Donald Duck Made His Comic Book Debut in a British Comic Book

In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, learn the surprisingly complex history of when Donald Duck made his comic book debut

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and fifty-ninth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. Click here for the first legend in this installment.

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COMIC LEGEND:

Donald Duck made his first comic book appearance in an Italian comic book.

STATUS:

False

As I noted in a Comic Book Legends Revealed many moons ago, there has been some dispute over the first appearance of Donald Duck, as in 1931, a Mickey Mouse children's book called The Adventures of Mickey Mouse was released.

In it, it references a duck named "Donald Duck"...

and there is a drawing of what is presumably said duck...

However, it does not appear as though this is an official declaration of the Walt Disney company, but rather that the author just decided to come up with a bunch of names on his/her own for the characters from Mickey Mouse's Silly Symphonies. For instance, the horse in the story is named Henry, while the horse in the cartoons had already been given a name, Horace Horsecollar...

There were duck characters in Silly Symphonies, so almost certainly this is the book author just trying to name them, without checking to see if they HAD names (like Horace).

There was a similar British children's book in 1932 that followed the plot of the 1931 U.S. book carefully, including using the name Donald, as well.

In the end, though, as I pointed out in that legend, I think this was just the case of a licensed book author making up names and Disney not particularly being invested in continuity (the 1931 book was the first Disney licensed book for sale after a Mickey Mouse giveaway book in 1930).

Is it possible that someone at Disney saw the book and remembered the name Donald years later? It is certainly POSSIBLE, but I find it pretty unlikely. Donald Duck is just a fairly normal name for a character, especially when you already have Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

So Donald's REAL first appearance was in the Silly Symphonies cartoon, "The Wise Old Hen," which then became Donald Duck's first comic strip appearance was in was adapted into print by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro in the Silly Symphony comic strip (specifically the Sunday strip)...

Donald continued to appear in the strip, and eventually, he started to appear in original comic strips, as Taliaferro, in particular, seemed to really take a shine to the character, later introducing Donald's rambunctious triplet nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Okay, so off the bat, let me note that so much of comic book history is a matter of minutiae, in the sense that "What is a comic book versus a comic strip?" Aren't they both comics? If that's your position, I don't think you're a fool or anything like that, but at the same time, we're really mostly a site for COMIC BOOK Resources, ya know? So while I certainly will do legends about comic strips, as well (much to the chagrin of the Garfield fans of the world, those folks really guard their favorite character HARD), the main focus is on comic books and, as a part of that focus, we have to at least sort of believe in the (possible fictitious) idea that a comic BOOK is distinct from a comic STRIP.

Therefore, Donald Duck's first comic BOOK appearance is still something distinctive, beyond his debut in the Silly Symphonies comic strip.

With that in mind, historically, the credit has always gone to the Italian publishing house Mondadori, who licensed the Disney characters for publication in Italy. In the Italian comci book, Paperino e altre avventure (Donald Duck and Other Adventures), Federico Pedrocchi wrote and drew a Donald Duck lead feature (this was done in the British comic book setup where you'd have one page per issue, serialized) starting in late 1937...

Donald Duck was renamed Paolino Paperino, and the story was called "Paolino Paperino e il mistero di Marte," and yes, that does, in fact, refer to Donald Duck traveling to MARS!

This was often referred to as the first Donald Duck comic book story, or at the very least, the first Donald Duck adventure comic book story, or the first ORIGINAL Donald Duck comic book story

However, it was beaten to the punch by the British comic book series, Mickey Mouse Weekly, which debuted in 1936...

In May 1937's Mickey Mouse Weekly #67, Donald received his first ongoing feature (same concept as the Italian comic, where it is a serialized story), starring Donald and his then-girlfriend, Donna Duck. Here's a SUPER BLURRY image of the story (if someone has a clear scan, feel free to send it my way and I'll edit it in there)...

I've seen the argument that this feature, written and drawn by William S. Ward, either wasn't an adventure story or that it was "only" adapting the 1937 cartoon, "Don Donald"...

But while it is certainly launched in direct REFERENCE to the "Don Donald" cartoon (including having the Mexican Donna Duck in it), it's an original story (or if it is an adaptation, it has taken so many liberties that it is effectively its own story) and it is definitely an adventure strip, and not just a humor one.

So Donald Duck comic books-wise, I give the win to England's Mickey Mouse Weekly #67 in May 1937.