The comic was launched by Federico Pedrocchi, Mondadori's art director, as a companion to the existing weekly Topolino (Mickey Mouse) magazine.
It is therefore advisable to give as much space as possible to the adventure stories, leaving only Disney for the comic part, that is PAOLINO PAPERINO which is appreciated by little ones, boys and families.
Paolino Paperino e il mistero di Marte (Donald Duck and the Secret of Mars) was published in 18 parts, from issue #1 to 18 (Dec. 30, 1937 – April 28, 1938).
After destroying oncoming chunks of ice from a comet's tail, Donald accidentally breaks the helmets of the team's spacesuits, and Baus-Baus locks him up in a storage room.
Thrilled to see another Earthling, Bluff reveals that he was tricked by Dr. Kraus into traveling to Mars decades ago, to discover the secret of the Pindos' power.
He chases Kraus and Baus-Baus into their spaceship, which crashes into Bluff's palace, destroying the Room of the Sun and ending the threat that unscrupulous people would use the Pindos' secret power.
Donald's boost of strength wears off, and he and Bluff pilot the ship back to Earth, taking Kraus and Baus-Baus as prisoners.
Back on Earth, Donald is given a reward for apprehending the wanted criminals, but gets fined an equal amount for assaulting an officer, leaving him with nothing.
[7][10] Comics historian Alberto Becattini also sees sci-fi influences: "There were also clear references to Dick Calkins' Buck Rogers—which was, by the way, one of the regular features in Paperino—and to Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, as far as the spaceships and the alien landscapes were concerned.
And as in 'Mickey Mouse Sails for Treasure Island' (1932), a long-missing sailor is discovered ruling a lost world... As the art director of his country's Disney editions, however, Pedrocchi was professional enough to absorb more than just story details.
Leaving the police station at the end of the previous story, Donald is approached by Lucius Linotype (Signor Linotipi), editor of the newspaper Another World (L'altro mondo).
On the road to Selvania, the boys meet another reporter, Bart Caterwaul (Bartolomeo Circonlocuzioni), also known as "the Cat", from rival paper The Old Globe (Mondo intero).
After a disastrous trial, Donald and Peter are sentenced to be executed, but they manage to get a telegram to Mr. Linotype, who arrives in an airplane just in time to explain things to the authorities.
Pedrocchi was hoping to produce another comic headlined by a Disney character, Il Giornale di Pippo, and created a dummy mockup of the first issue.
"[20] "Clarabella fra gli artigli del diavolo nero" ("Clarabelle in the Black Devil's clutches") was published as a 26-page story in Albi d'oro #25/1939 (April 15, 1939).
[21] Horace Horsecollar (Orazio Cavezza) and Clarabelle Cow (Clarabella) work at a luxury hotel, where there's a series of mysterious thefts committed by the "Black Devil".
Pinochi swiped most of the art for this story from the Mickey Mouse adventures "Race for Riches" (1935), "The Pirate Submarine" (1935–36) and "Dr. Oofgay's Secret Serum" (1934).
Snow White discovers that the sorcerer is living in the castle that belonged to the Evil Queen, and the prince goes to rescue the child, but he is blinded by Basilisk's magic gaze.
The Seven Dwarfs help Snow White to rescue the child from the sorcerer's gorilla servants, and they annihilate the wizard by rolling an avalanche of boulders to crush him.
[28] Pedrocchi's sequel makes reference to the Prince's imprisonment in the Queen's dungeons, a subplot that appeared in the comic strips but not in the original movie.
[27] The Italian Disney Comic Guide blog comments, "For the Seven Dwarfs, Pagot's models are obviously those already available, in fact the schematism and repetitiveness of their poses is a limit.
But the best job is the one on the environments, fully enjoyable only in the first edition: the influences from contemporary déco inspirations can be guessed, as in the initial sequence on the waters of the enchanted lake.
An unironic incarnation of pure Evil, he literally dies at the end of the story, crushed by an avalanche of boulders so much that his black soul soars in the air for a few seconds before heading to Hell.
[32] Disney Comic Guide points out, "The plot anticipates some thirty years, more or less, that of 'Donald Duck, Wizard of Duckburg' ('Paperino stregone di Paperopoli', 1967) of Rodolfo Cimino and Giulio Chierchini, but the latter will be a story of very different depth and foresight.
They're taken prisoner in the realm of King Severo, where they learn that Dopey was kidnapped by the Seven Bad Dwarfs, who want to take the diamond mine from their Good counterparts.
Donald accidentally finds the thief in the cellar the next morning—it's the cook's husband, an alcoholic who stole the vase to drain the Count's wine caskets.
The Count agrees not to press charges if the cook comes back to work for him, and then gives the hundred thousand lire to Donald and Goofy.
(After dropping Buck Rogers, Ella Cinders, Ming Foo and Popeye in 1938, Paperino did introduce one American-produced page in February 1940, first presenting Tarzan and then Tim Tyler's Luck.)
[1] Rebo, the Saturnian dictator from Pedrocchi's Saturno contro la Terra (Saturn Conquers the Earth), returned to Disney comics in a March 1960 story by Carlo Chendi and Luciano Bottaro: "Paperino e il razzo interplanetario" ("Donald Duck and the interplanetary rocket"), in Topolino #230-232, in which Donald foils his plans to conquer Jupiter.
[7] It was also reprinted in 2012, with restored art and a new translation, in the Gottfredson collection Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse volume 3: High Noon at Inferno Gulch.