direct response to what the once-great Gold Key had unfortunately become – is a particularly interesting one.
I wonder how well an anthology would sell. I still say it would have to hew very closely to the Duck and Mouse worlds to be successful.
Oh, and you’d know about the WDC&S 75th Anniversary issue, and other great stuff if you followed IDW a bit more closely. Meanwhile, I’ll try to “tell you these things” as best I can right here! So stay tuned, or blogged, or whatever!
…I can kid with Chuck, because we’re old long-time friends – even if he only rarely comments here! :-)
I'm not sure, Joe, what you have in mind as ways to "follow IDW a bit more closely." Concrete suggestions? I find the IDW website itself unhelpful. My best suggestion to Chuck would be to google "previewsworld IDW october" or whatever upcoming month, click on the first thing listed ("IDW Publishing Products Shipping in October 2015"), and scan down the list for Disney titles. That way he could indeed have found the WDC 75th Anniv special (in October) and the Mickey & Donald Christmas Parade (in December). Are there easier ways to find out about such upcoming specials?
Elaine:
That was strictly aimed at my old friend Chuck – who, like another old friend Dana Gabbard, hasn’t been nearly as actively involved with this wonderful line of comics as their past likes and behaviors would indicate they would be.
My actual UNCLE SCROOGE # 7 post is scheduled for Sunday morning (October 18, 2015)! Chuck (and Dana) take note!
Joe (and Elaine),
Yes, my attention has definitely been elsewhere in the past few years where my usual diligence in finding out the what, when and where of not only Disney comics, but other interests have had to take an unwelcome back seat. I'm hoping to break out of that isolation and be more involved (or at least aware). Anyway, Joe can indeed needle me all his ever-lovin' Disney comic scripting heart desires after almost 30 years and Elaine, many thanks for your suggestions to help get me "back in touch" with my Disney comic side!
With that goal in mind, I went to both the IDW and Previews sites during my lunch break today. I must say that neither one appears to have the information thoroughly up front (I do find that an annoying number of websites are horribly obtuse about their navigation, but that's another subject entirely), but searches within the sites got me to the IDW catalog of Disney issues and Previews' solicitations for October through December. So I am no longer quite as ignorant as yesterday! The only bit of info that I seem to have missed are the actual release dates - probably blindingly obvious....
Chuck:
Actual release DATES for individual comics (rather than target “release months”), predicted from several months out, may very well be a thing of the past. All sorts of deadlines and other delaying factors come into play. I see this even from the limited vantage point that *I* have into the process.
For instance, UNCLE SCROOGE # 6 and 7 were released two weeks apart.
It’s always best to check THIS SITE for actual release dates.
Ramapith: Just read MM#5. More on the actual story later but I just wanted to pop in and let you know that your boys did a good job editing those 2 pages out, it was seamless. Chuck: Your right I have something to be very Grateful for this Thanksgiving. You know what the crazy thing is though, it was this time last year that the IDW lime was announced! Man, time flies.
I've been thinking more about this 5fifth title bhssiness and it has me wondering... Currently which one of the core four sells the most. I'm thinking that the smartest economic mive for IDW is to put out and "Adventures" varient of their most popular Disney title.
Yup, Comiclist is the best for this week and next! I've used the Previewsworld month lists for finding out stuff ahead of time. This is one of the many situations where Googling works way better than navigating within a website--that's why I gave the instructions I did. I just experimented and found out that you can do the same thing with Comiclist: google "comiclist idw november" and you'll get not only a list, but issue contents on that same page. Easier to find the Disneys than on Previewsworld's month lists--on the Previewsworld lists, all comics are listed alphabetically, while on Comiclist's, the Disneys are all grouped together. So thanks for spurring me to try this out! Again, as with the Previewsworld list, there won't be any release dates that far in advance. Release dates often change even after the "two weeks out" list.
Clapton:
It *IS* hard to believe that the IDW Disney comics were announced just slightly over a year ago! They’ve just become so much a part of my life – reading them AND writing for them.
Everyone involved should take a huge collective bow.
Elaine:
I just Googled “comiclist idw november”, and sure enough!
Also, you can go directly to IDW’s Disney section with THIS LINK! They update once a month or so, to correspond with the next series of releases – so you’ll get the latest.
…Getting all this, Chuck?
Joe, Elaine, Clapton, et al,
We've been out all day as this whirlwind of conversation and advice have been taking place! I need to process it all, but from what I gathered skimming through it all, I have to say thanks! I appreciate all the insight and recommendations.
I will say Joe that I hadn't been aware of the HQ titles specifically before I saw your post talking about them and it was based on that and purposefully perusing them on my visit to one of our local comic shops on Saturday morning that I decided not to steer Kathryn toward them.
Good night all!
Well, Chuck, all I can say is that if you follow all the advice, insight and recommendations of this Blog, and its wise and helpful commenters, you will never go wrong! And, benefit form a hearty, balanced breakfast, too!
Four issues into the new HARLEY QUINN (Issue Zero, and 1-3, and add the “Road Trip Special” to make Five) and I can say I’m enjoying it – but “enjoying it” in the same way I enjoyed LOBO – and that’s not necessarily the best thing for Kathryn!
While at the comic shop, I hope you were “purposefully perusing” some IDW Disney comics as well! …And, “Unbeatable Squirrel Girl”, too!
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