Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #8 (140)

History

Carl Barks wrote and drew 'Gladstone's Terrible Secret' — recorded in the Grand Comics Database under its original working title 'The Good Luck Charm' — with the art submitted on August 23, 1951, roughly nine months before the issue's May 1952 cover date. The issue carried a ten-cent cover price and was published by Dell under the K.K. Publications indicia, bearing the volume designation Vol. 12, No. 8. The cover, which features Uncle Scrooge, is documented as Carl Barks's second Uncle Scrooge cover on the title, and the third Uncle Scrooge cover on Walt Disney's Comics and Stories overall. Contributing artists on other features within the same issue included Al Taliaferro, Gil Turner, Frank McSavage, Tony Strobl, Manuel Gonzales, and Riley Thompson, with scripts by Bob Karp and Don Christensen alongside Barks's own work — a typical multi-contributor anthology format for the series at the height of its circulation, which had reached three million copies per issue by #131 just the previous year.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Gyro Gearloose (anthropomorphic chicken inventor of Duckburg), created by Carl Barks, debuting as a cameo in the ten-page story 'Gladstone's Terrible Secret' — originally titled 'The Good Luck Charm' at time of writing.
• The lead Barks story features Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie spying on Gladstone Gander in an attempt to discover the secret source of his extraordinary luck; Gyro appears as a background gag character hoping to invent 'Butterless Buttered Popcorn' and traveling by pogo stick.
• 'Gladstone's Terrible Secret' is recognized as the story that first explored in depth the psychological and moral dimensions of Gladstone Gander's luck — establishing the character's willful laziness and passive relationship to fortune that would define him in Duck comics for decades.
• The cover is Carl Barks's second Uncle Scrooge cover on Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, and the third Uncle Scrooge cover on the title overall.
• Barks's artwork for the story was submitted on August 23, 1951; the issue carries a May 1952 publication date and a ten-cent cover price, published by Dell under the K.K. Publications indicia as Vol. 12, No. 8.
• The issue is a multi-contributor anthology; other artists and writers documented in the GCD include Al Taliaferro, Gil Turner, Frank McSavage, Tony Strobl, Manuel Gonzales, Riley Thompson, Bob Karp, and Don Christensen.
• Gyro Gearloose went on to appear in over 1,200 comic book stories worldwide and became a regular character in the 1987 DuckTales television series, voiced by Hal Smith.
• 'Gladstone's Terrible Secret' has been reprinted internationally in dozens of editions, including in the Carl Barks Library (Another Rainbow, 1983), multiple Egmont/Hjemmet publications across Scandinavia, Le Journal de Mickey (France, 1957), and The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 11 (Fantagraphics, 2012), the latter painstakingly recolored to match the original.

Cast · 23 characters

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