Aladdin's Genie in an Egmont Story?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

While researching how the Aladdin film might fit together with comic continuity I still don't know what to amke of The Moook Treasure), I have recently learned of this — a perplexing 1993 story where Donald apparently stumbles upon the lamp housing the Genie. Yes, that blue Robin-Williams-voiced genie from the animated film. …Has anyone seen this?

This is an extremely unexpected thing, especially coming from Egmont (so Ludwig Von Drake is out, but weird movie-tie-in "crossovers" that wouldn't have been out-of-place in Walt Disney Comic Digest are okay?).  I'm very much interested in it, but alas, I do not own a copy of the only French printing of the story… and rights issues being what they are, I cannot imagine IDW publishing the story anytime soon… so has anyone read that story? 

[hex]

I think inducks is wrong about this, at least according to the dialogue in the British print of the story. There it's not Genie from the Aladdin movie, but his little brother (!)

[Ramapith]

Jan 26, 2018 22:23:19 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

This is an extremely unexpected thing, especially coming from Egmont (so Ludwig Von Drake is out, but weird movie-tie-in "crossovers" that wouldn't have been out-of-place in Walt Disney Comic Digest are okay?).

In my early years as an Egmont editor, we were often asked to produce Duck tie-in stories for Disney's latest feature film. I never worked on one myself, but I saw them in development.

For fear of messing up the continuity of a then-new film, we usually couldn't use the film characters directly in the Duck tie-in story, but it was okay to use the settings—or relatives of the film characters (like the Genie's brother here...)

Another such story was this one reflecting The Lion King, with Donald and Scrooge returning a tamed lion back from civilization to his African savannah home. The lion doesn't look quite like Simba, but a little; he's referenced as the king lion of the area, and meerkats and warthogs also appear, if I remember right.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

This practice appears to have been present since the early days, although they didn't always care that much about not disrupting movie continuity ... it's what put Jaq and Gus-Gus on Grandma Duck's farm in the first place, and possibly inspired Barks to use a Lucifer lookalike as Scrooge's cat in a 1954 ten-pager (that we recently discussed on another thread)... although the latter was several years after Cinderella came out and may have been a personal decision by Barks rather than be meant as a movie tie-in.

I have to admit I'm a little surprised Disney Comics, Inc., didn't use that Genie story, especially considering that it was drawn by Vicar, one of editor Bob Foster's favorite artists.  

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 27, 2018 4:41:46 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

This practice appears to have been present since the early days, although they didn't always care that much about not disrupting movie continuity...

I don't really see how it disrupts the film continuity — as I said in another thread, it's perfectly plausible that Lady Tremaine, following her fall from grace after A Twist in Time, would resort to selling Lucifer; and Jaq and Gus are friends with Cinderella, but I don't see why they wouldn't, at some point, decide that they've grown bored with palace life and want to spend a while in the countryside, eventually finding their way to the Duck Farm. 

[Hector]

Jan 26, 2018 22:23:19 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

While researching how the Aladdin film might fit together with comic continuity I still don't know what to amke of The Moook Treasure), I have recently learned of this — a perplexing 1993 story where Donald apparently stumbles upon the lamp housing the Genie. Yes, that blue Robin-Williams-voiced genie from the animated film. …Has anyone seen this?

This is an extremely unexpected thing, especially coming from Egmont (so Ludwig Von Drake is out, but weird movie-tie-in "crossovers" that wouldn't have been out-of-place in Walt Disney Comic Digest are okay?).  I'm very much interested in it, but alas, I do not own a copy of the only French printing of the story… and rights issues being what they are, I cannot imagine IDW publishing the story anytime soon… so has anyone read that story? 

Genie's magical powers allow it to enter Scrooge's coma. Looks like an interesting story.

[Fritz]

Jan 27, 2018 4:41:46 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

I have to admit I'm a little surprised Disney Comics, Inc., didn't use that Genie story, especially considering that it was drawn by Vicar, one of editor Bob Foster's favorite artists.  

Probably came too late for that.  It's first publication was in November 1993;  Disney handed the license back to Gladstone earlier in the year--the first "Gladstone 2" books were cover dated August 1993, which means they actually came out in June.