''Uncle Scrooge'' (stylized as ''Uncle $crooge'') is a

Disney comic book Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. The first Disney comics were newspaper strips appearing from 1930 on, starting with the ...

series starring Scrooge McDuck ("the richest duck in the world"), his nephew Donald Duck, and grandnephews

Huey, Dewey, and Louie Huey, Dewey, and Louie are Multiple birth, triplet cartoon characters created by storyboard artist (screenwriter) Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company from an idea proposed by cartoonist Al Taliaferro and are the nephews of Donald Duck and th ...

, and revolving around their adventures in

Duckburg The Donald Duck universe is a fictional shared universe which is the setting of stories involving Disney cartoon character Donald Duck, as well as Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Scrooge McDuck, and many other characters. Life in the Donal ...

and around the world. It was first published in ''

Four Color Comics ''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 b ...

'' #386 (March 1952), as a spin-off of the popular '' Donald Duck'' series and is still presently ongoing. It has been produced under the aegis of several different publishers, including

Western Publishing Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company, was a Racine, Wisconsin, firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Its Golden Books Family Entertainment division also produced children's books and ...

(initially in association with

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" ...

and later under its own subsidiary,

Gold Key Comics Gold Key Comics was originally an imprint of American company Western Publishing, created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated this way from 1962 to 1984. Currently, Gold Key Comics is owned b ...

and their Whitman imprint), Gladstone Publishing, Disney Comics,

Gemstone Publishing Gemstone Publishing is an American company that publishes comic book price guides. The company was formed by Diamond Comic Distributors President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Geppi in 1994 when he bought Overstreet. Gemstone published licen ...

Boom! Studios Boom! Studios (styled BOOM! Studios) is an American comic book and graphic novel publisher, headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. History Origins In the early 2000s, Ross Richie and Andrew Cosby had been working in Ho ...

, and IDW Publishing, and has undergone several hiatuses of varying length. Despite this, it has maintained the same numbering scheme throughout its six decade history, with only IDW adding a secondary numbering that started at #1. Besides Scrooge and his family, recurring characters include

Gyro Gearloose Gyro Gearloose is a cartoon character created in 1952 by Carl Barks for Disney comics. An anthropomorphic chicken, he is part of the Donald Duck universe, appearing in comic book stories as a friend of Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, and anyone who ...

, Gladstone Gander, Emily Quackfaster, and Brigitta MacBridge. Among the adversaries who make repeat appearances are the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell, John D. Rockerduck and

Flintheart Glomgold Flintheart Glomgold is a cartoon character created in 1956 by Carl Barks. He is a South African American Pekin Duck and the business rival of Scrooge McDuck, usually portrayed as an ambitious, ruthless, and manipulative businessman who shar ...

. ''Uncle Scrooge'' is one of the core titles of the "

Duck universe The Donald Duck universe is a fictional universe, fictional shared universe which is the setting of stories involving Walt Disney Company, Disney cartoon character Donald Duck, as well as Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Scrooge McDuck, and ...

". Its early issues by famed writer/artist (and creator of Scrooge McDuck) Carl Barks formed the inspiration for the syndicated television cartoon ''

DuckTales ''DuckTales'' is an American animated television series produced by Disney Television Animation. The original cartoon series premiered on syndication and on Disney Channel on September 18, 1987 and ran for a total of 100 episodes over four sea ...

'' in the late 1980s. Several stories written by Barks and published in ''Uncle Scrooge'' were adapted as episodes of ''DuckTales''.

Writers and artists

The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks. The 71st issue had a story written by Barks and drawn by Tony Strobl. Subsequent Gold Key Comics issues combined reprints of earlier Barks tales with new material by creators such as Strobl, Vic Lockman,

Phil DeLara Philip DeLara (1914–1973) was a Warner Bros. Cartoons animator and Disney comics, MGM and Hanna-Barbera artist. As an animator, he worked on Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck and later on Speedy Gonzales, and The Tasmanian Devil, among oth ...

, Jack Manning, and

Pete Alvarado Peter J. Alvarado Jr. (February 22, 1920 – December 27, 2003) was an American animation and comic book artist. Alvarado's animation career spanned almost 60 years. He was also a prolific contributor to Western Publishing's line of comic books. B ...

. When Gladstone Publishing relaunched the title in 1986, a new generation of American creators began contributing to the title, including

Don Rosa Keno Don Hugo Rosa (), known simply as Don Rosa (born June 29, 1951), is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his Disney comics stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck, and other characters which Carl Barks created for Di ...

William Van Horn William Van Horn (born February 15, 1939) is a Disney comics artist and writer, and has been since 1988. He draws mostly Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories, and he has also written and/or illustrated stories based on the animated series ''DuckT ...

John Lustig John Lustig (born January 25, 1953) is an American comics writer and former journalist, principally known for his Disney comics scripts featuring Donald Duck and other members of Disney's Duck family. Lustig's scripts have been illustrated by Wi ...

, Pat McGreal, Dave Rawson, and Michael T. Gilbert. As before, their work was intermingled with Carl Barks reprints, as well as with translations of European Disney comics by such creators as Daan Jippes, Fred Milton and Romano Scarpa originally published by Oberon, Egmont (originally Gutenberghus) and Disney Italy/

Mondadori Arnoldo Mondadori Editore () is the biggest publishing company in Italy. History The company was founded in 1907 in Ostiglia by 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori who began his publishing career with the publication of the magazine ''Luce!''. In 1 ...

U.S. publication history

: 1952–1962 (''

'' issues 386, 456 and 495; issues 4–39) *

: 1962–1984 (issues 40–173 as Gold Key, 174–209 as Whitman) * Gladstone Publishing: 1986–1990 (issues 210–242) * Disney Comics: 1990–1993 (issues 243–280) * Gladstone Publishing: 1993–1998 (issues 281–318) *

: 2003–2008 (issues 319–383) * Boom Kids! (

): 2009–2011 (issues 384–404) * IDW Publishing: 2015–2020 (IDW #1-56, with "legacy" issue numbers 405–460 in brackets) Scrooge made his first appearance in the Donald Duck story " Christmas on Bear Mountain" as a curmudgeonly man who decides to test Donald and his nephews to see if they are worthy of inheriting his wealth. Barks found the character and his wealth a useful springboard for stories and re-used him in a number of subsequent Donald Duck one-shot adventures and ten pagers appearing in ''

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories ''Walt Disney's Comics and Stories'', sometimes abbreviated ''WDC&S'', is an American anthology comic book series featuring characters from The Walt Disney Company's films and shorts, including Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Chi ...

''. By 1952 the popularity of the character convinced Dell to give Scrooge a try-out as a lead character in the seminal " Only a Poor Old Man" in Dell's '' Four Color'' anthology series, a story Barks expert Michael Barrier has termed a masterpiece. After two further ''Four Color'' appearances Scrooge was granted his own title starting with issue number 4 (counting the try-out issues as one through three). The series continued uninterrupted (though not always on a monthly schedule) until 1984, when

(the parent company of Gold Key/Whitman, who were publishing the title at the time) withdrew from the comic book business. Western had held the Disney comic book license since the late 1930s, and their withdrawal left the license, and ''Uncle Scrooge'', in limbo for two years, when Another Rainbow, who had been publishing hardbound compilations of Carl Barks's work for several years, acquired it and launched Gladstone Publishing, resuming the title where Whitman had left off. Gladstone continued publishing ''Uncle Scrooge'' until their license expired in 1990. At that point, the series shifted over to Disney Comics with little change in editorial direction. It was one of only three monthly titles to survive the "Disney implosion" of 1991 (the others being ''Walt Disney's Comics and Stories'' and ''Donald Duck Adventures''), and continued to be published by Disney Comics until 1993, when Disney Comics folded and the license was reacquired by Gladstone Publishing. Gladstone went through their own implosion in 1998, and ''Uncle Scrooge'' was briefly converted into a double-sized (64 page), "prestige" format series, before Gladstone ended publication entirely later that year. No further issues were published until 2003, when Gemstone Publishing (whose editorial staff included several former employees of Gladstone) acquired the license and resumed publication of ''Uncle Scrooge''. Gemstone maintained the prestige format previously adopted by Gladstone, and continued to publish the series until November 2008. Financial difficulties at Gemstone ended its run then, and the license was acquired by

, who reverted to the standard 32 page format when they began publication in late 2009. Boom's run ended in 2011, when the Walt Disney Company's acquisition of Marvel Entertainment lead to the consolidation of all Disney comics licenses under

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

. In January 2015, IDW Publishing announced that they would be publishing the title, starting in April 2015. Apart from the single issues of the comic book, IDW Publishing also publishes the run in trade paperback collections compiling three issues each, but did also at one point collect the issues in hardcover collections under the title '' Uncle Scrooge: Timeless Tales''. However the hardcover compilations ceased to come out after the third volume. The Trade paperbacks do (in summer 2019) still come out.

Other titles and spinoffs

Over the years, Scrooge McDuck has proven popular enough to appear as the main character in a number of other comic book series. Many of these series include republications of stories originally written for the "main" ''Uncle Scrooge'' title in the United States or various European countries. Scrooge often appeared in '' The Beagle Boys'' alongside his frequent adversaries, published irregularly by Gold Key from 1963 to 1979. When that title ended, it was relaunched as ''The Beagle Boys Versus Uncle Scrooge'' in March 1979 and lasted for twelve issues, until February 1980. In 1987, Gladstone Publishing began publication of ''

Uncle Scrooge Adventures ''Uncle Scrooge Adventures'' is a 1987-1997 Disney comic book series published by Gladstone Publishing under license from the Walt Disney Company. It features the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and his nephews Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. It wa ...

'', which they would continue to publish until 1998, excluding the period from 1990 through 1993, when Disney Comics held the license to publish Disney comics. Scrooge was also a major character in three different comic book titles tied in with the ''

'' television series. The first of these consisted of 13 issues and was published by Gladstone Publishing from 1987 to 1990. The second consisted of 18 issues published by Disney Comics from 1990 through 1991. The final (to date) was published over six issues by Boom Kids! in 2011. Several ''DuckTales'' comics starring Scrooge would also appear in the pages of ''

Disney Adventures ''Disney Adventures'' (also short-formed as ''D.A.'') was an American children's entertainment and educational magazine published twelve (later ten) times per year by Disney Publishing Worldwide, a subsidiary of Disney Consumer Products, a unit o ...

'' in the early 1990s. Finally, ''The Adventurous Uncle Scrooge McDuck'', published by Gladstone, ran for two issues in 1998. A third issue was planned but cancelled along with the rest of Gladstone's output other than ''Uncle Scrooge'' and ''Walt Disney's Comics and Stories'' following a collapse in comics sales.

Reprints

References

External links