Any breaks of the 4th wall?

[Hector]

In other franchises, the 4th wall is broken much more often,
but, in Disney comics, the only time i recall is at Barkses
story ''The mystery of the ghost town railroad''. Unless it's a
translation error, a nephew of Donald's says ''the fuse will
tell whether we will live to be in the next volume''.
Has anybody seen any other 4th wall breaks in Disney stories?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

There's some ambitious fourth-wall-breaking in William Van Horn's Close-Ups, but it's explained away as All Just A Dream^TM, so it may or may not count. There's probably more examples I can't think of right now.

Some may count the very, very numerous instances of the characters knownly being comic characters (but with the comics existing within their own universe as 'fictionalized biographies' of themselves), which you see in a ton of Italian stories, but I personally wouldn't, as they don't break the coherence of the universe; they're a wink to the audience, but not problematic in-universe. 

[Deleted]

I suppose in the Vigilante of Prizen Bluff there's what you might consider a 4th wall "lean". At one point Angus says something about how if it were one of his books he'd write "to be continued" to give himself time to figure out what to do. That gag only appears if you own the version of the story that's split in half for two-part publication. And if we're counting "leans" it's probably worth mentioning the Eisner Award reference in Life and Times. 

[Pan Maciej]

Ok, I honestly don't remember the title or the artist but...

There is an Italian story where at the end Scrooge was upset that he coudn't get some valuble peace of art to his gallery (I don't remember the detales) but any way :

One of the boys say to crying Scrooge :

- But Uncle Scrooge you can get art from some of the greatest artists in the world!
- Who?
- Our readers! I'll bet they can draw something for you!
(Scrooge looks at the "reader")
- HEY! YOU'RE RIGHT!

And so Scrooge get's super-duper happy and start jumping and one of the HD&L say to the viewers/readers :

- You heard it! Grab a pen! Today we drawing picturers for Uncle Scrooge!

It was cute even if it was a bit odd to finish a story that was like 30 pages on a 4'th wall breaking joke as a solution...

[Matilda]

To me, the most surprising and interesting instance of fourth-wall-breaking in Disney comic occurs in "Rescue Squad" (author unknown, artist Kay Wright) in Huey, Dewey and Louie Junior Woodchucks 36 (1976). HDL as Junior Woodchucks are throughout dissing April, May and June, who are in a scouting group called "Nature's Princesses" where they learn to weave grass. The girls say they can do anything as well or "maybe even better" than the boys, and then the boys go off-trail on a dangerous mountain, the girls follow, and all are stuck, until AMJ get them all off by weaving a grass rope.

You see, grass-weaving is a very valuable skill!
Without it, who knows how long we'd be cliff-sitters?

Want us to teach you grass-weaving?
HDL 1: Aw, PHOOEY! (said as he climbs down using their rope!!)

HDL 1: Girls shouldn't tempt guys to take off-the-trail detours! (This is totally out of line, clear projection of one's own foolishness, blaming Eve/Pandora.)
AMJ 1: Blame US? How dare you?

HDL 1: Girls should stay away from danger and mind their own sissy business!
AMJ 1: Indeed! Well, I'll make them eat those words!

AMJ 2: Cool it! They're blind to our full worth--they're hopeless! So let's accent the positive!

Last panel, AMJ cooking/serving food from campfires to HDL.
HDL 1: Yummy! What a feast!
AMJ 3: Seconds? Thirds, anyone?
HDL 2: Heh! A Nature Princess' place is by the cookfire!
HDL 3: Yeah! Leave the rest to us!

And in the lower right-hand corner, AMJ 1 turns to the (FEMALE!) reader with her hand to the right side of her mouth (sharing a secret from the boys) and says:
(Giggle!) But we know better, don't we, girls?

[whatevs]

Comics that lead up to a contest and comics celebrating Donald's/the magazine's age tend to break the fourth wall, but you might not consider those to count. I think it's "The Sponsor Search" in which Donald gets his boss to sponsor his nephew's soccer team, but when he washes the shirts with the company's cleaning products they come out all-white (the color of the competition's shirts). At the end the nephews ask the readers to design them new shirts, or at least in the version I've read. An anniversary comic I can't find on Inducks atm has all of Donald's family argue they should be the magazine's leads (and change the magazine to their preferences) until Donald brings up they're talking over many other characters who are happy with the roles as they are and gets backup from the fans.

In Don Rosa's "The Black Knight Glorps Again", Scrooge owns the entire work of his favorite artist. Although Carl Barks is not referred to by name, the paintings are those he made for his stories, which doesn't make sense in-universe. I have vague recollection that Don Rosa more often than that broke the fourth wall, but I can't think of a specific other case.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

At the end of Rosa's Island and the Edge of Time Scrooge even talks to the author/narrator. (I am not sure it can be called 4th wall...5th wall? 3 and a half? ) 

I have seen the 4th wall broken in a few other occasions by different authors, but right now I do not remember where.

[rasterax]

There's an Italian story from the 90's called Paperino e il divoratore spaziale where Daisy and Donald find a gluttonous little alien in the woods. His non-stop habit of eating eveything starts to threaten the world, so Donald eventually takes a sandwich, bends the edge of the panel he's standing in and throws the sandwich out, with the alien jumping after it. However, it then starts to eat the comic, and the characters inside, before Donald wakes up and it's revealed to been all a dream. I thought that was really cool as a kid, and I still find the other characters' reactions to Donald throwing the alien out amusing: they react in shock, but not so much because he did something impossible but apparently because it's not something he's 'supposed' to do.

[iggy]

Yeah the Rosa story where Scrooge yells at the narrator, I think most of us read that one, also in italian comics it is not super rare

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Aug 14, 2017 9:04:27 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

At the end of Rosa's Island and the Edge of Time Scrooge even talks to the author/narrator. (I am not sure it can be called 4th wall...5th wall? 3 and a half? )

Scrooge's "None of your goldurn business!" in the introductory page of "Life of Scrooge" also qualifies on similar grounds, I suppose.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Aug 14, 2017 12:23:18 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Aug 14, 2017 9:04:27 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

At the end of Rosa's Island and the Edge of Time Scrooge even talks to the author/narrator. (I am not sure it can be called 4th wall...5th wall? 3 and a half? )

Scrooge's "None of your goldurn business!" in the introductory page of "Life of Scrooge" also qualifies on similar grounds, I suppose.

Yes! As well as the dual invasion of Rosa into Life and Time, when in the last chapter he puts his Eisner Award on the wall in the money bin.

Similarly, in the first page of a Mickey mouse story from 1978 Cavazzano draws himself in dog-nosed version and breaks the 4th-wall to introduce the story to the reader:

 


As another instance of "participation of the author" there is the "hand" of Massimo De Vita drawn drawing the story in Topolino e La spada di Ghiaccio, if I remember correctly. But this is no 4th wall breaking. 

 



 

[rasterax]

^that (de Vita's hand) is from ...e la bella addormentata nel cosmo, the fourth installment in the series.

[thadwell]

I'm not a fan of these types of gags or an overtly meta tone in Disney stories. For me, it's a completely different style of humor more at home in Warner cartoons or Sheldon Mayer-edited DC comics, and is a huge reason I'm not a fan of Don Rosa's stories.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Aug 14, 2017 16:09:53 GMT thadwell said:

I'm not a fan of these types of gags or an overtly meta tone in Disney stories. For me, it's a completely different style of humor more at home in Warner cartoons or Sheldon Mayer-edited DC comics, and is a huge reason I'm not a fan of Don Rosa's stories.

But… but Rosa only did it twice, and as single-panel gags at that. (I don't think the paintings in the Black Knight story count; while it is meta humor, it is not impossible in-universe in the way Donald kicking something out of the panel is). It's far from symptomatic of his work — certainly not enough to be a major reason for disliking his stories.

[thadwell]

Rosa's stories are full of little "nuances" with the characters staring at the reader/"camera" with "you've gotta be kidding me" looks, indicating they're fully aware they're before an audience. That's fine for Bugs or Daffy, but Duckburgians? No.