Sunday, March 27, 2016

Happy Easter, 2016!



Gotta love a cover like this!  

Notice the Nephews are each wearing YELLOW SHIRTS, but all are of different designs!  

19 comments:

Deb said...

This looks like a Walt Kelly cover. Even though I never really got into Pogo, I do like his artwork.

scarecrow33 said...

The yellow shirts with black stripes predate Charlie Brown by about a year. Speaking of which, another great Easter tradition is the "Easter Beagle" cartoon which I re-watched last night--charming, very surreal. It's one of the handful of Peanuts specials where everything works.

Back to the Donald Duck cover. Once in a while it's refreshing to see Donald putting one over on the nephews. Those Dell comics look better and better the farther in time we are removed from them. I like the cover designs, the interior art, the rich color--everything exuded quality. The story content wasn't always first-rate, but my personal judgment is that there were more hits than misses overall in the Dell output. And all of that for just a dime--imagine! Much as I also love Gold Key, their backgrounds and detail were often considerably less elaborate, and sometimes were non-existent. And I love their simple slogan "Dell Comics Are Good Comics."

Happy Easter, Joe! Hope you're getting some relaxation in.



Joe Torcivia said...

Deb:

Yep, that’s a Walt Kelly cover! Weren’t they all great?!

He had a way of drawing the Nephews like no one else. They were cute (without being “Merchandising-cute”) and expressive!

I *know* I’m the one who’s out of step here, but I, too, have never cared for POGO – a debate I had for many, many years with my dear departed friend Chris Barat – and wished that Kelly was not only the regular and permanent cover artist for WDC&S, but would get to draw regular “interior” Duck stories as well! …Not in WDC&S to supplant Carl Barks, of course, but in the main DONALD DUCK title, backing the longer Barks adventures. Imagine a series with Barks lead adventures, and funny Kelly backups!

Joe Torcivia said...

Scarecrow:

I beg to differ, but those Dell Comics from the Golden Period of WDC&S have ALWAYS looked great! There was something special about those issues that even the best of the licensed publishers since then (Gold Key 1964-1966, Gladstone Series One, Gemstone, and IDW) cannot seem to replicate. Maybe it was the newness and freshness of it all. The spectacle of “seeing it all made-up before your eyes” (not MY eyes, mind you, but you know what I mean) that made it all that special! I envy those who got to see it first hand, month-by-glorious-month!

Easter was a good day! I took Esther, my brother and his son to an Italian lunch, and a fun after-visit at our place. I won’t be able to fully address my backlog of Blog comments and other e-mails… never mind the writing I’d hoped to do this weekend (before the new workweek begins), but I’m betting everyone will understand! Happy Easter right back!

Elaine said...

The Pogo collections are like fine graphic novels which I'm glad I've read once, but don't need to return to. I keep making references to them, though. Also, having read Pogo (and Tolkien, and Barks) was good preparation for reading Bone.

I like some of Kelly's Duck covers, though I chose not to get the Kelly cover on the WDCS 75th Anniversary issue, the one with the hourglass--the nephews' bulbous cheeks in that one look weird to me. Maybe he was trying to portray them there as very young, with baby cheeks? Or he was influenced by the early Barks nephews with their jowls? It would be interesting to look sometime at his Duck covers on Inducks in historical sequence, to see if/how his depiction of the Ducks changed over time.

Yes, it would have been GREAT to have Kelly backup stories in Donald Duck or WDCS! His own funny-animal comic-book stories (not talking about Pogo, here!) are aimed at very young readers, I feel, so they don't really give an idea of what he might have done with Donald & Co. But some of his other stories--the Christmas comics, the Peter Wheat stories--do give more of an idea of what his Disney comics stories might have been. (And, writing this post made me google "Peter Wheat" to check the name, and whaddaya know, Hermes Press is bringing out a hardcover collection of the Peter Wheat stories this October! Yay!) The Peter Wheat stories show what sort of adventurous serial he could have provided for WDCS.

Joe Torcivia said...

Elaine:

For an overall look at the covers, have you ever visited “The Grand Comics Database” (or GCD)? It’s actually my FIRST go-to source of information for comics of every kind.

HERE is a link to the Dell covers of WDC&S, so that you can see them in progressive order. You should be able to navigate forward and backward.

And HERE is a link to the Main Page.

I use Inducks to research individual Disney stories and / or issues (naturally, for stories, creators and issues not published in the USA) – and, believe it or not, I still use the old indexes from The Duckburg Times, and the one’s I did with Chris Barat for the general dates and contents of individual issues! The original Another Rainbow hardcover sets of “The Carl Barks Library” serve as my reference work for Barks, as do the Fantagraphics books for Gottfredson and Segar’s Popeye. But, unless your focus is more “foreign Disney specific”, GCD is the best overall source on the subject of comic books.

Their searches often return much more material than you might be looking for. For instance they combine "Gold Key" and "Whitman" as "Western". And, never, never search on just "Batman"! But, once you get used to how they work, it’s wonderful.

I think it’s those CHEEKS that make Kelly’s nephews look so cute and distinctive… and gives me a feeling that they were YOUNGER in the ‘40s and early ‘50s than they would later “freeze at”, things like QUACK PACK and “Kids is Kids” (title?) notwithstanding, during the later ‘50s – on.

“Peter Wheat” ? Really? Imagine that. At a time (and who could have ever imagined such a day would come), when I am actually SLOWING the purchasing of books like this, presently limiting myself to the Gottfredson and Rosa libraries and an occasional DC Comics oriented collection, I might actually consider that one.

Anonymous said...

Update about the old topic of HDL's surname: I prviously told how Barks' "Jet Rescue" from WDC&S #67 (April 1946) was the earliest use I knew of Duck as the boys' surname. Now I found the surname Duck in Barks' ten-page "High-wire-Daredevils" from WDC&S #49 (October 1944), which is also the first story where Duckburg is mentioned.

Until an earlier use (if there is one) is found, I shall hereby officially declare that "High-wire-Daredevils" is the earliest known use of Duck as the boys' surname.

By, the way, I just stumbled on this text written on TV Tropes: "In a 1940s Donald Duck newspaper strip, Donald applies for child benefit as the sole guardian of Huey, Dewey, and Louie". Can anyone confirm this? I know that Donald listed the boys as adopted in the short "The New Spirit" (1942), but I am unfamiliar with this strip and I would like to know the date of publication.

Joe Torcivia said...

Anon:

I think you’ve done some more good detective work there, Anon. Move over, Mickey, and Shamrock Bones!

And, if anyone knows the answer to that “1940s Donald Duck newspaper strip” question, please let us know, because I sure don’t.

Anonymous said...

@Joe
"I think you’ve done some more good detective work there, Anon. Move over, Mickey, and Shamrock Bones!": sounds cool. Now the game is afoot for another mystery to solve, my dear Joe Watson. :-)

"And, if anyone knows the answer to that “1940s Donald Duck newspaper strip” question, please let us know, because I sure don’t": hopefully someone here will know the answer and tell us. I'll admit, though, that I find it difficult to imagine a scene like "Donald applies for child benefit as the sole guardian of Huey, Dewey, and Louie" in a strip; I can picture it as happening in a scene of a long comic book adventure, but not in a 4-panel comic strip. I'm not saying that the person who added this on TV Tropes lied: maybe he conflated the memory of what he saw in "The New Spirit" short and mixed it with something he saw on a Taliaferro strip?

And if someone who knows the work of Taliaferro better than me is here, I also would like to know if it's true what I read in an Inducks review of "Donald's Grandma Duck" by Craig/Barks: "very first depiction of the farm (only talked about in the Taliaferro strips)". Is there actually a Taliaferro strip where the farm is mentioned before its debut in the comic books?

Comicbookrehab said...

One of those ducks has got to be Phooey Duck. :)

I've given "Pogo" a try a few times - the artwork is fabulous, but the humor often felt too smug. That Chuck Jones tv special adaptation of the strip captured that far more accurately than the strip's ardent fans would care to admit, imho.

Joe Torcivia said...

Anon:

You just never run out of mysteries for us to solve, do you? :-)

At least until IDW has begun collecting the Taliaferro strips, any occurrence, first appearance, or what-have-you of things might very well be impossible to track down, because they simply did not have the “lasting life” of the comic books.

I’ll leave this to our readership, and hope for the best…

Joe Torcivia said...

‘Rehab:

I thought “Phooey” only appeared to make it an impromptu quartet? Was one of the original three nephews on Easter Vacation, or sumpthin’?

On POGO: If you can conceive of ME saying something, anything, is “too wordy”, that’s what POGO is to me! Just as inconceivable, it made me dislike something by the great Chuck Jones! Once, my great, late friend Chris Barat tried showing me the Jones special… and, after REALLY TRYING to watch it for a while (if merely for some unseen-to-me Chuck Jones), I insisted that he remove the tape from my VCR. Though I *did* stop short of requesting that he burn it.

Yes, I KNOW I’m the one who’s out of step here… but it's never worked for me in any form.

Anonymous said...

"You just never run out of mysteries for us to solve, do you? :-)": I guess so :-)
Though this time I "cheated", as I didn't provide a new mystery to solve and yet I pretended I did because the line "Now the game is afoot for another mystery to solve, my dear Joe Watson" seemed funny to me. I guess I am too busy to provide a new mystery every day, but I'm still here and I will have more question to ask when the right time comes. :-)

"At least until IDW has begun collecting the Taliaferro strips, any occurrence, first appearance, or what-have-you of things might very well be impossible to track down, because they simply did not have the “lasting life” of the comic books.": I guess waiting is the right thing to do.

Joe Torcivia said...

Anon:

I suppose even you can’t furnish us with a new mystery to solve each day! Though, you HAVE come close!

Sometimes I expect too much of my readers… :-)

Anonymous said...

@Joe
Nevermind my question about Grandma Duck's farm, I already found the answer: it is first mentioned in the third Taliaferro strip with Grandma Duck, published on September 29, 1943.

Of course, if you find a later mention of the farm in the strip and if you think you want to report it on your blog, I won't feel insulted... :-)

Joe Torcivia said...

We’d never dream of “insulting” you, Anon! And, with this dedicated group, I’m certain that, if anyone finds a later mention of the farm, it will be reported here!

Anonymous said...

"We’d never dream of “insulting” you, Anon!": I surely wont' doubt it! Of course, if it wasn't obvious my "if you find a later mention of the farm in the strip and if you think you want to report it on your blog, I won't feel insulted... :-)" was just an ironic way of saying (without seeming demanding) that I would like to be informed if you find another mention, while at the same time clarifying that it is not very important to me because I already found one mention. But maybe it *was* really evident and I am just explaining the obvious. :-)

"I’m certain that, if anyone finds a later mention of the farm, it will be reported here!": great, I am conting on all of you!

And since after that "You just never run out of mysteries for us to solve" I must live up to that reputation, then I'll ask if anyone here knows the first non-Barks mention of Duckburg.

Joe Torcivia said...

Anon:

Sorry it took me so long to publish this comment. And, I’ll leave this one up to our dedicated group as well.

Anonymous said...

Update about my question about the newspaper strip with Donald as the guardian of HDL: the answer has already been given here

http://disneycomicsrandomness.blogspot.it/2016/04/donald-and-his-10-nephews.html