DuckenSTEEN

Continuing our series of what NOT to include in your high school book reports, here's

Disney Frankenstein, Starring Donald Duck from Dark Horse Comics, by Bruno Enna and Fabio Celoni

This one takes even more liberties with the source material than Disney Moby Dick, if you can believe it.

Where Mary Shelley's science fiction classic is a warning about the dangers of unchecked ambition and hubris, the Duck version has a theme of stifled creativity:

Von Duckenstein's suppressed creative nature manifests at university when he studies forbidden science, specifically the ability to create artificial life...

...Out of cardboard.

Yes, you read that right, cardboard.

This is a slight change from the mutilated corpses of vicious murderers being stitched together into a grotesque parody of life, but whatevs.

IT'S ALIVE! sorta.

Duckenstein has the totally original idea to use a kite with a key on it to harness the power of lightning, and the monster (named "Growl" because all he can say is "Growl") grabs hold of the kite's tail and sails away to freedom

(because he's made out of cardboard, you see).

Those bolts on the side of the Monster's head?  Turns out they were earplugs.

Instead of killing the kids, Growl befriends them.

There are some puns about "animating" life (because they're cartoon characters, geddit?)

and then a heartwarming ending where everyone learns that creativity is good, actually.

So basically, if you have a book report due on Frankenstein, I would suggest you watch the 1931 James Whale cinema classic, or the balls-out crazy Robert De Niro version from 1994


or even the Toho studios creature feature


before I would refer to this comic.  It's a great looking comic, but you will almost certainly flunk your Frankenstein test if you use this in place of the Spark Notes.

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.

This is Halloween

Look what I found at the local comics shop, just in time for Halloween:

Runaway Brain Kubrick! 

 Awesome.

 

Ducky Horror Picture Show!

Quack-a-roonie!

It's pronounced Franken-STEEN

"Goofy Frankenstein" by Greg Crosby and Hector de Urtiaga.
From Goofy Adventures #2, Disney Comics, July 1990.

It's alive!

Frankenstein is the greatest monster, period. Not even family-friendly children's characters like Mickey Mouse are safe from his undead allure:

Mickey Mouse as Teenage Frankenstein.









The amazing Frankensteinia blog has done several pieces on Disney, including this one on a cartoon I'd never seen: Mickey Mouse in "Runaway Brain."