50YrsCollctngCmcs

Andrew, that's a four pack of plain old awesomeness right there!! I need to start picking up some Pogos again, they are just as great as the Disney books but don't get half the attention. I started reading his collected newspaper strip stories in high school. While everyone credits Will Eisner with getting the Graphic Novel market going you might make an argument for those fifties - sixties collections of Pogo. While housed in a funny animal format the themes behind the stories rivaled that of later "relevant" strips like Doonesbury. As an example pick up a copy of the "Jack Acid Society" for some biting satire and a rollicking take on some of the excesses of witch hunters like McCarthy and the John Birchers. A Merry Funny Animal Christmas to my fellow Duck fans!

Wow, you never see a Phantom Stranger set, even more rare is to find them in any kind of decent condition. Great stuff!

Another great book, that turtle at the bottom will be beating the hare at this rate. I think you should add a secondary counter for 1-10!!

Great cover on that book. A classic. Hope to expand my Adventure collection into this pre-hero era some day.

BB, my recollection is the Witch was the witch from Show White, not Trick or Treat. But I haven't read this issue in awhile. I have ordered the reprint from Amazon for the holiday season. I will post my copy momentarily as this book has been on my mind with the holiday season. Anyway you slice it one of the more memorable duck tales. I just read it again and you are right, duh, of course FC 203 predates Donald Duck 26. The story mentions Snow White as well. I guess the witches reminded me of each other, perhaps the nose or the wart.... Thanks for posting, glad to know that my meaningless 35 year old memories are still intact. Also, since the Witch is supposedly killed at the end of the Snow White movie, we can see that Barks was a man ahead of his time. Think of all the adventures where characters are revived or die but then come back to life in a sequel. You can't keep a good (bad) witch down!

Interesting tidbits on the publishing end of things. I had never heard of Hal Horne before. Kay Kamen is well known and is actually a Disney Legend with a plaque in his honor on the Disney Studio. Barks is there too.

Thanks, I have some other beauties I have owned for almost as long. I will post some over the holidays. They all have special meaning to me as I was a total Barks fanatic in my youth. I can't adequately describe the thrill of receiving these stories and getting to read them; the originality, cleverness and humanity of the stories just shined through. I was also lucky to have parents who supported my interests and allowed me to invest my hard earned money in comics. They didn't always see the value but I have the last laugh these days when I tell my Dad how much some of his old comics fetch. I have never let him live down the day when I was ten or eleven and tried to get him to buy Golden Age DC's for one dollar each. "One Dollar," he shouted, "Why those things only cost a dime when they were new!" Ha! Ha! If only I had been a little older. Sounds like your visit with Yellow Kid was great, I haven't often had the pleasure of hanging out with other Barks fanatics.

Tis' the Season to post Duck Christmas covers. This little gem has been on my mind and I thought I would post in the duck thread to celebrate the season. This book is important to me for a variety of reasons. Setting the stage, it is the mid-seventies and old duck comics can mainly be ordered via the Buyer's Guide. I have been putting together a collection for about four years but most of the books arriving via mail order are in Fair condition at best. They only cost 2-3 bucks and you get to read some great stories but they are pretty tattered. Reprints at book stores are virtually non-existent. It is a small miracle when Les Daniels reprints a Barks tale in color in his book "Comix." Gold Key comics are becoming harder and harder to come by on the stands as sales drop and distribution becomes iffy. So the duck collector feels rather deprived, a very different world than today. My collecting Jones has ratcheted up to the point where I am taking a bus 60 miles north to New York City once a month on Sundays to attend Phil Seuling's monthly comic show. These shows are an outgrowth of his annual July 4th extravaganza. So this is '76 or '77 and I am 16 or 17 at the time; looking back I am happy my parents had confidence in my ability to navigate the mean streets of New York with my collector friend and high school buddy. Honestly, we were both scared to death and went right from the bus station to the convention floor with no detours. At one of these shows I came across the book below and it is a must have for me. At $20 it represents probably a good 6-8 hours of hard work at my high school job where I was probably being paid between $2.50 to $3.00 per hour at the time. When I got home I was even more surprised to read the story and learn that it featured a cross over with the Wicked Witch from Snow White, or so my memory tells me but I haven't read this story in many years. To remedy that I have just placed an order for the Fantagraphics book which reprints this tale and I can see how good my memory is 35 years on or so. Enjoy:

Thanks for posting, very entertaining.

Imagine the appeal of this shiny red cover on the stands!

BB, my recollection is the Witch was the witch from Show White, not Trick or Treat. But I haven't read this issue in awhile. I have ordered the reprint from Amazon for the holiday season. I will post my copy momentarily as this book has been on my mind with the holiday season. Anyway you slice it one of the more memorable duck tales.

One of the best Bark's tales ever! I actually leant my copy to my English teacher my Sophmore year to read and he read it while monitoring our study hall one day. Wish I had a picture of that. He loved it and didn't discourage my comic reading, hats off to him!

Other can opine but in my view unless these are realy high grade the duck market seems pretty weak. There always seeems to be a plentiful supply of duck four colors on EBay in lower grade. Early Barks WDC&S through 50 or 60 (probably war's end) seem harder to come by than later issues and Rich (Yellow Kid) tells me that FC 29 - Mummy's Ring is tougher to come by than the others. Good for the Barks reader collector, not so good for the seller or dealer trying to make a few bucks.

They really aren't the greatest of books, picked two up years ago and never cared to get anymore other than Atom Bomb by Barks. But that one requires the outlay equivalent to a Four Color sometimes. As a reader I will go with the Four Colors.

I thought exactly the same, Dwight, and was hoping someone could confirm. These guys all hung out together and you could certainly see them at the golf course bragging about the painting of their iconic character. "Who painted it?" would be a natural question and one that would lead to the next commission. I believe it was a golf game that Martin Goodman had with DC brass that led to the Fantastic Four book when the DC gang was bragging about sales on JLAl

I talked to Don off and on at the Comic Con for about ten years starting in 1992. Busted Flush and I actually met him at an Eisner award ceremony and he was still working on duck books but rather unhappy about it. Mostly he complained about going on European promotional junkets that took away from his work time. Too bad, it was obvious he wasn't too happy back then when he was doing some great work.

"The Rats in the Walls", does Lovecraft get any better!

Such metaphysical questions can only lead to madness or other disturbing questions: If Mickey (a mouse) has a dog as a pet, why does his best friend Goofy also appear to be a dog? Why do Mickey and Donald appear to be the same scale as humans when the diminutive Chip and Dale maintain rodent size and for that matter pester Donald? Let's not go there or agree that all funny animals are not created equal!

Indubitably!

Cool Busted Flush; and that cover is actually an indication of why Don Rosa stopped doing duck books. Every bit of detail he drew was accomplished with T-square and French Curves; a result of his undergrad training in Civil Engineering. Most other artists freehand such things but Don was self taught and adapted drafting techniqes to his draughtmanship. Anyone familiar with these techniques will realize the incredible amount of time it took him to complete a story. That time committment is what he spoke of that day and his inability to make it all pay off for the amount of time required. Too bad as Don was certainly the heir apparent to Mr. Barks.

The one who doesn't look like Don Rosa.

Thanks Scrooge, I was going to add that to my wish list until I looked at the price! WOW! Wish I had saved those old RBCC's I thinnk I sold them some years ago. I used to subscribe and it was one of the great pleasures of receiving a new issue was to read the latest PP installment.

Thought the duck board might enjoy this picture of me getting to meet Don Rosa a few years back in San Diego. Don Rosa at the time was no longer working on the Disney books and we had a long talk about how he preferred to spend his time cutting his grass down in Kentucky. That's was a shame from my point of view. For any of you interested Don used to do a great series for the old RBCC called the Pertwillaby Papers. The infulence of Barks is pretty clear in the stories and they are a lot of fun. Not sure if they ever got reprinted but they are worth picking up. Before that Don used to write the infrormation column for RBCC and those are fun to read as well. As I recall at this show Don was selling off his collection, a great set of books from the sixties throught the eighties or nineties.

Anyone pick up any of the early WDC&S in the recent ComicLink auction?

No doubt but could you discern which nephew was in which place!