Through my conversations with Yellow Kid, whom I had the pleasure of visiting again last week, I've come to realize how important a year 1935 was for Disney publications. Hal Horne invested a lot of his own money in the third Mickey Mouse Magazine with the support of Walt and Roy Disney and Kay Kaymen. A very deliberate decision must have been made, most likely to the credit of Kamen, to put more emphasis on and improve the quality of the children's books and magazines. On that background, I've earned new respect for this particular book, the first devoted to a key character, as it coincides with the exact time of a very important new direction that proved to be hugely important for Disney. The 1936 "Donald Duck" is really a handsome volume, and I think the transition between these two books marks a very important historical event.
I've never liked the term "key issue" when talking about the history of comics as I see that process mostly as a slow evolution of trial and error iterations. Even books like Action 1 and Detective 27 were far from brilliant strokes of genius that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. In terms of Disney books, however, I think that this book, as part of a sweeping change that is reflected in publications from a brief window of time starting around the summer of 1935, marks a change of an importance that I had not fully appreciated until recently. It's still an evolutionary change, but it is about as close to a revolutionary one as I can think of.
WOW, that's an awesome knowledge drop that I was completely unaware of!! Thank you so much for sharing that information!!