Keskustelujen arkisto

I decided to have a thread about Holiday Stories from the Disney Comics.
Any favorites of yours?

I was just going to say 'A Christmas for Shacktown', too. After reading that it's kind of fun to read Don Rosa's 'Gyro's First Invention' which refers back to it.

Patrick Hanifin
www.PatrickHanifin.com
www.SqueakyCleanComedy.com

There are so many.. I just started reading a few of my christmas issues to start the holiday season.
But if I have to name one story it would be Christmas in Duckburg. I loved the story as a child,

Like Charlie Brown, I re-read many Christmas stories every year, including my favorites of the 25 (by my count) Barks Christmas stories (26, if you count the Little Golden Book "Donald Duck and the Christmas Carol"). But I think my top four might be:

(1) Barks' Search for the Cuspidoria

(2) Barks' Northeaster on Cape Quack

(3) Rosa's Fir-Tree Fracas (despite its shortness, this is one of my top-ten favorite Rosa stories! Oh, how I wish BOOM had been able to reproduce it with Susan Daigle's coloring....)

(4) Chendi & Scarpa's Being Good for Goodness Sake

I really like the combination of lighthouses and Christmas, so (in addition to Cape Quack) I'm also especially fond of Barks' Santa's Stormy Visit, as well as Jan Kruse's holiday lighthouse story (H 92005), which hasn't been published in English. (I realize the latter is actually a New Year's story, but it does star a Christmas tree.)

Like Patrick, I read "Gyro's First Invention" after "Shacktown"; after "Christmas on Bear Mountain" I read Per Hedman/Vicar's "Christmas Magic" (D 2003-121). It's my favorite of the several Magica Christmas stories Gemstone published (nice that Daisy gets to tackle Magica!). The Bergström/Anderson/Branca Bear Mountain sequel didn't do much for me.

I also love the first page of Barks' "Three Un-ducks".

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"All is lost! And I'm at the mercy of that terrible duck!" --The Golden Christmas Tree

Barks Christmas stories are remarkably strong in general, though it's hard to argue with the one-two punch of "Christmas for Shacktown" and "Letter to Santa," the former for sentiment and the latter for straight-up manic hilarity. I've also previously expressed my enjoyment of "The Black Pearls of Tabu Yama" for being something different and cool, and I would argue that "The Thrifty Spendthrift" is seriously under-appreciated--for my money, it's the funniest thing Barks ever wrote.
As far as non-Barks stuff goes, it's hard to beat Block's and Fernandez's "Too Late for Christmas."

(1) "A Christmas for Shacktown"... nuff said.
(2) "Letter to Santa"... would make this list for the marvelous opening splash panel alone.
(3) "Search for the Cuspidoria"... wouldn't this have been a good DUCKTALES episode? You could have had Launchpad steering the sub.
(4) "Tis the Season" by Bob Foster and Mike Peraza (http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=KU+%3F%3F90). A beautiful story and a fitting conclusion to 1990, that first, now-legendary year of the Disney Comics line.
(5) I'm no pre-reformation Scrooge... I'll let you pick this one!

I also like Tabu Yama; it's similar to the Cuspidoria story. Only in Tabu Yama, Scrooge has always intended to provide Christmas presents to the others, whereas in Cuspidoria, the present-giving is a result of his change of heart (in response to the nephews' kindness), and he gets rewarded for it by the Spirit of Christmas. A more satisfying plot arc. But then, Tabu Yama has a fun "build-your-own-volcano"-style adventure element....

No news all Barks
1. A Christmas for Shacktown - for the excellent story
2. Christmas on Bear Mountain - for its Scrooge origin and my childhood memories from the Swedish reprint 1965
3. A Letter to Santa - Nice theme with very fine art