Book Review Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: The Ultimate History XXL

Book Review Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: The Ultimate History XXL
On may 3rd 1934 Donald Duck made his debut as a cartoon star in Walt Disney’s Silly Symphony short the Wise little Hen. To honour him after 90 years Taschen has published this XXl book. Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: The Ultimate History Edited by journalist, curator and lecturer Daniel Kothenschulte, and featuring texts by authors David Gerstein and JB Kaufman. It is a great tribute to Donald’s enduring legacy in popular culture.T he same authors worked on the Taschen book about Mickey Mouse.

This book is in the same vain. With 564 pages this is another great coffee table book.
You really need a table to read this hefty book, because it is quiet heavy. You can buy the English, German and French version of the book. It is €175 or $ 175. Most likely there will be a smaller version of the book for a more affordable price. The same TASCHEN did with the Mickey Mouse book.

The layout and print is great as all of the other Disney Taschen books. The book is divided in three chapters. The Early Years, The Defining Years and The International Years.

The first chapter shows the early beginnings of Donald. Starting out as a side character in The Wise Little Hen in 1934. Later on he would team up with Mickey and Goofy. Mickey Mouse became more of a role model and the mischievous behaviour was handed over to Donald. Many great artists worked on Donald Duck. The book shows art from Walt Kelly who did some storyboards and Al Taliaferro who worked on the early comic strips. The book also has a reading ribbon with the face of Donald. It is the image that was used in the beginning of the Donald Duck shorts. On page 89 is a great pen and ink illustration of Donald and a lot of other Disney characters. This is one of my favourite pieces of art in the book. It was drawn by Hank Porter.

During World War 2 Donald became a mascot for the USA army. The Disney Studios became an army base and the Studio started to produce instruction films and animations for the army. Later Walt Disney made a Goodwill trip to South America. From that journey two animation features were made. Saludos Amigos and the Three Caballeros in which Donald played a big part.
The books shows some great inspirational art by numerous artists including Mary Blair. Some Donald Duck shorts were never made. For the first time you can see storyboards of the shorts.

The next chapter The Defining Years is based around the Donald Duck comics written and drawn by the famous Carl Barks. It made Donald even more famous. The appearance of Donald changed and Barks invented new characters that were later also used in the animation shorts. Like Scrooge Duck.

The last chapter shows the comics of Carl Barks where Donald travels all over the world.

Apart from this book there is a special edition of 1000 copies. It is $600.
It includes this book plus, a portfolio with 8 pieces of concept art, plus a storyboard book for the Donald Duck short Sea Scouts that was never made.

If you don’t want to spend so much money for the special version or this XXL version, you will have to wait until Taschen will publish the Xl version of the book.


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