Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #5 [17]
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeWalt Disney's Comics and Stories #17 (February 1942) belongs to the foundational pre-Barks era of the series, when Dell's anthology was still built entirely around reformatted newspaper comic-strip reprints rather than original material — a format that would remain in place until issue #24 later that same year. The issue is notable within that strip-reprint era for a Donald Duck segment in which Donald openly concedes he cannot tell his three nephews apart, a running comedic tension that cartoonist Al Taliaferro had built into the Donald-and-nephews dynamic since Huey, Dewey, and Louie's debut in the Sunday strip on October 17, 1937. Appearing just months before the series crossed the one-million-copies-per-issue threshold with #23, this issue sits at the precise moment when WDC&S was transitioning from a modest reprint vehicle into what would become the best-selling comic book in mid-century America. It also includes a prose adaptation of the 1941 Disney film Dumbo, reflecting Dell's early practice of weaving prose text features alongside comic-strip reprints to fill each anthology issue.
In "Refusing to cross toll bridge," Donald Duck sticks to his guns—literally—when he refuses to swap out his team's pitcher, insisting not to "change horses in midstream." But when a river blocks his path and he's forced to trade his trusty donkey for HD&L's horse to cross, his stubbornness leads to a slippery situation. Written by Bob Karp and brought to life with classic charm by Al Taliaferro on art and inks, this 1942 Dell comic captures Donald’s misadventures with timeless wit. The cover by Al Taliaferro perfectly captures the moment’s comedic tension.
When Donald insists on sticking with his current setup—refusing to "change horses in midstream"—he quickly finds himself needing to swap his donkey for HD&L's horse just to cross a river, proving that even the best advice can get you stuck in the mud.
In "Good Catch!", Donald Duck’s clumsy moment leads to a frantic dash down a building’s steps, trying to save a potted plant from a fall—only to find his rescue attempt lands in a far less graceful way than he imagined.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 22 grades ▾
Find on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
By February 1942, WDC&S was still operating on the editorial model established at its October 1940 launch: Western Publishing licensed the Disney newspaper-strip library and reformatted those daily and Sunday strips — principally the Donald Duck strip drawn by Al Taliaferro and written by Bob Karp, and Mickey Mouse strips by Floyd Gottfredson — into color comic-book pages for Dell. The contributing creators on #17 reflect that studio model: the roster includes Taliaferro, Karp, Merrill De Maris, Ted Osborne, Ted Thwaites, and Manuel Gonzales, all syndicate or Disney studio staff who produced the underlying strip material, not freelancers hired to produce original comic-book content. The cover itself was drawn by Taliaferro, one of the relatively rare instances he produced original comic-book art rather than syndicated-strip work. The first original story for the series would not appear until issue #24 (August 1942), when Walt Kelly illustrated a Flying Gauchito adaptation.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published February 1942 by Dell Comics; also catalogued as Vol. 2, #5 in some indexing systems.
- Cover art drawn by Al Taliaferro, the creator and long-running artist of the Donald Duck newspaper daily strip (launched February 2, 1938).
- Interior stories and art by Al Taliaferro, Bob Karp, Ted Osborne, Ted Thwaites, Merrill De Maris, Tom Wood, Ken Hultgren, Hubie Karp, Manuel Gonzales, Bob Grant — all drawn from the Disney/syndicate strip stable.
- The Donald Duck segment features Donald admitting he cannot tell his three nephews apart, playing on the established comic dynamic between Donald and Huey, Dewey, and Louie, the triplets created by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro who debuted in the Sunday strip on October 17, 1937.
- Issue also contains a prose text adaptation of the 1941 Disney theatrical feature Dumbo, typical of Dell's practice of mixing prose features with strip reprints.
- At the time of publication, WDC&S consisted entirely of reformatted newspaper-strip reprints; the series would not publish its first original comic-book story until issue #24 (August 1942), a Flying Gauchito adaptation illustrated by Walt Kelly.
- Carl Barks, who would define the series with his Donald Duck 10-pagers, had not yet begun his WDC&S run; his contribution to the title started with issue #31 (April 1943).
- The series was reprinted from its earliest issues in the Walt Disney's Comics and Stories Archives, with KaBOOM! publishing the first volume of that chronological collection in 2011.
Cast · 4 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Donald Duck #296 (1996), Donald Duck #297 (1996), Donald Duck #298 (1996), Donald Duck #303 (1997), Donald Duck #304 (1997), Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #624 (1998)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.