Donald Duck & Co # 48 - 1999

["Jørgen Andreas Bangor"]

Donald Duck & Co # 48 1999

A new job seems to have appeared in Egmont Serieforlaget (the Norwegian 
branch) this week: Kalevala-konsulent: Nils Lid Hjort.

My congratulations :-)

On the front cover this week, Donald is carrying Christmas presents. A big 
stack of them, so he can't see anything in front of him. You see what's 
coming? Oh no, not this time. Besides him walks Bolivar (or whatever the 
dog's called this week) with a horn in his mouth, warning people to get 
out of the way.

The pilot story is written by Pat and Carol McGreal (D 99024, 12 pages), 
and drawn by Vicar. It's the third stone story.

Donald kept the stone he found in Vesuvio, and when he needs a loan from 
Scrooge - to pay the register fee at an employment office - Scrooge gets 
the stone as a security. Now, as we already know, the stone has strange 
abilities. One of them is that it is very attached to Donald, and it 
returns by itself to him. The employment office provides three jobs for 
Donald, but every time the combination of the stone an an angry Scrooge 
accusing Donald of stealing the stone back makes him lose them. By the 
time he loses the third, Scrooge has realized that there really is something 
special about the stone. He takes it to the local university, but other 
than being told that it is old and valuable, he doesn't become any wiser. 
Walking home, the stone again leaves him, and heads for Donald. A lot of 
things happen, and Donald gets really beaten up when trying to save the 
stone from a polo game. Anyway, Donald gets the stone back, and finally 
he gives it to Daisy as a birthday present (that was what he needed money 
for in the first place, and by giving her the stone he states a point 
being told him by Scrooge). 
The last picture of the story is really wonderful; Daisy is looking for 
the stone, while Donald is walking away. The stone is hanging in the air, 
like a glory, above Donald's head.

I like this story. A lot of thought has been put into it by the writers, 
and it is very well drawn. Although part of a bigger story, it stands very 
well on its own.

The next story is a Donald Duck story (D 97017, six pages) written by 
Pat Block and drawn by Santanach.

It all starts with a TV transmission from a space shuttle just before 
Christmas, where the astronauts are telling about the boring food they 
have (Hey! There's actually one up there now.). Donald then walks out to 
buy a turkey. He also buys a set of kettles. This is something new; a set 
of six kettles that are to be put on top of each other, so that one big 
meal can be cooked on only one cooking plate. Donald starts making the 
dinner, but then he comes in mind that he has forgotten something. While 
being out to get it, the kettle stack lifts off like a rocket, and thunders 
through the roof of the house.
While having a rather boring Christmas dinner, a news report comes from 
the space shuttle. The astronauts are thanking the kind soul who sent them 
a turkey.

A funny story.

Next one out is an Uncle Scrooge story (D 98142, six pages), written by 
Lars Jensen and Jack Sutter, and drawn by Marsal.

Scrooge and Donald's nephews are going to Pampasaria, to find out who's 
stealing a lot of cows from a ranch Scrooge owns. It's the Beagle Boys, 
stealing them by putting mini helicopters on their backs, and flying them 
out.

The story is pretty well drawn, but otherwise I didn't see anything new 
in it.

Then comes a Donald Duck one-pager (D 97550), written and drawn by 
Kari Korhonen.

Donald is sick and tired of all the Woodchuck medals all over the house. 
He doesn't become any happier when he finds a letter telling that they'll 
get even more of them the next day. As a joke, he adds to the letter that 
they'll have to wear all their earlier medals. The newphews starts to knit 
a very long scarf with room  for all of them. And then they get even more 
medals for the scarf itself.

Not bad. And Korhonen can obviously draw too.

Story number five is a Mickey story (D 97528, ten pages), written by 
Stefan Petrucha, and drawn by Rodriques. We've seen a few Mickey stories 
by Petrucha during the last year or so, and I can easily say that I liked 
them all. He seems to have great talent in writing about the mouse; he 
uses Mickey's original adventurous mentality and puts it into a modern 
society. He also uses a lot of other old characters, and not least: He 
invents new plots. Good plots. Rodriques' art is also pretty good, and it 
is steadily improving.

We all know the search robots on Internet, which finds web-pages for us. 
In this story one of Mickey's friends, professor Statisk (if anyone could 
remind me of his English name, I'd be grateful), has invented a search 
robot that finds things in the real world. It works very well, although 
it maybe is a little rough... It also works well for a thief who steals 
it, and asks it to steal things for him. Mickey finds him, and an 
enjoyable fight starts between them, where both asks the robot to get 
weapons for them. The robot is happy to oblige them both. Finally Mickey 
is beaten and tied up, but he fools the thief to send the robot out in 
search for a jumbo jet. In the long time that follows, Mickey escapes, 
and catches the thief. Everything is fine then, except that they somehow 
have to return a jumbo jet to its owners...

Oh, yes, the idea of misusing inventions to steal things isn't new, but 
it has never been done in this way before. A very well done story.

Then comes an old one-pager (KF 09-26-54).

And finally starts a new continuation story by someone called Don Rosa. 
It seems to take place in Finland. Oh, well. I'll see what I think about 
it when it's finished.

Oh, hey, it wasn't quite over yet. Here's one more one-pager (KF 01-13-52).

With this issue came the second and final part of this year's Christmas 
calendar.



   Jørgen (it's ok to use 8-bit characters now?)