Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories #692

Truth be told I didn’t pre-order this issue. Unlike Uncle Scrooge, I don’t necessarily pick up every issue of the WDC&S anthology, but normally base the pre-order decision on that particular month’s story offerings. 7 times out of 10 I still happily pick it up, but I must have been asleep when making the order because the contents of this one look might impressive. Everything from a Carl Barks classic to the McGreal’s Mickey, Gladstone Gander, The Brer family, and even good ‘ol Horace! Anyhow, I had to correct my oversight and I placed my order for the issue earlier this morning. It’ll be a few days until it arrives, but at least I won’t miss out.

Anyhow, here’s a preview of what you can find inside the latest issue of Gemstone’s Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories #692 thanks to The Scoop:

As comic collectors, we often find ourselves searching for that one special issue, that unique rarity to complete our collections. Fine art collectors are the same way, scanning shelves, shops, and funky locations for that lost oil painting, that sculpture, that acrylic that nobody expected to find again! Now in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #692, the latest 64-page Disney trade paperback from Gemstone Publishing, it’s Donald Duck’s turn to embark on this fortune hunt! But he’s hunting a painter, not a painting…

It all starts with Cousin Gladstone Gander, whom we well know is the luckiest duck in the world. But is there anything his luck can’t get him? Well, immortality, maybe! When the infamous showoff vows to have his portrait painted by legendary lost artist Pablo Pickeasel, it’s going to take a major missing person search. And maybe that’s more than Gladstone’s luck can handle? “I’ll find Pickeasel first with the help of my brain,” vows Donald. And he unexpectedly might! The trip takes our feuding cousins from trains to planes to automobiles, from one country to another, from remote villages to mountain peaks. Will Gladstone get immortalized? Will altitude sickness get him first? “Portrait of a Gander,” written and drawn by Spanish master Cesar Ferioli, was originally produced for the centennial of famed Duck Man Carl Barks. We’re proud to bring it to North America for the first time.

That’s not to say, of course, that there aren’t other great works of art in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #692! In Barks’ own classic “Swimming Swindlers,” for instance, Huey, Dewey, and Louie fall for the taunting of bully Butch, one of Barks’ classic bit players. Soon Donald’s nephews have become delinquents themselves, cheating to beat Donald in a swimming race. But Donald, being Donald, has his own dirty tricks to play back. “With cheaters being cheated by a worse cheater,” Barks tells us, “may the worst man win!”

The bad behavior careens onward in three all new comedies. In “Pork Pirates,” by Dick Matena, Zeke Wolf learns that the Three Little Pigs come from an endangered breed. Now every predator in the forest is trying to trap them, and Big Bad is going to have to defend what’s “rightfully his.” Uh-oh!

Then in Stefan Petrucha’s “High Horace,” when bragging Horace Horsecollar accidentally accepts a challenge to dive 100 feet into a tub of water, his next order of business is to skip town rather than accomplish the stunt. Clarabelle holds Horace back and tries to train him for the dive. Uh-oh again.

Finally “The Mysterious Mustachio” strikes Duckburg, a devious graffiti master who’s painting mustaches on every billboard. When the famous Lona Misa arrives at Duckburg Museum, everyone fears that she’s going to get some faux facial hair, too. Oh, and did we mention Donald thinks Huey, Dewey, and Louie are behind the graffiti plague? This great Mau Heymans tale gets wild American dialogue courtesy of our own Travis Seitler, and is topped by a new Don Rosa Huey, Dewey, and Louie back cover pin-up!

Filling out the book is “Mummy Dearest,” a thrilling new Mickey adventure from Pat and Carol McGreal and Paco Rodriguez! At an exhibition of the fabulous Amulet of Quetcoatlzle, try saying that five times fast, Mickey meets up with his foxiest foe, beautiful river pirate Lotus Blossom! Minnie’s mad enough already to find a romantic rival on the prowl; but when the amulet vanishes, Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy are all pitched into a search for the untrustworthy femme fatale. The trail leads to a jungle temple where mummies may not stay dead…