Junior Diamond Comics - Mickey Mouse 1

Hi all,

now, in this particular post, iam not going to write much. in fact, there is nothing more worth to write about other than what iam going to type in here. the worst kept secret is, that this post is prepared last week itself when i made the (somewhat) review of junior diamond comics issue of donald duck.

as i was miffed with the the standards, i remembered what my uncle said about reading as a process: whenever you read a book/magazine, do the background check and confirm that if it is written for you or not.

what it meant was, a book on the side effects of asthma or how to cook in 30 days may not be of my likings. but, there is a section of TG just for these kind of books (No disrespect to them - my taste is not upto them, rather than they are not being good enough to my taste).

hence, i made sure that from now onwards, i should not have much expectation towards the junior diamond comics series on donald duck and mickey mouse. Navneet had a word with the publisher and he assured that the future editions will be much better and the packaging will also improve compared to the first set of books. hope that he is right, on the improvement part.

this particular story of mickey mouse is not a small story, like the one's we had in the donald duck book. this one seems to be the one for the series kind of story and most probably this will be ending in the 2nd or the 3rd book only (guessing based on the story line).

one of the bad habits that the publishers do have is that, they do not give much information about the author and the person who draws the pictures. we have to do a lot of investigation to find out. This problem is much worse in the case of cinebook published books where they don't even give much credit to the translators (most of the cinebooks are translated from french / belgian comics) and thus deprive us the chance to praise them.

the same goes with the junior diamond comics as well. here we do not know who the author of the story is and nor do we know about the artist. sad state. This is one such thing in which i appreciate the american comics (the sad part is, the only thing i appreciate about american comics is also this one only) is that they give credit to all the departments in the making of the comics such as story, art, lettering, penciling, colouring etc and also on the cover work.

and, hey, for a change:story line is quite interesting and iam waiting for the second book on this series eagerly. Hopefully, the the distribution row will be sorted out by the time the 2nd book hits the stands. (i was told that this book was not available in many places in delhi as well).

as in the first donald duck book, the mickey mouse book also has some competition and as usual, the last date for entering is not given (click the images for bigger, better viewing - and also to admire my scanning process).

One thing that the diamond people have done is that - marketing. Here the sales guys fill up 4 pages again with lovely advertisements and i just cannot stop admiring the PVR ad (and the nice li'l elephant in that too).

Enough, Enough. Yes, enough of these junior diamond comics. the next one will be the cinebook review with my favourite comics character - lucky luke.

Junior diamond comics - Donald Duck 1

Hi all.

back with my first official review. thanks for the encouragement on the beginning part and NO!, am not relenting on the comments part even now. (i know what guru will do the moment i allow comments).

Donald duck has always been my fav comic characters and ever since i saw the ducktales episodes in those days in DD2 (where are those wonderful days when we just sat infront of tv, without even caring who has the remote control and what time is it etc).

this particular series (junior diamond comics) seems to be doing well for the publishers and they have announced this series will be widened by having donald duck and mickey mouse (in two different series) in the month of april.

that triggered a lot. yes, some of my school friends called me to inform so (Neelima from dehradhun - that was a gap of 7 years since we spoke - really time speeds up).

since then, i was waiting for this first ever book of donald duck and mickey mouse in junior diamond comics (JDC). The waiting process was lengthy and irritating for the bookshop person had no answer to my queries and i had to become a lady sherlock holmes to dig the numbers of the publishers and then finally i got the news of the availablity of the book.

the waiting for the christmas is more enjoyable than the christmas itself - is what my uncle used to say and i found out that how true that was. when i was waiting for the book, i had lots of dreams on how they will be and what kind of features will be there, how many stories etc etc.

when i got the book, i was dissappointed a ot, to say the least of all my feelings.

gone are the days when we used to enjoy (late) uncle barks drawings for the donald duck stories. even the artists who followed him were passable. the storylines were not bad at those days when i used to read them from a lending library in Navi.

But, this new series from JDC? It was a shock to see and read the comics for a long time fan and maybe the lengthy expectation period made my decision making a bit easier, though.

The cover art itself was just average, for me though. my friends liked it a lot and they said that i over grew to be still a comics fan whose target group is 7-14. do you folks think so?

The first story itself was a extended version of the egmont donald duck book that got launched in 1996/6/7? (Thanks anil for this wonderful news - now, iv'e added it). what they have done is to add a few parts in tha beginning (small change) and in the end and you have a new story.

here is the story for all those who are yet to lay hands on this book: there is a party happening and donald duck has no invitation for that and he needs money for that as well. he was somehow forced to don the lion's mask to appear in an advertisement to be shot in and he makes it to the studio in time and while returning, the original lion is switched in place of donald duck and there goes the end part.

forgetting all, those who read it the first time will enjoy this. and as usual, it has a happy ending (like all the walt disney stories - their trademark). it was of 18 pages and you may like this pattern of 2 small stories in a single issue when you get accustomed to it.

there is another story in the book as well and what dissappointed me was the abscence of my fav characters such as uncle scrooge, the 3 lovely cousins of donald, the beagle boys, the mad inventor and the list goes on. the second story also doen't feature any of these characters and here is the first page and last page.

As usual, the walt disney books (as their wont) have some of the fillers and competition. here is the one which are from book 1. did you notice that the last date of the competition is not mentioned in this? the reason could be, the delay in shipping to small book stores.

competition 1 competition 2

normally, i just skip through the advertorials. howver, the ads in this book were cute and were in rhythm with the content and age group (need to check if rahul is still there?). i just loved the PVR ad and the comics kind of story telling ad in the 3rd part is also good one.

ad 1 Ad 2

ad 3
now, i will reserve the review of the mickey mouse issue for the next post.

cheers.

Note: you can click on the images to open then in a new page with larger, readable size.

Beginning

Hi Gang,

Here am is, with a blog instead of wordpress (Sorry guru, nisha and ankit). instead of office gossips (like rupa and shammi dada) i thought of penning my old (still intact) habit - comics.

still cannot forget the day when my uncle (now in australia) introduced comics to me. my favourites been diamond (because i grew up on thee!) and archies (how dare that archie andrews - thinking of marrigae?!?!?!) and lots of others as well.

reading is a art and only very few can keep that art intact and as we grew older in thinking process. we tend to become lazier and lazier and hence we lose out on the reading process and pretend to be readers by subscribing to news papers and bundles of magazines.

when was the last time you read something worth to talk?

comments for the 1st 3 postings will be curtailed. (to be on the safer side).