Yesterday we highlighted DONALD DUCK # 109 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: September, 1966), and its lead adventure story "Og's Iron Bed"... but hold on to your "iron bedsheets", 'cause we ain't done "OG-in'" yet!
A bi-monthly Gold Key title, as was DONALD DUCK # 109, with a SEPTEMBER cover date would have been released in JULY. Therefore, I would have come across this issue in JULY, 1966.
And, in July, 1966, I would have been delightfully on summer vacation from THIS STRUCTURE...
...Back when it had REAL doors and windows, and no attending dumpsters!
In those primitive and barbaric - yet, paradoxically, warmly nostalgic - days, comic readers (...we weren't FANS back then, we were READERS - and stop READING on my lawn, ya pesky young'un) were at the mercy of the newsstand distribution system!
Okay, maybe not as far back as THAT! We're talkin' 1966 here! But what a GREAT picture!
I can count as many as FIFTEEN comics in that photo that are in my collection... one of which I just got last week! You can probably guess most of them! ...And, no... I never wore overalls and a beanie-type hat like that! But, advance it somewhere close to 20 years in time, and that could have been yours truly! Single-digit-age me even kinda LOOKED like that... such an adorable little tyke! Whatever could have gone so wrong!
ASIDE TO SERGIO: That last paragraph is an example of the loopy and improvisational typing I referred to in another set of comments! I just looked at the photo and began typing away, on the road to who-knows-what! Didn't know any of that was coming... and only the vaguest idea of what's coming next... if that!
Where were we? Oh, yeah... newsstand distribution of comic books!
Most kids looked forward to Saturdays and Sundays - and I was no exception - but MY favorite days of the week were Tuesdays and Thursdays!
WHY? Because on Tuesdays and Thursdays NEW COMICS were put out on the shelves and racks of small stores all across the (still safe, but inching toward eventual danger by 1966) town in which I lived. Not only in my town were Tuesdays and Thursdays what we now call "an event", but anywhere else in my region that traveling to was possible! By 1968-1970, I would be traveling by bus to the far corners of my region in search of increasingly elusive comics on almost a weekly basis - and those days (and those trips) began in me an interest in bus transportation that led me to being a local bus transit advocate today!
From other accounts I've noted, the "Tuesday and Thursday thing" was sort of the standard for the release of new comics.
It was one such Thursday toward the end of July, 1966 that, for reasons long forgotten, I was spending a nice summer afternoon at a nearby aunt and uncle's house, in a decidedly nicer neighborhood than my own - both then and now!
Their house had a nice screened-in attached back porch with a large picnic table -- the very definition of comfort vs. the "uncovered brick fortress" we had at the back of our house! Though I really did have many years of enjoying 1960s comics out on that "uncovered brick fortress". And, on that Thursday in July, 1966, I would have a particularly memorable day-of-same in the "nice screened-in attached back porch with a large picnic table" at my aunt and uncle's house!
Earlier in the day we'd gone shopping. In their local strip mall center there was a newsstand store. As it was THURSDAY, I made sure to check it out! ...AND WHAT DO YOU THINK I FOUND?
Try THIS...
But even more amazing was THIS...
And out on the SAME DAY, just like my 1965 experience with UNCLE SCROOGE #58 and THE FLINTSTONES #28, as detailed HERE!
Only I didn't have to rush through them during my "home lunch period" and go back to school! NOPE, I had the WHOLE AFTERNOON to enjoy these puppies... or perhaps "ducklings"?
And, enjoy them, I did! In the LAST POST, I described "Og's Iron Bed" as "one of the best - and most ambitious - Donald Duck stories of the period". I dove into it first, and it well and truly lived up to my "future-hype"! Vic Lockman and Tony Strobl's best collaboration, with the possible exception of their consumerism-satire story in THE JETSONS #2 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: April, 1963), discussed somewhere in the depths of THIS POST!
However, THE BEST OF UNCLE SCROOGE AND DONALD DUCK #1 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: November, 1966) was nothing short of a magnificent gift from the Comic Book Gods!
As the cover says, it did indeed reprint "Two Famous Disney Classics"...
"Back to the Klondike"...
Cover by Carl Barks.
...And "The Ghost of the Grotto".
Cover by Carl Buettner.
Ah, but there was a THIRD "Famous Disney Classic" to be found in the pages of this 25-cent ticket to Comic-Readers'-Nirvana... Carl Barks' famous story of "The Land of Tralla La"! The "Bottle Cap Corruption" story!
And, needless to say, it was the first time I saw any of these great Barks stories!
One funny thing is that Carl Barks' art had evolved so much over the years that, while I could tell that "Back to the Klondike" and "The Land of Tralla La" were by the same artist, I thought that "The Ghost of the Grotto" was by a different artist entirely!
...And that "Giant Robot Robbers" and the other "contemporary-to-1966" Uncle Scrooge stories I was then reading were by a THIRD different artist!
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Nevertheless, that was quite an afternoon out on my aunt and uncle's (all together now) "nice screened-in attached back porch with a large picnic table". One that I recall so vividly to this day!
Of course, with these two ever-memorable comics, it would have also made for a special day on my family's stark "uncovered brick fortress"! ...Maybe even in some dingy alley, somewhere! Yes, they were THAT great!
Gosh, I hope that was enough "stream-of-consciousness-typing" to satiate Sergio! :-)
Finally, what could possibly put a capper on such a perfect day? ...How 'bout THIS?
It was a THURSDAY, in 1966, remember?
That meant that, by the time I was deposited back home, there was a summer rerun (...remember "summer reruns"?) of Part Two of this week's installment of BATMAN to enjoy on top of all that great Duck stuff (...as opposed to "Stuffed Duck")
"Stuffed Duck"... That's ANOTHER JOKE, SON!
Yeah, after a "joke" like that, I'd run away too!
But, before you do, Dynamic Duo (Aren't you glad I didn't say "Before you DUO"?), stick around for one Bat-moment more as I name THE BEST OF UNCLE SCROOGE AND DONALD DUCK #1 our Cover Number Fourteen!
Wheee! Only TWO MORE TO GO, and then I get my life baaack!!! ...Haaaa-haaaa-heeeee-heeeee!
4 comments:
You were indeed lucky to find that issue of The Best of U$ and DD #1 on that happy day! My brothers and I never ran across those reprints of the best of Barks, and I had to wait until adulthood to read those three stories--and most of the Barks long adventures that came out before the 1960's. A friend of mine in grad school had Barks in books, which we read on Sunday afternoons. ("I didn't attend Yarvard University without learning something! Mummies don't eat!") Then in the 1980's I was able to subscribe to the Gladstone albums of Barks' Uncle Scrooge Adventures, and finally was able to read and own them all!
Yes, that was enough stream-of-consciousness typing :).
I like your organic approach to this series because I think it's led to you sharing some fascinating personal stories you may not have shared otherwise... stories about your personal experiences reading comics. This series was as much about *you* as it was about the comics, which I found refreshing.
Re: "Og's Iron Bed," I'm pretty sure I said this when you posted about it last year, but since the Phantom Blot... er, I mean, the mysterious bot... blotted it out, I'll say it again: It's a pity Gemstone didn't bring back the blue fish clock character when they had room for him, due to moving the UPC box to the back.
Sergio: (you write):
“Yes, that was enough stream-of-consciousness typing :).”
Then I shall consider you well and truly “satiated”, Sergio!
Truth to tell, I also enjoyed the “organic approach” quite a bit! It’s probably as close as I’ll ever come to improvisational comedy!
Consider that all I wanted to do in this post was say… “I found two great comics out on that same say, and had the pleasant experience of reading them in a setting other than my usual”… THAT’S IT!
All the rest just poured out, one word after another, as if I let the brain take a coffee break, and some unknown power (…one with an extraordinary knowledge of my childhood, I might add) took control of my fingers and moved them up, down, left, and right, across my keyboard! Late night lack of sleep CAN be channeled into something creative (…or maybe just “something” – you decide) under the right circumstances!
And, yes… Some of these posts and their associated comments did indeed find their way into the autobiographical. There’s a likely reason for that… although even I didn’t fully recognize it early on. One of those crazy things that you think about in your… (ahem) post-middle age… that you immediately discard as nonsensical, and then revisit as more of a possibility than you’re willing to admit to yourself, is that, over the course of my next milestone year (2025)… I might want to try my hand at an autobiography!
…Places I lived (the “bad one”, and all the other “good ones” that came post age-14), things I did, the greater number of things I *didn’t* do, women in my life – of which no one compares to my Esther as a life-partner – different jobs or careers… and how, except for that regrettable eight-year period, comic books were a constant… perhaps THE constant of my life!
Oh, I might never mention this thing again – or I might write it and conceal it on an external drive to be kept locked securely away, or I might go broke self-publishing a book that would sell even fewer copies than “What If…? Donald Duck became Stan Lee’s Errand-Boy” (…Ya never know, they might get down to that someday!)
But some of that potential “new retirement project” (…as if I need ANOTHER retirement project) did find its way into these posts! That you found that aspect of this series “refreshing”, is something I will take as an encouragement!
Shifting gears (…and thankfully so), as mentioned in the other “Og” post, the most faithful USA reproduction of the original “Og’s Iron Bed” cover is found not wrapped around the pages of a comic, but in the Table of Contents of Fantagraphics’ “DONALD DUCK THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION” - with only one tiny element accidently omitted!
…But, that’s Fantagraphics, and that’s David G., always giving us THE BEST!
Elaine:
One of the great things I find about having discussions with like-minded people, on whatever mutual interests we might have, is that… everyone’s experiences are “similar, but different” in the most remarkable ways!
Sure, you and I have read all these great Barks stories (…and, pre-1980s, not without some considerable difficulty), but they came to us in different ways! …Originals, reprints, 1960s, 1980s, standard comic books, collected editions, and the circumstances surrounding their discovery and acquisition! I won’t speak for anyone else, but THAT’S what – as an additional layer – fascinates me in ways almost equal to the stories themselves.
Oh, I don’t mean to say that Carl Barks’ masterpiece “Back to the Klondike” could ever find itself slumming in the same universe as an accounting of HOW I found the story in the first place! Oh, no, no, no!
But you KNOW the “Klondike” story! I know the “Klondike” story! I daresay anyone reading this knows the “Klondike” story!
However, the story of my EXPERIENCE with it is something you DON’T know… until reading this post, that is. The story of YOUR experience with it is something *I* don’t know… until reading your comment! This way “Back to the Klondike” - and ANY comic story, book, movie, TV show, song, etc. - continues to “give” new information and perspective to those who care about it!
I’ve said this to the members of my Thursday Night Film Group, and they are in complete agreement. Such “experience” comments often find their way into the verbal reviews we’re each asked to do for that night’s film!
Your welcome recounting of your own experiences with such stories are now added to my own, making for a richer tapestry of cherished memories!
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