The Pertwillaby Papers is an adventure comic drawn by Donald Duck artist Don Rosa in the 1970s. The comic is about the adventures of Lancelot "Lance" Pertwillaby and his friends and colleagues around the world.
Contents
Rosa started drawing the comic in the Kentucky Kernel newspaper in 1971. At the time, it consisted of weekly four- or five-panel episodes. At first, the comic was a political satire, according to the wishes of the newspaper editor, but when the newspaper changed editors, the comic became an adventure series. In 1973, the comic was paused.
In 1976, Rosa continued drawing the comic from episode #128 onwards, for the fanzine Rocket's Blast Comicollector. He changed the comic so that it now consisted of about ten 8- to 12-panel pages per episode. A whole story consisted of five or six episodes. Rocket's Blast Comicollector included episodes #128 through #140, which comprised two whole stories and one which was left unfinished.
Rosa stopped drawing the comic in 1979, because he was not paid for it and had begun to get bored of it. In the early 1980s he still drew one episode, number #141, to his unfinished story, but it was never published.
Except for one story, Rosa re-used the basic storylines of his The Pertwillaby Papers stories in his Disney stories. The stories also include numerous scenes which can be found in his Duck comics.
After his eventful student years, Lancelot Pertwillaby continues his life career as Captain Kentucky.
Stories
Rosa later remade this story into his first Duck story called The Son of the Sun. Parts were used in Cash Flow and The Last Lord of Eldorado.
Characters
The Pertwillaby Papers also includes many supporting characters, such as Lance's best friend and ladies' man Freddie Kegg and Professor Artemis Phoebus, in addition to the notable Martin Bormann. Each main character has a unique, personal speech bubble style.
The Don Rosa Archives 1 – The Pertwillaby Papers
After the 1970s, The Pertwillaby Papers could no longer be read anywhere, until the Norwegian publishing company Gazette Bok published two books under the name The Don Rosa Archives, in both Norwegian and English. The Don Rosa Archives collects Rosa's non-Disney work, and the two volumes are respectively The Pertwillaby Papers and The Adventures of Captain Kentucky. The Pertwillaby Papers book consisted of all episodes of the comic, including episode #141, which had never been published before. The book also has forewords by both Rosa and Professor Nils Lid Hjort, the editor of the two Gazette Bok volumes.
A special edition was also made of the books, containing both books with Don Rosa's signature and a poster, where Pertwillaby and Captain Kentucky meet each other for the first time. The poster is also signed by Rosa and only 150 copies were made. Both books were also imported to Finland.