Walt Disney's Comics and Stories

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #699, Boom! Kids
Publication information
Publisher	Dell Comics Gold Key Comics Disney Comics Gladstone Publishing Gemstone Publishing Boom Kids! (Boom! Studios) IDW Publishing
Format	Ongoing series
Publication date	1940 – 2011

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, sometimes abbreviated WDC or WDC&S, is an anthology comic book series that has 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).

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.