Donald Duck (comic book)

Donald Duck (titled Donald Duck and Friends from issues #308-363) is a comic book starring Donald Duck that has been published by various publishers since 1952. Initially, the series was a "try out" magazine that featured characters (not all of which were owned by Disney) who did not yet have their own titles. Donald Duck had appeared in all of the first twenty-five "try-out" issues so it became solely dedicated to the Duck family starting with #26 in 1952. The comic is currently published by IDW Publishing.
==History==
The first issue was released in November 1952, but the numeration started with #26 because the previous Four Color issues with the "Donald Duck" title, released between October 1942 (Four Color #9) and September 1952 (Four Color #422), were retroactively treated as part of the series. The numbering was the result of a mistake, as there were actually 28 Four Color issues titled "Donald Duck" before the series actually began. The comic continued publication under Dell Comics and later Gold Key Publishing, through 1984.
After the book's initial cancellation, the U.S. license to the "core four" Disney comic books, including Donald Duck, was granted to Another Rainbow Publishing, who began publishing the titles under the Gladstone Publishing imprint in 1986. For the first year or so of its run under Gladstone, Donald Duck would alternate between printing full-length adventure stories one month and then shorter stories the next month. By the time DuckTales premiered on television, it was decided that both Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge would switch to bimonthly publication and be given companion books, titled Donald Duck Adventures and Uncle Scrooge Adventures, respectively. As a result of this, subsequent issues of Donald Duck consisted entirely of shorter stories compared to the full-length stories, which would now be continued exclusively in Donald Duck Adventures.
When the Walt Disney Company began publishing the comic books under their own Disney Comics imprint in 1990, the long-running Donald Duck title was not continued in the new line. Disney Comics instead ran their own Donald Duck Adventures title, which ran with a separate numbering from the Gladstone book of the same name and was more akin to the original Donald Duck comic in content. The standard Donald Duck title eventually resumed bimonthly publication, alongside the original Donald Duck Adventures title, when Gladstone re-obtained the license in the summer of 1993. It was then cancelled, along with many other titles in Gladstone's Disney line, in December 1997.
Almost six years later, it was revived by Gemstone Publishing and retitled Donald Duck and Friends. Most of Gemstone's issues included a Mickey Mouse story in the middle, justifying the addition of "...and Friends" to the title. The comic was cancelled again in December 2006.
After Gemstone lost the rights to continue publishing the comics, Boom! Studios picked up the license. As part of the Boom! Kids line of Disney-related comics, Donald Duck and Friends initially exclusively featured stories from the DoubleDuck series (originally printed in Italy's Topolino magazine), but eventually returned to its original format and even switched back to its original name. However, due to Boom! Studios having cancelled The Incredibles comic on a cliffhanger, Disney pulled the plug on their license with the company, and Boom!'s run with Donald Duck abruptly ended at #367 in June of 2011.
IDW Publishing revived the title in May 2015. The Donald Duck issues published by IDW use a dual numeration, which counts both how many issues IDW itself has published and what number issue it is in total (for instance, IDW's first issue was billed as "#1 (#368)"). IDW's issues of Donald Duck, as with all their Disney comics, also have at least two different covers per issue, with at least one issue having covers based on Disney theme park attractions. The comic took a five-month hiatus from November 2016 to March 2017, during which IDW published the five-issue Donald Quest mini-series in its place. However, just three issues following the title's return, it was put on hiatus again, this time alongside Mickey Mouse, to make room for the Donald and Mickey anthology title.
===Publication history chart===
Publisher 	Run 	Issues published
 	1952-September 1962 	#1-84
 	December 1962-September 1979 	#85-211
Whitman 	October 1979-1984 	#212-244
Gladstone Publishing	July 1986-February 20, 1990July 1993-December 1997	#245-307
Gemstone Publishing 	September 18, 2003-December 2006 	#308-346
Boom! Studios 	November 4, 2009-June 8, 2011 	#347-367
IDW Publishing 	May 2015-June 2017 	#368-388
==Notable stories published in Donald Duck==
Story title 	Issue featured in
"Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold"	Four Color #9
"The Mummy's Ring" 	Four Color #29
"Volcano Valley" 	Four Color #147
"The Ghost of the Grotto" 	Four Color #159
"Christmas on Bear Mountain" 	Four Color #178
"Voodoo Hoodoo" 	Four Color #238
"The Old Castle's Secret" 	Four Color #189
"Lost in the Andes" 	Four Color #223
"The Magic Hourglass" 	Four Color #291
"Dangerous Disguise" 	Four Color #308
"Old California" 	Four Color #328
"A Christmas for Shacktown" 	Four Color #367
"The Golden Helmet" 	Four Color #408
"The Gilded Man" 	Four Color #422
"The Duck Who Never Was" 	Donald Duck #286
== Logos ==
DonaldDuck 1st logo.jpg|Published by Western Publishing. "Walt Disney" signature could be italic in cases (see bottom picture). Shown here are issues #31 and #50.
DonaldDuck 2nd logo.jpg|Published under the Gold Key label. Alignment alternated between right (top) or center (bottom). Shown here are issues #91 and #98.
DonaldDuck 3rd logo.jpg| Used in last three issues published by Gold Key, then the logo was adopted by Whitman for a run of 20 issues. Shown here is issue #197.
DonaldDuck 4th logo.jpg|Whitman's main logo for the series. Shown here is issue #219.
DonaldDuck 5th logo.jpg|First logo by Gladstone Publishing. Shown here is issue #246.
DonaldDuck 6th logo.jpg|Main logo for the series by Gladstone Publishing (1987-1990, 1993-1998), carried on by Gemstone (2003-2008) and Boom! (2009-2010). Notice introduction of the modern "Walt Disney" signature. Starting with issue #278, publishers added various shading and color gradient effects (see examples), whereas leaving overall shape and font intact. Shown here are issues #277, 278, 302, 306, 309, and 316.
DonaldDuck 7th logo.jpg|Published by Boom! Notice the switch back to the one-line logo. Shown here is issue #367.
Donald_Duck_IDW_logo.jpg|Published by IDW Publishing. Notice the resemblance to the first logo.
==Cover gallery==
==See also==
* Other notable Disney comic titles in the USA:
** Mickey Mouse (since 1933; originally Mickey Mouse Magazine, also Mickey Mouse and Friends)
** Walt Disney's Comics and Stories (1952–1984, 1986–1998, 2003–2008, 2009–2011, 2015–present)
** Uncle Scrooge (1952–1984, 1986–1998, 2003–2008, 2009–2011, 2015–present)
* Donald Duck Adventures (1988–1997, 2003–2006)
==External links==
*
*Donald Duck (and Friends) on Disney Comics Worldwide (DCW)
*Cover of all issues of Donald Duck on outducks.org (click issue numbers)
Category:Comic books
Category:Donald Duck