Disney character and uncle of Donald Duck
Uncle Scrooge
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Publisher
| Dell Comics
,
Gold Key Comics / Whitman
,
Gladstone Publishing
,
Disney Comics
,
Gemstone Publishing
,
Boom! Kids
,
IDW Publishing
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Genre
| Humor
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Publication date
| 1952?1984
1986?1998
2003?2008
2009?2011
2015?2020
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No.
of issues
| 460, including 3 issues of
Four Color
(as of September 2020)
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Created by
| Carl Barks
,
Tony Strobl
,
Vic Lockman
,
Phil DeLara
, Jack Manning,
Pete Alvarado
,
Daan Jippes
,
Don Rosa
,
William Van Horn
,
Gutenberghus/Egmont Group
(
Vicar
,
Daniel Branca
, Joel Katz, Dave Angus, Tom Anderson,
Gail Renard
, et al.),
John Lustig
, Pat McGreal, Dave Rawson,
Michael T. Gilbert
,
Romano Scarpa
, and others
|
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Uncle Scrooge
(stylized as
Uncle $crooge
) is a
Disney comic book
series starring
Scrooge McDuck
("the richest duck in the world"), his nephew
Donald Duck
, and grandnephews
Huey, Dewey, and Louie
, and revolving around their adventures in
Duckburg
and around the world. It was first published in
Four Color Comics
#386 (March 1952), as a
spin-off
of the popular
Donald Duck
series and is still presently ongoing. It has been produced under the aegis of several different publishers, including
Western Publishing
(initially in association with
Dell Comics
and later under its own subsidiary,
Gold Key Comics
and their Whitman imprint),
Gladstone Publishing
,
Disney Comics
,
Gemstone Publishing
,
Boom! Studios
, and
IDW Publishing
, and has undergone several hiatuses of varying length. Despite this, it has maintained the same numbering scheme throughout its six decade history, with only IDW adding a secondary numbering that started at #1.
[1]
Besides Scrooge and his family, recurring characters include
Gyro Gearloose
,
Gladstone Gander
,
Emily Quackfaster
, and
Brigitta MacBridge
. Among the adversaries who make repeat appearances are
the Beagle Boys
,
Magica De Spell
,
John D. Rockerduck
and
Flintheart Glomgold
.
Uncle Scrooge
is one of the core titles of the "
Duck universe
".
Its early issues by famed writer/artist (and creator of Scrooge McDuck)
Carl Barks
formed the inspiration for the syndicated television cartoon
DuckTales
in the late 1980s. Several stories written by Barks and published in
Uncle Scrooge
were adapted as episodes of
DuckTales
.
Writers and artists
[
edit
]
The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks. The 71st issue had a story written by Barks and drawn by
Tony Strobl
. Subsequent Gold Key Comics issues combined reprints of earlier Barks tales with new material by creators such as Strobl,
Vic Lockman
,
Phil DeLara
, Jack Manning, and
Pete Alvarado
.
When Gladstone Publishing relaunched the title in 1986, a new generation of American creators began contributing to the title, including
Don Rosa
,
William Van Horn
,
John Lustig
, Pat McGreal, Dave Rawson, and
Michael T. Gilbert
. As before, their work was intermingled with Carl Barks reprints, as well as with translations of European Disney comics by such creators as
Daan Jippes
, Fred Milton and
Romano Scarpa
originally published by Oberon,
Egmont
(originally Gutenberghus) and
Disney Italy
/
Mondadori
.
U.S. publication history
[
edit
]
| This section needs to be
updated
. The reason given is: Prose doesn't reflect the end of IDW publication.
Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.
(
September 2022
)
|
Scrooge made his first appearance in the Donald Duck story "
Christmas on Bear Mountain
" as a curmudgeonly man who decides to test Donald and his nephews to see if they are worthy of inheriting his wealth. Barks found the character and his wealth a useful springboard for stories and re-used him in a number of subsequent Donald Duck one-shot adventures and ten pagers appearing in
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
. By 1952 the popularity of the character convinced Dell to give Scrooge a try-out as a lead character in the seminal "
Only a Poor Old Man
" in Dell's
Four Color
anthology series, a story Barks expert
Michael Barrier
has termed a masterpiece. After two further
Four Color
appearances Scrooge was granted his own title starting with issue number 4 (counting the try-out issues as one through three).
The series continued uninterrupted (though not always on a monthly schedule) until 1984, when
Western Publishing
(the parent company of Gold Key/Whitman, who were publishing the title at the time) withdrew from the comic book business. Western had held the Disney comic book license since the late 1930s, and their withdrawal left the license, and
Uncle Scrooge
, in limbo for two years, when
Another Rainbow
, who had been publishing hardbound compilations of Carl Barks's work for several years, acquired it and launched Gladstone Publishing, resuming the title where Whitman had left off.
Gladstone continued publishing
Uncle Scrooge
until their license expired in 1990. At that point, the series shifted over to
Disney Comics
with little change in editorial direction. It was one of only three monthly titles to survive the "Disney implosion" of 1991 (the others being
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
and
Donald Duck Adventures
), and continued to be published by Disney Comics until 1993, when Disney Comics folded and the license was reacquired by Gladstone Publishing. Gladstone went through their own implosion in 1998, and
Uncle Scrooge
was briefly converted into a double-sized (64 page), "prestige" format series, before Gladstone ended publication entirely later that year.
No further issues were published until 2003, when Gemstone Publishing (whose editorial staff included several former employees of Gladstone) acquired the license and resumed publication of
Uncle Scrooge
. Gemstone maintained the prestige format previously adopted by Gladstone, and continued to publish the series until November 2008. Financial difficulties at Gemstone ended its run then, and the license was acquired by
Boom! Studios
, who reverted to the standard 32 page format when they began publication in late 2009. Boom's run ended in 2011, when the Walt Disney Company's acquisition of
Marvel Entertainment
lead to the consolidation of all Disney comics licenses under
Marvel Comics
.
In January 2015,
IDW Publishing
announced that they would be publishing the title, starting in April 2015.
[1]
Apart from the single issues of the comic book, IDW Publishing also publishes the run in trade paperback collections compiling three issues each, but did also at one point collect the issues in hardcover collections under the title
Uncle Scrooge: Timeless Tales
.
[2]
However the hardcover compilations ceased to come out after the third volume. The Trade paperbacks soon followed, and the last regular issue printed was 460 (IDW 56), leaving the series ending on a cliffhanger as the story was to be continued in the next issue.
Other titles and spinoffs
[
edit
]
Over the years, Scrooge McDuck has proven popular enough to appear as the main character in a number of other comic book series. Many of these series include republications of stories originally written for the "main"
Uncle Scrooge
title in the United States or various European countries.
Scrooge often appeared in
The Beagle Boys
alongside his frequent adversaries, published irregularly by Gold Key from 1963 to 1979.
[3]
When that title ended, it was relaunched as
The Beagle Boys Versus Uncle Scrooge
in March 1979 and lasted for twelve issues, until February 1980.
[4]
In 1987, Gladstone Publishing began publication of
Uncle Scrooge Adventures
, which they would continue to publish until 1998, excluding the period from 1990 through 1993, when Disney Comics held the license to publish Disney comics.
Scrooge was also a major character in three different comic book titles tied in with the
DuckTales
television series. The first of these consisted of 13 issues and was published by Gladstone Publishing from 1987 to 1990.
[5]
The second consisted of 18 issues published by Disney Comics from 1990 through 1991.
[6]
The final (to date) was published over six issues by
Boom! Kids
in 2011.
[7]
Several
DuckTales
comics starring Scrooge would also appear in the pages of
Disney Adventures
in the early 1990s.
[8]
Finally,
The Adventurous Uncle Scrooge McDuck
, published by Gladstone, ran for two issues in 1998. A third issue was planned but cancelled along with the rest of Gladstone's output other than
Uncle Scrooge
and
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
following a collapse in comics sales.
[9]
Reprints
[
edit
]
Carl Bark's Greatest DuckTales Stories (printed in the order of adaptation into
Ducktales
episodes).
|
Volume 1
|
Four Color
#456
Uncle Scrooge
#13, 65, 9, 14 & 29
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Volume 2
|
Uncle Scrooge
#58, 12, 3, 41, 38 & 6
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The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library.
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Volume 1 (Volume 12 overall) "Only a Poor Old Man"
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Four Color
#386, 456, 495
Uncle Scrooge
#4?6
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Volume 2 (Volume 14 overall) “The Seven Cities of Gold”
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TBA
|
Volume 3 (Volume 16 overall) “The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan”
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TBA
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Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge (Fantagraphics)
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The Diamond Jubilee Collection
[10]
|
TBA
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See also
[
edit
]
- Disney comics
- Disney comics titles in the USA:
- DuckTales
, 1980s cartoon television series based on the comic book
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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