Donald Duck #23/1955
Donald Duck #23/1955 is a representative mid-run issue of the Dutch weekly that had already established itself as the Netherlands' most widely read children's periodical within just three years of its October 1952 launch. By mid-1955 the magazine was running fully in color — a transition that had only just been completed with issue #10 of 1954 — making this issue part of the first complete color year for Dutch readers. The roster of characters present reflects the distinctive cross-pollination that defined the Dutch weekly: Carl Barks-era Duck family material sat alongside adapted 'Song of the South' woodland characters (Broer Konijn, Bruin Beer) and the Big Bad Wolf family, a mix that gave the Dutch edition a richer ensemble cast than most of its European counterparts at the time.
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De Geïllustreerde Pers launched the Dutch Donald Duck weekly on 25 October 1952, drawing its blueprint from the Danish Gutenberghus model and initially translating American Disney comic material — including Carl Barks stories — via film plates shared with the Scandinavian and German editions. Hungarian-Dutch artist Endre Lukács, hired in 1952, was producing original covers and occasional interior stories by this point, serving as the magazine's first local Disney artist; editor Anton Weehuizen oversaw production out of the offices of the women's weekly Margriet during the formative years. By 1955 the weekly had settled into its format of 24 full-color pages, with backup features cycling through the Big Bad Wolf family and Br'er Rabbit cast alongside the lead Donald Duck stories.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published in 1955 by De Geïllustreerde Pers as part of the Dutch Donald Duck weekly ('Een vrolijk weekblad'), which had launched on 25 October 1952 and was already the Netherlands' dominant children's comic by mid-decade.
- Issue 23 of 1955 falls within the first full calendar year in which all issues were printed entirely in color; the magazine had been partly black-and-white until issue #10/1954.
- The issue carries Donald Duck and his nephews Kwik, Kwek, and Kwak (the Dutch names for Huey, Dewey, and Louie), the core cast translated from Carl Barks-era American material reprinted via Danish/Scandinavian film plates.
- Midas Wolf (Dutch name for Zeke/Big Bad Wolf) and his son Wolfje Wolf (Li'l Bad Wolf) feature; both characters had been present in the Dutch weekly since its very first issue in October 1952, making them long-standing regulars by 1955.
- Broer Konijn (Br'er Rabbit) and Bruin Beer (Br'er Bear) appear, characters whose Dutch comic adaptations derived from the 'Song of the South' (1946) spin-off strip material originally created for American Disney comics by writers and artists including Dick Moores and George Stallings.
- Knabbel and Babbel (Chip and Dale) are indexed, reflecting the Dutch weekly's practice of running multiple short-form backup features from across the Disney comics universe in a single 24-page issue.
- Knir, Knar, and Knor (the Three Little Pigs) appear alongside Midas Wolf, their traditional antagonist — a pairing rooted in the original 1933 Silly Symphony 'Three Little Pigs' and its subsequent comic-book expansion.
- The early issues of this series, including the 1955 run, were produced with covers by Endre Lukács, the first regular local Disney artist in the Netherlands, whose drawings became so popular that Dutch 'jigsaw clubs' of the 1950s used his Donald Duck cover art as model images.