So I've been mostly absent from Disney comics for the last fifteen years, aside from the Fantagraphics books. Recently however I've started reading the Swedish weekly again and become a bit interested in what I've missed. I'm thinking of buying a few old issues and would love some recommendations. Which are your favourite (Dutch and Egmont) stories of the last ten years or so? I'm open to anything.
Speaking strictly English-language, the Gemstone run of comics (2003-2008) was mostly high quality, although collectively it did burn out the prime Egmont material rather thoroughly. The "Timeless Tale" and "Vault" hardbacks collect much of the excellent 2015-2018 run of IDW monthly comics, which was mostly new-to-USA prime Italian and Dutch material.
Stories written by Knut Nærum and/or Tormod Løkling and drawn by Arild Midthun (The Orphan's Christmas, The Christmas Train, Clues of the Klondike, A Treasure for Sure, etc.)
Stories by Kari Korhonen (Which Is Witch?, And Then There Were Two, Globetrotters)
Stories written by the McGreals and drawn by Marco Rota (Missing the Mistletoe, Three Minus Two Is One, The Good Old Days... the great Little Helper Lost is more than ten years old)
Jens Hansegård/Paco Rodriguez: Himalayan Hideout (older story by Paco Rodriguez: Janet Gilbert's The Onion Rose)
There are lots more Egmont and Dutch stories I love (Jan Kruse, Per Hedman, the Shaws, etc.) but most of them aren't from the last decade.
The 90s were my prime duck-reading era so I'm up to date there. I have read some Gemstone issues, and I agree that they generally did a great job picking stories.
I'm definitely interested in Midthun. I've read and enjoyed the three IDW's published (Hansa Hazard, The Orphan's Christmas and Scrooge vs. Scrooge). I also enjoyed Rota's The Good Old Days. So good recommendations, adding the rest to my list.
These are some of my favorite stories from the last 10 years that I can think of right now. I realize as I'm writing this that pretty much all of my favorite Dutch (H-coded) stories are from much more than 10 years ago (1970s through 1990s), so the four stories listed below are all Egmont:
Ah, and I just read another Magica story drawn by Paco Rodriguez: Gaute Moe's 6-page "Anti-Gravity Spell". Short but satisfying. Love the visuals, including the splash panel where Scrooge and Donald are flying around over Duckburg and circling the Coot statue. I also enjoy the way Scrooge talks to his Number One dime: "Did the witch treat you badly? Don't worry, little one. It'll never happen again, I promise!" (That's translated by me from the German version.) Those lines are complemented by perfect facial expressions thanks to Rodriguez.
And since both "Scrooge vs. Scrooge" and "A World without Scrooge" by Olaf Solstrand have been mentioned... Solstrand has also done some nice Magica stories. You may have read "When Magica Won" which was in an IDW comic. I also like "Double or Nothing" and "Wand vs. Woodchucks"...and "Temping Trouble" is cute, if you're up for mixing your fictional universes (Magica is temping at Hogwarts, though of course not so called).
In Double or Nothing, the magically produced copies are perfect in every way except that they smell like oregano. I find that really funny, and not just on first reading.
Thanks for all the recommendations! Magica seems really popular these days, feels like she's been in every issue of the Swedish weekly since I started reading it again. Interesting. There also seems to be fewer longer stories nowadays.