Yup, if you look in the Carl Barks: Conversations book jumbojr just quoted from, there are several places where Barks says he thought of the Ducks as humans with duck faces. Look in the index under "Ducks, as human beings".
I just checked up on Donald and Mickey: The Walt Disney's Comics and Stories Holiday Collection that was supposed to be published in October. When I write this it's listed for a July 2017 release on Amazon and Jun 28, 2017 on Previews. I wonder if IDW is still going with that Christmas cover for a summer release...
That's weird.. Although it makes sense. They wouldn't want two Christmas volume releases around the same time. Each holiday season they have one out. So to release a volume in the summer, is logical at least to my mind, as far as release schedule is concerned.
I got the new one yesterday plus the Uncle Scrooge Xmas issue.