Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories was an anthology comic book series that had an assortment of Disney characters, including Donald Duck,
Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Chip 'n Dale, Lil Bad Wolf, Scamp, Bucky Bug, Grandma Duck, Brer Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, and others.
The precursor to WDC was Mickey Mouse Magazine, published in several incarnations from 1933 to 1940. WDC itself was launched in October 1940, and initially consisted of reprints taken from the Disney comic strips Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Silly Symphonies reformatted for comic books and colored. The first original story created for WDC was an adaptation of The Flying Gauchito illustrated by Walt Kelly in #24 (Aug. 1942).
By the mid-1950s the title was the best selling comic book in the United States, with a monthly circulation of over three million. Mark Evanier describes the high circulation as the product of "an aggressive subscription push". To facilitate birthday and holiday gift giving to youngsters Western Publishing offered to send subscription recipients illustrated letters that announced the gift. Also various premiums were offered for new subscribers, including a mini-poster attributed to Walt Kelly advertised on the back cover of WDC&S #100 (Jan. 1949).
Many 1940s issues featured Mickey Mouse serials by Floyd Gottfredson which were reprinted from newspaper daily comic strips; later Paul Murry took over drawing original Mickey Mouse serials, with stories written by Carl Fallberg and Don Christensen among others. The 1980s saw numerous Murry reprints; the 1990s and more recent times have seen new Mickey Mouse stories by Noel Van Horn and (usually only drawn by) Cesar Ferioli, as well as some Gottfredson serials not previously anthologized in comic book format.
Li'l Bad Wolf stories began in issue #52 (January 1945) and remained a regular feature for more than ten years, continuing to appear in the majority of issues even after the continuous run stopped. Carl Buettner (1945-1946) and Gil Turner (1948-1956) are generally regarded as the most notable Wolf creators on the title. More recently (2003-present), Big Bad Wolf has often supplanted his son as title character of the stories.
Bucky Bug stories began in issue #20 (May 1942) with a series of newspaper reprints; original Bucky stories started awhile later, in issue #39 (December 1943). Bucky stories were monthly through 1950; were not seen for several decades, then returned on an occasional basis from 1988 to the present, with a mixture of old and new material.
The anthology format usually began with a 10-page story featuring Donald Duck and for most of the run ended with a serial or single story featuring Mickey Mouse. The most popular issues featured the Donald Duck 10-pagers written and drawn by Carl Barks who began the run with issue # 31 (April 1943) and ended with original stories in issue #312 (September 1966) but have been continually reprinted up to the present. Almost all of these stories co-starred Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, with frequent guest appearances by Barks' greatest creation Uncle Scrooge, as well as the Beagle Boys, Gyro Gearloose, and Gladstone Gander.