The Apprentice

 

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Marv Wolfman, Stephen DeStefano, Gary Martin, David Cody Weiss, and Cris Palomino

From Mickey Mouse Adventures #9, 1991

You Know, For Kids

 

Speaking of promotional giveaways, here are all the comics pages from Nabisco's The Perils of Mickey Fun Book For Kids,  art inspired by Floyd Gottfredson but drawn by Stephen DeStefano in what appears to be excerpts from comics in Disney Adventures magazine.

 

Two Don Rosa $crooge Stories Permabanned

This is going to make your copies of The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck pretty valuable in the future, I'd wager.

 

Whatever Happened To The Adventure Capitalist?

This is a good overview of the long, tortured history of the Disney comics licenses.

Wind of Change

Things got real in 1990's Mickey Mouse Adventures #7 .

Change was in the air:

and the walls that divided us for so long were crumbling:

Besides being a fascinating time capsule of the era, this issue also boasts a museum-ready Phantom Blot story by Stephen De Stefano and Lee Nordling.

De Stefano draws the greatest Blot.

Just gorgeous stuff, well worth the three bucks plus shipping I spent on Ebay.

Rorschach Test

 

Like all Real Americans, I have been working on a collection of Phantom Blot appearances over the years.   I have three different versions of the story that started it all, "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot":

The Fantagraphics Hardcover, Mickey Mouse Club Parade #1, and Disney Comics Album #4.

Floyd Gottfredson's newspaper serial famously had the violence dialed down for its comic book reprints, with several of the Blot's famous death traps redrawn by (ugh) Paul Murry.  Above is an example of a cool, violent death trap as it appeared in newspapers in 1939.

Here is the same sequence toned down and made lame for the Mickey Mouse Club comic.

And here is the newer, stupider death trap recolored by Sue Klinger and Kat Blaine.

Real fans prefer the ghastly pale death mask visage of comic book Mickey to the Crayola flesh tones of the Disney Comics reprint.

I know the Blot is the most overexposed villain since The Joker and has only appeared in like three and a half good comics but he's *my* supervillain, ya know?  You can keep your Doctor Dooms and Blofelds, I'm Team Blot all the way.

100% sure Roger is a Trump voter.

Dragula

Speaking of Marv Wolfman, here is a Goofy story by the Tomb of Dracula team Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan!

"Tomb of Goofula" originally ran in Goofy Adventures #17, these bad cell phone pics are from Mickey Mouse and the Orbiting Nightmare, Boom! Studios, 2011.

Unboxing Day

In his exhaustive history of Disney Comics Dan Cunningham mentioned a box set of the first six issues, available at the Disney Store with a retail price of 75 dollars.  Naturally I hit up Ebay to see if I could score one cheap, and I did-- five bucks plus shipping.

Let's do an unboxing, shall we?

Mine was still in the shrink wrap, with the Certificate of Authenticity proudly displayed on the back.  I tore that sucker open immediately.

I opened right to a Don Rosa Donald Duck cover, a fortuitous sign.

As I flipped over the cellophane package to see the Goofy issue, I noticed something--- these books were warped!

Can you believe these greedy bastards charged SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS for a bunch of comics with a cover price of a dollar fifty each, and didn't even spring for backing boards?

What's inside the bundle, you ask?

The first six issues from the Disney Comics imprint, all cover dated June 1990.

The inaugural Between the Lines column indicates that Uncle Scrooge #243 and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #548 also shipped this month, but it's 1990 so this box is only concerned with the number ones.

Box sets like these were briefly very popular in the great boom times of the early nineties.  For comparison's sake, look at this DC Comics box from 1991 collecting all the variant covers for the second Robin miniseries.

I got this whole mess, including the HOLOGRAM COLLECTOR CARDS for the princely sum of 5 dollars even at a comic convention in 2006.  

Back to the Disney box, there's good stuff in here!  A lot of fans rag on the Disney Comics experiment but these were high-quality comics.  The colors are bright, the only ads are for other Disney Comics titles, the covers slick.  The material is pretty good too-

I don't care about the first story in Goofy Adventures, but the second feature is part one of Goofy Frankenstein ( I have only ever seen the second half and was somewhat obsessed with this story in the early days of this blog. My Tumblr avatar is still Goofy Frankenstein ten years strong)!

Next up is The Phantom Gondolier.   I've always liked this story; Michael T. Gilbert and Stephen DeStefano are old pros who know how to make entertaining comics whatever the genre. I'm a fan of both of those guys.  There's some Paul Murry bullshit for the backup feature.

Eddie Valiant isn't in this so who cares.

Rescue Rangers never did much for me personally, but it was my sister's favorite part of the Disney Afternoon so I'll give it a read eventually.

The Ducktales story is part one of the Scrooge's Quest serial.  I know I have read at least a couple chapters before--Gemstone put out a trade paperback collection that I need to check out.  Marv Wolfman is in my top five favorite superhero writers based on Tomb of Dracula and The New Teen Titans so it will be interesting to see him scripting funny animals for a change.

Last but definitely not least, a Don Rosa story!  This one has been reprinted a ton of times over the years, but it's still nice to have the original in my collection.

Getting this joke in a shrink-wrapped "Collector's Set" is just *chef kiss*

So that's the Disney Comics Collector's Edition First Issues box set!  Definitely not worth 75 dollars, but at 5 bucks plus shipping I don't think I got ripped off.  If you can scoop this up at a con or online go for it, if only as a historic curiosity.

When I first started this blog wayyyy back in 2009, my main goal was to learn more about Disney comics, particularly the stuff I didn't get to see as a kid.

One of the most fascinating areas of study was the ill-fated Disney Comics line.  In the early days of Disney Weirdness I would have killed for an in-depth examination like this one from Dan Cunningham.  It's a long post-mortem on what went wrong and what could have been, with additional context about the comics market of the early 90's boom and bust.  Highest possible recommendation, go read it!

You learn something new every day.

Well I do at least.  Did you guys know Jim Shooter could have been EIC of Disney Comics?

Touchmarks the spot

In today's Comic Book Legends Revealed:  How Disney invented Vertigo comics.

Leave Us Not Distract Him From His Repast, Gentlemen

"A Light Gift"

Art by Vicar, Story by Margaretha Wilson

From Donald Duck Adventures #21, Disney Comics, 1992