Donald Duck (American comic book)

The stories published in Donald Duck enriched the character, as historian Alberto Becattini points out: "In the longer adventures which appeared in Four Color Comics, Donald and his nephews acted more like a team, and though luck did not necessarily seem to favor him, the Duck was often the winner in the end, showing qualities and feelings that made him even more sympathetic to the readers".

The boys also get a tour of an exotic setting, with many detailed panels of Egyptian landmarks, painstakingly copied from Barks' collection of National Geographic magazines.

(1946), takes place on a houseboat traveling to New Orleans; and the fifth, "Volcano Valley" (May 1947), involves a trip to the Central American nation of Volcanovia.

These periodic adventures helped Barks to deepen the ducks' characterization—not just putting them in new settings, but broadening the kinds of events and experiences that they could react to.

This included "Volcano Valley", "The Ghost of the Grotto" (Aug 1947) and "Christmas on Bear Mountain" (Dec 1947), the first story featuring Donald's uncle, Scrooge McDuck.

Barks' second Uncle Scrooge adventure, "The Old Castle's Secret", was published in Donald Duck in June 1948.

The first three issues of 1951 were Barks creations -- "Dangerous Disguise" (Jan 1951), "No Such Varmint" (March 1951) and "In Old California" (May 1951), but these were followed by "Donald Duck and the Magic Fountain" (July 1951, written by Del Connell and drawn by Bob Moore), "The Crocodile Collector" (Sept 1951, by Don Christensen and Frank McSavage) and "Rags to Riches" (Nov 1951, Frank McSavage).

In 1952, Barks wrote four of the six Donald Duck issues, including the classics "A Christmas for Shacktown" (Jan 1952) and "The Golden Helmet" (July 1952).

[4] The first issue of the new series led with a Carl Barks Halloween story, "Trick or Treat", which was based on the October 1952 Donald Duck short of the same name.

In 1953, Barks' attention turned to producing a quarterly Uncle Scrooge comic, and the bimonthly Donald Duck passed to other creators.

[6] Most of the issues from 1954 to 1972 were drawn by Tony Strobl, including "The Kitchy-Kaw Diamond" (#40, March 1955), "Rainbow Island Rendezvous" (#41, May 1955), "The Mysterious Crewless Ship" (#47, May 1956), "The Secret of the Glacier" (#51, Jan 1957), "One for the Whammy" (#65, May 1959), "The Stone Money Mystery" (#69, Jan 1960) and "Secret of the Sargasso Sea" (#72, July 1960).

Donald's seafaring relative Moby Duck premiered in issue #112 (March 1967) in "A Whale of an Adventure", written by Vic Lockman and illustrated by Strobl.

In 1972, Strobl left Western to write for the Disney Studio Program; his last Donald Duck story was "The Siren's Whistle" in issue #142 (March 1972).

[6] John Carey took Strobl's place as the main artist for the original Donald Duck stories starting with issue #144 (July 1972).

Walt Disney's Comics & Stories and Uncle Scrooge continued their legacy numbering, but the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck books were retitled Mickey Mouse Adventures and Donald Duck Adventures, starting with a new issue #1.

[16] The historical focus of the title continued in issue #286 (Sept 1994), a 64-page special celebrating the character's 60th anniversary, featuring a special anniversary story by Don Rosa, and a reprint of the first Donald Duck adventure story from 1937, Federico Pedrocchi's "Paolino Paperino e il mistero di Marte" ("Donald Duck and the Secret of Mars") published in the Italian comic Donald Duck and Other Adventures (Paperino e altre avventure).

Almost all of the stories were from the late 1990s and early 2000s, often by creators that were previously unknown in the US, including Noel Van Horn, Pat and Carol McGreal, César Ferioli and Stefan Petrucha.

When the sales dipped lower than expected, Gemstone returned to a previously successful strategy: publishing Carl Barks stories.

[20] Gemstone's Disney comics run ended in December 2006; the last issue of Donald Duck and Friends was #346.

The other strategy was to use non-traditional subseries for the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck books, attempting to attract a new audience with modern storylines.

Issue #363 (Feb 2011) featured the Barks 10-pager "Mystery of the Loch", and two recent Dutch stories that returned to the typical cast and locations of traditional Duck comics.

The final issue, #367 (June 2011), reprinted a 2006 story written by Carl Barks and drawn by Daan Jippes.

The most common source was Italian comics from the late 1960s and 70s, with stories by Romano Scarpa, Luciano Bottaro and Giorgio Cavazzano leading many issues.

Issue #5 and 6 (Sept/Oct 2015) presented "The True Origin of the Diabolical Duck Avenger"—an Italian story from June 1969 by Elisa Penna, Guido Martina and Giovan Battista Carpi that introduced Paperinik, Donald Duck's costumed vigilante alter ego which began as a way to get revenge on his own relatives, but later became a crime-fighting superhero.

Slow sales prompted IDW to drop most of their Disney comics titles in 2017, and Donald Duck's last issue was #21, aka #388 (June 2017).