Walt Disney's Comics and Stories

Publication history

The precursor to WDC was Mickey Mouse Magazine, published in several incarnations from 1933 to 1940. WDC itself was launched in October 1940, and initially consisted of reprints taken from the Disney comic strips Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies reformatted for comic books and colored. The first original story created for WDC was an adaptation of The Flying Gauchito illustrated by Walt Kelly in #24 (Aug. 1942).

By the mid-1950s the title was the best selling comic book in the United States, with a monthly circulation of over three million. Mark Evanier describes the high circulation as the product of "an aggressive subscription push." To facilitate birthday and holiday gift giving to youngsters, Western Publishing offered to send subscription recipients illustrated letters that announced the gift. Also various premiums were offered for new subscribers, including a mini-poster attributed to Walt Kelly advertised on the back cover of WDC&S #100 (Jan. 1949).

The anthology format usually began with a 10-page story featuring Donald Duck and for most of the run ended with a serial or single story featuring Mickey Mouse. The most popular issues featured the Donald Duck 10-pagers written and drawn by Carl Barks who began the run with issue # 31 (April 1943) and ended with original stories in issue #312 (September 1966) but have been continually reprinted up to the present. Almost all of these stories co-starred Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, with frequent guest appearances by Barks' greatest creation Uncle Scrooge, as well as the Beagle Boys, Gyro Gearloose, and Gladstone Gander.

In many 1980s issues, as well as scattered issues from 2006 onward, new Daan Jippes and/or Freddy Milton Donald Duck stories lead off the title. Issues #523, 524, 526, 528, 531, and 547 (all 1987-1990) featured lead-off stories drawn (and usually written) by Don Rosa, while most issues from 1993-2005 featured lead-offs by William Van Horn.

Many 1940s issues featured Mickey Mouse serials by Floyd Gottfredson which were reprinted from newspaper daily comic strips; later Paul Murry took over drawing original Mickey Mouse serials, with stories written by Carl Fallberg and Don Christensen among others. The 1980s saw numerous Murry reprints; the 1990s and more recent times have seen new Mickey Mouse stories by Noel Van Horn and (usually only drawn by) Cesar Ferioli, as well as some Gottfredson serials not previously anthologized in comic book format.

Li'l Bad Wolf stories began in issue #52 (January 1945) and remained a regular feature for more than ten years, continuing to appear in the majority of issues even after the continuous run stopped. Carl Buettner (1945–1946), Gil Turner (1948–1956), and Dick Matena (2005–2008) are generally regarded as the most notable Wolf creators featured in the title. More recently (2003–present), Big Bad Wolf has often supplanted his son as title character of the stories.

Bucky Bug stories began in issue #20 (May 1942) with a series of newspaper reprints; original Bucky stories started awhile later, in issue #39 (December 1943). Bucky stories were monthly through 1950; were not seen for several decades, then returned on an occasional basis from 1988 to the present, with a mixture of old and new material.

Walt Kelly of Pogo fame did the cover art for many issues between #34 and #118 and provided interior art for issues # 34-41 and 43.

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories has been the longest running Disney-based comic book in history, making it their flagship title. After reaching its 600th issue, it converted to prestige format and remained that way until the end of Gemstone's run at issue #698.

Boom Studios published the title from 2009 until 2011 (issues 699 to 720). In January 2015, IDW Publishing stated that they were going to be publishing it from July 2015, continuing the number sequence from #721.

Publishers