What are the 10 most important Disney comic book issues?

[caballero]

Let's say there is a very wealthy comic book collector with a huge collection who doesn't know anything about Disney comics but (because of their significance within the comic book world) decides to buy some Disney comic books. He contacts you, the Disney comic expert, and asks you to list the 10 historically most significant Disney comic book issues, so he can buy them.

So what are the 10 most important Disney comic book issues ever in your opinion? I will stick to American comic books, but please add foreign issues to your list if you think any deserves to be there. The top 10 in chronological order in my personal opinion:

Mickey Mouse Series # 1 (1931) - the first Mickey Mouse comic book as far as I can tell, containing only reprints of strips that appeared in newspapers before
Walt Disney's Donald Duck # 1 (1938) - first Donald Duck comic book, contains only reprints of strips that appeared in newspapers before
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories # 1 (1940) - first issue of THE flagship Disney comic book of the planet
Four Color # 9 (1942) - Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. (first Donald Duck comic book with original comics?)
Four Color # 27 (1943) - first Mickey Mouse comic book with original comics (?)
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories # 31 (1943) - first Barks 10-pager, The Victory Garden
Four Color # 178 (1947) - first appearance of Uncle Scrooge, probably the single most significant "first appearance" in Disney comic history
Four Color # 386 (1952) - first Uncle Scrooge comic book
Air Pirates Funnies # 1 (1971) - okay, I am cheating as this is not an official Disney comic book, but its significance is undeniable
Uncle Scrooge # 219 (1987) - first Don Rosa Disney comic, The Son of the Sun

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Apr 8, 2020 9:51:31 GMT caballero said:

Air Pirates Funnies # 1 (1971) - okay, I am cheating as this is not an official Disney comic book, but its significance is undeniable

Why I never heard about this? This is great!

[That Duckfan]

Oakland Post-Enquirer, 13 Jan. 1930 (1930) - publication of first Disney comic strip
Mickey Mouse Annual #1 (1930) - publication of first Disney comic book
Mickey Mouse Magazine #1 (1935) - publication of first monthly publication that would eventually turn into WDC&S
Anni d'oro 1938-22 (1938) - first Disney comic with original non-serialized comics
Four Color Comic #9 - Donald Duck finds Pirate Gold! (1942) - first Carl Barks comic book, first original American Donald Duck comic book
Four Color Comic #147 - Christmas on Bear Mountain (1947) - first appearance of Uncle Scrooge
Kalle Anka & C:o 01-1948 (1948) - first publication of Donald Duck weekly in postwar Europe
I Classici di Walt Disney #1 (1957) - first publication of the European pocket book series
Funnyworld #16 (1974) - first fanzine about Carl Barks
Anders And & Co. 1992-33 (1992) - first publication of the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck

[caballero]

That's a pretty great list, That Duckfan! Thank you for posting it!

[squeakyboots]

DuckTales (2011) #3. Okay, I'm kidding.

My list would probably mirror caballero's though I would arguably add either Uncle Scrooge #285 or #296 to it. The first and last chapters of Life and Times of Scrooge which I think is the single most well known Disney Comics story as far as I can tell.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Apr 9, 2020 13:14:20 GMT That Duckfan said:

I Classici di Walt Disney #1 (1957) - first publication of the European pocket book series

Well, that is just the first anthology in pocket book. The first pocket book is obviously Topolino #1 (1949), which is also relevant for containing the first Barks's story published in Italy** and the first Gottfredson story published in Italy (in Europe?) after WW2.
Technically it was a stapled pocket book, it did not have a real spine yet, judging from the reprint I own. Yet, it was pocket-size.


**EDIT: no, sorry, I was wrong, there were a few Barks's stories published as single issues in Italy in 1948, before Topolino pocket was created.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

I don't really understand the question.

Is the hypothetical collector willing to buy the issues just as an investment?
In that case it is easy to produce an objective list of the ten most valuable original issues on the market. I would not know how to make that list myself right now, but someone out there must have that list.

If this comics collector guy wants to read the stories, then I would tell them to read them from recent reprint. I would also kindly suggest them to grow up and do not squander money, especially messing with other people passions. I am ok if one wishes to spend thousands of dollars, euros, pounds or whatever in rare old comic issues. I just don't get those who do that without having any knowledge or emotional attachment to the content. 

[That Duckfan]

Apr 15, 2020 19:11:34 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Apr 9, 2020 13:14:20 GMT That Duckfan said:

I Classici di Walt Disney #1 (1957) - first publication of the European pocket book series

Well, that is just the first anthology in pocket book. The first pocket book is obviously Topolino #1 (1949), which is also relevant for containing the first Barks's story published in Italy** and the first Gottfredson story published in Italy (in Europe?) after WW2.
Technically it was a stapled pocket book, it did not have a real spine yet, judging from the reprint I own. Yet, it was pocket-size.


**EDIT: no, sorry, I was wrong, there were a few Barks's stories published as single issues in Italy in 1948, before Topolino pocket was created.

How can you call it an anthology, when for twenty years the books had those bizarre Perego-drawn framing devices? I love these things, even as a kid they made no sense to me, with their obvious changes of artists and random plots to try and bridge from one story to another.

I was also careful in my language when I said "the European pocket book series", referring to the Classici Walt Disney pocket books published in Italy in the 1960s, which were then introduced to the rest of Europe in the 1970s and 80s (as late as 1988 here in Holland, and again in a different pocket series between 2011 and 2014).

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Apr 15, 2020 22:27:19 GMT That Duckfan said:

Apr 15, 2020 19:11:34 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Well, that is just the first anthology in pocket book. The first pocket book is obviously Topolino #1 (1949), which is also relevant for containing the first Barks's story published in Italy** and the first Gottfredson story published in Italy (in Europe?) after WW2.
Technically it was a stapled pocket book, it did not have a real spine yet, judging from the reprint I own. Yet, it was pocket-size.


**EDIT: no, sorry, I was wrong, there were a few Barks's stories published as single issues in Italy in 1948, before Topolino pocket was created.

I was also careful in my language when I said "the European pocket book series"

You were not. In any language on Earth the adjective "European" means "happening in at least one country of the geographic continent known as Europe". Not "happening in at least two countries of the geographic continent known as Europe". Now, that is careful. There you go, no needs to thank. 

[caballero]

Apr 15, 2020 19:25:49 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

I don't really understand the question.

Is the hypothetical collector willing to buy the issues just as an investment?
In that case it is easy to produce an objective list of the ten most valuable original issues on the market. I would not know how to make that list myself right now, but someone out there must have that list.

If this comics collector guy wants to read the stories, then I would tell them to read them from recent reprint. I would also kindly suggest them to grow up and do not squander money, especially messing with other people passions. I am ok if one wishes to spend thousands of dollars, euros, pounds or whatever in rare old comic issues. I just don't get those who do that without having any knowledge or emotional attachment to the content. 

This hypothetical collector doesn't care about investment value, neither wants he necessarily read the stories. He wants to establish a collection containing the historically most important comic books. Let's say he is not a collector but the curator of a museum that wants to display original comic books.

[twdisneyman]

I will think of the collector as wanting to read some good stories - to make him want to dig deeper and - so in no particular order:

Sheriff Of Bullet Valley
Mystery of The Phantom Blot
The Omelette Story
A Christmas For Shacktown
Last Sled To Dawson
The Phantom Blot’s Double Mystery
Land Beneath The Ground
The Monarch Of Medioka
Tralla-La
In Old California

[caballero]

Somewhat relevant: Which Disney comic issues would you like to see you guys reprinted in a facsimile edition? I would love it if Fantagraphics published facsimile editions of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories # 1 and the "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot" comic book from 1941: inducks.org/issue.php?c=us%2FOSI++16