I second Squeakyboots' recommendation of MyComicShop.com for back issues of Gladstone etc. I should have mentioned that. Yes, you can easily get a slew of Gladstones from them in one shipping quite inexpensively. In my experience also, their grading can be trusted and their customer service is good.
But if you're willing to invest in them, by all means, get the Fantagraphics Barks volumes. And once you've read a couple dozen of the best Barks Donald & Scrooge stories, then you can also start in on Don Rosa! Much happiness awaits you!
Fantagraphics is also releasing hardcovers of the Don Rosa Library which many people would say is Carl Barks successor and his books are being released in chronological order. Though I would suggest reading some of Barks' stuff first before diving into Rosa. These books are at the same level of quality as The Complete Peanuts. My only complaint about them is that the Don Rosa books are larger than the Carl Barks books for some reason which seems awkward to me.
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IDW will start releasing issues of Duck Avenger sometime within the next few months. I have not read this series yet but I do know that the tone of it is very different from other Disney comics. From what I understand, it's Donald as a superhero and he's fighting aliens or something. There's a couple issues in IDW's Donald Duck that shows the original origin story of the Duck Avenger that I'm not sure if you may want to read first or not.
1. I wouldn't say Don Rosa is Barks's "successor". His works aren't remotely similar to Barks's. He is, nevertheless, considered one of the best Disney comics authors. As for the reason for the bigger size of the Rosa books, I think it's to allow the reader to better see the details, since Rosa's artwork is much more detailed than Barks's most of the time.
2. There are two Duck Avengers, which you are, at the moment, getting confused. The character appearing in normal issues such as the origin story is designed to fit more or less seamlessly into the usual Duckburg mythos; he is sort of bumbling and sometimes inefficient, and uses gizmos built by Gyro Gearloose to become a masked vigilante (Zorro-style, although more modern; I' d say Batman, but only in theory, not in tone). His usual targets are thugs (including the Beagle Boys) and mad scientists (such as Emil Eagle). Meanwhile, the stories published in the Duck Avenger books are very different in tone from other Disney comics, although continuity-wise they are set in the same continuity as the earlier bumbling stories. In them, the Duck Avenger is given more developed and powerful weapons by an A.I. called "One", in order to fight off the Evronians, evil aliens which are trying to invade the Earth. (This series was later rebooted in a version that doesn't reference the earlier Gyro Gearloose backstory, and added more sidekicks, including journalist Lyla Lay).
I suggest you start with Barks, Gottfredson and current IDW comic books.
You can find Barks and Gottfredson in Fantagraphics reprints: they actually created the Disney Comics Universe, so they are important. IDW comics print mostly foreign stories, which are many and not always good, but their line is very interesting. There are Guido Martina, Rodolfo Cimino and Romano Scarpa, who brought Disney comics in Italy and did many good things (Guido Martina created the Duck Avenger- I think it's a very interesting thing to have Donald as a superhero, but here there aren't many people thinking that), and modern authors like Heymans and Casty which are very good.
Don Rosa is another important author, but I suggest you to buy it later: start with Barks, Gottfredson and foreign things, then his work. I say this mostly because his stories are so much based on Carl Barks ones, that he created on it a very rigorous continuity, and it's not the best to start with a comic which has no continuity.
As far as I know publication in Spanish hasn't been the best for quite a while, so any specific reason to go for that language in specific? If you can read Spanish, I'd suggest making a bit of a reading effort and trying to read either Portuguese-language prints (either Brazillian or Portuguese) or straight-out Italian ones.
As for where to get them, I'd imagine you'd need to import them, maybe used ones? anyone have any suggestions as someone from (I presume) the States reading foreign comics?
Does anyone know where I could get some of the Spanish language Disney Comics that maybe haven't been reprinted in English?
And if so, do you have any recommendations?
Thanks!!
Spain, Mexico and Columbia all used to publish Disney comic magazines. I used to read Tio Rico (Uncle Scrooge) and Pato Donald (Donald Duck). But, I believe that those stopped some years ago. Egmont had an affiliate publisher in Spain. But. perhaps that has stopped, as well, based on a post above. I don't know if Columbia's is still going. They are selling older Spanish issues on E-Bay, but they might be expensive collectors' items. I'll check Arthur De Wolf's "Disney Comics Around The World" website, to see which, if any, Spanish language publishers are still publishing. I have several Spanish Barks Classic albums.
I looked up "Disney Comics World Wide", and saw that Mexico's magazines stopped some time ago, and Columbia's stopped in 1995. Spain has some still being published. But, old Mexican, Columbian and Spanish comic books should be available 2nd hand. however, if English is your first language, the 1985-2000 publications and the Fantagraphics hardbound sets would be your best purchases.
I was wondering, where should a newbie such as myself begin reading Disney comics?
You should definitely start with the 12 main chapters of "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" by Don Rosa. The easiest way to obtain those 12 chapters is to buy the 4th volume of The Don Rosa Library (titled "The Last of the Clan McDuck") and the 5th volume of the same series (titled "The Richest Duck In The World"). The 4th volume was released last year and the 5th one will be released next month, I believe.
I was wondering, where should a newbie such as myself begin reading Disney comics?
You should definitely start with the 12 main chapters of "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" by Don Rosa. The easiest way to obtain those 12 chapters is to buy the 4th volume of The Don Rosa Library (titled "The Last of the Clan McDuck") and the 5th volume of the same series (titled "The Richest Duck In The World"). The 4th volume was released last year and the 5th one will be released next month, I believe.
Start? I'll agree that those are some really great stories, but they're not prime beginner material. They're not exactly representative of what most Disney comics are like, and besides, the dense continuity might actually scare the newcomer off!
Kaptainbill, absolutely read The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck -- but wait a little while. Get introduced to the characters. Heck, get introduced to Rosa's earlier work. He's one of those artists where following the progression is rewarding in itself.
Barks (1948-53) and Gottfredson (1932-39) are the place to start.