Gladstone Publishing
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Gladstone Publishing was an American company that published Disney comics from 1986 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1998. The company had its origins as a subsidiary of Another Rainbow, a company formed by Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran to publish the Carl Barks Library and produce limited edition lithographs of Carl Barks oil paintings of the Disney ducks. Reprints of classic Donald Duck stories by Carl Barks and Mickey Mouse stories by Floyd Gottfredson were the foundation of their output. Don Rosa, William Van Horn, and Pat Block are among the modern Disney comics artists who got their start at Gladstone. Some of the Van Horn stories had scripts by frequent collaborator John Lustig. Unlike the previous Disney comic book licensee Western Publishing Gladstone provided credits for the stories. While still distributed on news stands their orientation toward the collectors market was visible in their inclusion of scholarly articles, mostly by associate editor Geoffrey Blum. It also published translations of European Disney comic book stories produced by Egmont, Oberon and Mondadori. These included stories by such famed creators as Romano Scarpa, Marco Rota, Daan Jippes and Freddy Milton. The name references Gladstone Gander.
Here is a list of their comic book titles:
Contents |
[edit] First Generation
- Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
- Donald Duck
- Mickey Mouse
- Uncle Scrooge
- Uncle Scrooge Adventures
- Donald Duck Adventures
- Mickey and Donald
- DuckTales
[edit] Second Generation
- Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
- Donald and Mickey
- Uncle Scrooge
- Uncle Scrooge Adventures
- Donald Duck
- Donald Duck Adventures
- Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse
- Walt Disney Giant
- Walt Disney's Comics and Stories Penny Pincher
- Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck
- The Adventurous Uncle Scrooge McDuck
During the second run, there was another implosion in 1998, just like the one that Disney Comics had back in 1991. This time, only two comics did not get cancelled - Walt Disney's Comics and Stories and Uncle Scrooge - both of which converted to prestige format.
[edit] Softcover Albums
During the first run Gladstone issued 28 albums and seven giant albums consisting mostly of reprints of stories by Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson. In 1990 Gladstone was licensed to publish a series of albums reprinting nearly all the Disney duck stories of Carl Barks.
After its license expired in 1998, Gladstone shut down, and there were no more Disney comics in America (except for occasional graphic novels of the movies put out by Dark Horse Comics), until 2003, when Gemstone Publishing gained the publishing rights.
[edit] EC Comics reprints
Between 1990 and 1991, Gladstone reprinted some EC Comics titles, in association with EC-fan and publisher Russ Cochran. These included six issues of The Vault of Horror (August 1990 - June 1991); four issues of Weird Science (September 1990 - March 1991) and two issues of The Haunt of Fear (May/July 1991). Subsequently, Cochran and the EC reprints moved to Diamond Comics-CEO Steven A Geppi's Gemstone Publishers, which naturally reprinted the Gladstone-printed issues as part of their EC reprints. (Gemstone, whose key editorial staff - John Clark, Gary Leach and Susan Daigle-Leach - previously worked for Gladstone, also subsequently gained the rights to Disney comics, a license formerly held by Gladtstone.)
[edit] Further reading
"A Gander at Gladstone" by Roger Ash. Back Issue no.23 (August 2007) pp.35-41.
