New Comic Book Price Guide

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      The new Overstreet annual Guide came out this year.  They 
tried to incorporate some reference material I made for them, but 
boy, they did it as haphazardly as all-get-out.  Furthermore they've 
begun listing random Disney titles under W!

      MICKEY MOUSE COMIC (the David McKay annual 48-pagers of the 
early '30s) now has the contents of each book listed, but with regard 
to #4 they've added a statement that the issue's reprint of a certain 
Kat Nipp strip (the one where Mickey's tail gets cut off) is the only 
"known" (?) American reprint.  They didn't pick up on how this 
solitary strip was reprinted in full in MICKEY MOUSE IN COLOR.
      MICKEY AND DONALD is now listed under W, for WALT DISNEY'S 
MICKEY AND DONALD.
      DONALD AND MICKEY (Gladstone) is listed under W, for WALT 
DISNEY'S DONALD AND MICKEY.  All issues are listed with a value of 
$3.00 apiece, because they accidentally put a price list that should 
have gone beside the 64-page issues only, beside ALL the issues.
      DONALD DUCK ADVENTURES (Gladstone) has been relisted under 
W, for WALT DISNEY'S DONALD DUCK ADVENTURES.  Rosa issues have been 
listed incompletely.
      DONALD DUCK ADVENTURES (Disney) has been also relisted under W. 
Barks reprints have been inadequately listed (although the list's 
more complete than last year's edition).  They continue to note "New-
a?" beside issue 5 when I've told them a thousand times that yes, 
this issue has no reprints in it. 
     DONALD DUCK is still listed under D, with all listings from Dell 
to the present right there.  But one issue (#252) appears in the W 
section's illustrations as an issue of "WALT DISNEY'S DONALD DUCK," 
so it looks like they had been in the process of moving the listing 
when they went to press.  What a mess.  They have tried to note that 
AT reprints appear in some issues, but have incorrectly stated which 
ones;  the listing for #286 isolates it but says only "Happy Birthday, 
Donald" without listing any inside contents.
      UNCENSORED MOUSE:  I told Overstreet that no Gottfredson work 
actually appeared in the two published issues, that only Iwerks and 
Win Smith had work reprinted.  The upshot is that FG continues to be 
listed, but a "NOTE" at the end of the listing mentions that Win 
Smith's art is also in the issues.
      UNCLE SCROOGE only lists issues through Whitman now.  The 
others are listed under...
      WALT DISNEY'S UNCLE SCROOGE as a separate series.  US #219 is 
now listed as being worth $15, by the way;  #285 is listed at $5, 
with the other LO$ issues slightly higher than cover (but not much), 
all of them uniform in price.  They are specifically noted as LO$ 
issues.
      WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES is listed where it always has 
been, but a list I sent them of reprinted Barks stories has been 
mistakenly added to their list of reprinted Barks COVERS.  So in the 
now-ponderous "NOTE" section at the end, some issues without Barks 
covers are listed as reprinting Barks covers from comics without 
Barks covers.

      No Disney fan could help but be confused by this chaos, 
particularly the seemingly random splitup of titles based on whether 
or not Walt's name is in the indicia in upper or lower case.  
Overstreet is a very confusing reference for these comics.
      Don, you're listed as contributing information to the Guide. 
Maybe you can straighten them out on this mess?

      Bruce Hamilton has two ads in the volume.  One is for 
lithographs, the other is for the trading cards sold with his albums 
(but not the albums themselves, which are not shown and their 
contents not even described).  The trading cards usually look great, 
but one of the three shown (depicting the Micro-Ducks from Outer 
Space) has to be one of the least attractive ones I've seen, a real 
shame when this ad goes on the back cover of the price guide.
      A new section at the front of the book gives capsule 
histories of surviving comic book publishers along with descriptions 
of what each told Overstreet that they were doing in 1995.  Gladstone 
gets a page which includes a huge Gladstone logo and a colorful Don 
Rosa picture of Scrooge (from the cover to U$A 22), but it's very 
obvious that the information they gave Overstreet was cursory (not 
mentioning any comic book titles, stories, or artists aside from 
their Felix and Charles Barkley projects).  By contrast, Bongo Comics 
gets two pages, wherein they describe a lot of what they're putting 
out during the year.
      The combined effect of the ads and this "biography" page is 
that Gladstone appears to be interested in promoting virtually 
anything BUT its comics.

      MARK MAYERSON:  I sent you your tape today.  Can you perhaps 
send me Tim Smith's address from any APATOONS issue?  I need to send 
him something, too, but have no issues with me here in Scotland.

      JOHN LUSTIG:  I haven't asked John Clark, but maybe your "Peace 
in Pieces" story has been rescheduled for the 48-page COLLECTORY 
series?  I know that #2 is to feature "The Mines of King Solomon" in 
the lead spot, and that's not going to fill a 48-page comic.
      By the way -- I found out that you were responsible for "Hocus 
Pocus Hypnosis" from Anina Bennett.  After that, attributing 
"Something's Fishy" to you was easy, because aside from me, you're 
the only Egmont writer who gives Mickey his 1930s vocabulary.

      Where are my own Mickey stories that I have spoken of?  Even 
Egmont hasn't published any of them yet.  But one has now been drawn 
and Egmont has bought a total of four:  "Digging Up Trouble," "The 
Egg Collector," "Mickey Mouse's Unjust Dessert," and "A Mouse Against 
the World."  I've written a fifth one, but it's too long for Egmont 
and I'm going to sell it, presumably, to Gladstone or Oberon.  I'm 
also doing a long adventure for Disney Italy this year.

      David Gerstein
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>