"Pluto Saves the Ship" is a 51-page black-and-white comic book story scripted by writers Carl Barks,

Jack Hannah John Frederick Hannah (January 5, 1913 – June 11, 1994) was an American animator, writer and director of animated shorts. Biography Hannah was born on January 5, 1913, in Nogales, Arizona. He moved to Los Angeles in 1931 to study at the Art ...

and Nick George from a plot devised possibly by a publisher, and drawn by Disney animation layout artist Bruce Bushman. It was originally printed in

Dell Comics Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1974. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium.Evanier, Mark" ...

' ''Large Feature Comics'' #7 in July 1942, and is one of the first American Disney comics ever made that was not reprinted from newspaper comic strips. It is Barks' first comic book work, and

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...

's first comic book adventure. This was followed in October 1942 by '' Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold'', the Disney characters' first entry in Dell's ''

Four Color ''Four Color'', also known as ''Four Color Comics'' and ''Dell Four Color'', was an American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962. The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic ...

'' anthology series. In the story, Pluto foils

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

saboteurs on a Navy cruiser. Barks said later that "it was only a one-shot special designed to take advantage of the wartime jitters." Barks wrote the story with

and Nick George, fellow animators at the Disney Studio. The story was partly inspired by two Pluto cartoons that Barks worked on, ''

Bone Trouble ''Bone Trouble'' (1940) is an animated short produced by Walt Disney, and directed by Jack Kinney. It stars Pluto and Butch the Bulldog, in the latter's first appearance. Plot The short begins with Pluto waking up in his dog house. Pluto is ...

'' (1940) and ''The Army Mascot'' (1942). Barks only produced two stories that took place in the

Mickey Mouse universe The Mickey Mouse universe is a fictional universe, fictional shared universe which is the setting for stories involving The Walt Disney Company, Disney cartoon characters Mickey Mouse, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Pluto (Disney), Pluto, Goofy, and ...

; the other is " The Riddle of the Red Hat" (''Four Color'' #79, published August 1945). "Pluto Saves the Ship" has been reprinted in many European countries over the last few decades. The only time it's been reprinted in English was in '' The Carl Barks Library'' black and white hardcover collection, in 1988. It has not yet been revealed whether the story will be included in the Fantagraphics Books collection ''

The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library ''The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library'' is a series of books collecting all of the comic book Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, originally published between 1942 and Barks' retirement in June 1966. The ser ...

''.

References

External links

*
''Pluto Saves the Ship''
in Carl Barks guidebook Disney comics stories 1942 in comics Comics by Carl Barks Comics about dogs {{Disney-comics-stub

See also

References

External links