Yesterday
(September 15th) I returned from my doctor’s appointment to find
that Walt Disney Comics Digest #52 (April 1975) had arrived, and sooner than I had expected.
I eagerly brought it in and started to unwrap it, only to find it packaged more
securely than a miser’s penny. As I finally, carefully, removed the last layer
of wrapping, I began to notice a few odd anomalies.
A
slight scuff on the cover drew my attention to the fact that it bore the
Whitman impress rather than the more familiar Gold Key logo, as is shown in the
picture here that I snagged off the internet. Now Gold Key is simply another
division of Whitman, but it made me wonder what had gone on. Flipping it open,
I also found that the inside covers were blank, without any of the advertising
usually found there. Otherwise, the issue was still 128 pages for 69 cents, as
was normal for the run at this time.
Inside,
quite a lot is taken up with the Zorro story, a ‘live action-adventure type
tale’ of the sort I never particularly cared for in the comics. I didn’t find
the cartoon stories all that engaging either, but that could simply be because
I’m a nearly 60-year-old grouch with no sentimental memories attached to them.
Super-Goof
battles a scientific villain who steals his super-goobers; Donald tries to
start a fix-it shop; Chip and Dale help Gramma Duck battle a thieving Pete; and
Bucky Bug and the citizens of Junkville dealing with a sudden deep snow and an
invasion of ants are among the better tales. There seems to be a drop in the
graphic quality overall, not terrible but a noticeable simplification of the
grade.
This acquisition leaves me with only five more issues to get to complete the entire run. Most of them are in the fifties, like #52 here. I hope they are of a better quality than this moderately bland offering, or it may leave the completion of the quest with a rather bitter-sweet tang in the feelings.
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