Four Color #256

History

Carl Barks submitted the cover and main story on June 29 and July 21, 1949, respectively, according to the Grand Comics Database's copyright-entry records; the issue went on sale in December 1949, copyrighted by Walt Disney Productions. The book was produced in the standard Dell / Western Publishing pipeline that handled all Disney one-shots in the Four Color anthology — an umbrella series Dell used as both a try-out vehicle and a recurring home for established characters who had not yet graduated to their own dedicated title. Barks wrote, drew, and lettered the entire issue himself, including three shorter gag strips ('Toasty Toys,' 'No Place to Hide,' and 'Tied-Down Tools') alongside the 32-page lead adventure.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published December 1949 by Dell Publishing as part of the long-running Four Color anthology (series 2); indicia title is 'Walt Disney's Donald Duck in "Luck of the North," No. 256.'
• The lead story, 'Luck of the North,' is a 32-page adventure written, drawn, and lettered entirely by Carl Barks — one of only a handful of his longer Duck adventure stories to feature Gladstone Gander as a central character.
• Plot: Donald, fed up with Gladstone's bragging, sends him on a wild-goose chase to Alaska via a fake uranium-mine map; overcome by guilt, Donald and the nephews follow and discover Gladstone on an Arctic iceberg harboring a gold-trimmed Viking ship containing documents about early Norse settlement of America.
• The story is cited by multiple Disney-comics sources as the moment Gladstone Gander's characteristic supernatural luck fully solidified as his defining trait, advancing a character arc Barks had been developing since Gladstone's debut in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #88 (January 1948).
• The Viking-ship subplot established lore that Barks revisited in 'The Golden Helmet' (1952), giving this issue a continuity link to a later, widely discussed Duck story.
• The issue also contains three shorter Barks gag strips: 'Toasty Toys' (Donald burns the nephews' toys for firewood), 'No Place to Hide,' and 'Tied-Down Tools,' all written and drawn by Barks.
• The lead story has been reprinted at least 28 times in international editions per GCD records, including early runs in Italian (Topolino, 1950), Swedish (Kalle Anka & C:o, 1952), Norwegian, German, and British (Mickey Mouse Weekly, retitled 'The Golden Iceberg') markets, and in English via The Best of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge #2, Walt Disney Comics Digest #44, Gladstone Giant Album #2, and Fantagraphics' Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 8 (Trail of the Unicorn, May 2014).
• The GCD credits the story summary to Michael Barrier's 1982 scholarly work Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book, reflecting the early critical attention Barks' Duck stories attracted from comics historians.

Cast · 5 characters

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