Donald Duck Vacation Parade

Surprising absolutely no one, I loved this book. Great creators, great story, great gags. What more do you need?

Giving the Disney characters to comic book creators outside the normal realm of Duck comics has worked well at Glenat. (See “Mickey’s Craziest Adventures” and “Mickey All-Stars“. Fantagraphics includes them in their “Disney Originals” line of titles.)

This is another great example of it working.

Vacation Credits, All I Ever Wanted…

More Than a Walk In the Woods

Donald Duck can’t sleep, because the garbage men are in the neighborhood, the dogs are barking, and the car horns are beeping.

Naturally, he packs up his camping gear and escapes civilization by jumping into his car and speeding off to the local national park to commune with the quiet solitude of nature.

Ah, if only it were so easy. Turns out, nature has its own share of troubles. Animals aren’t always quiet. They aren’t always going to leave a visitor alone. And some old “friends” live out there, ready to torture Donald at a moment’s notice.

The story structure and the gags themselves are very reminiscent of the Donald Duck shorts shown in movie theaters 70 or 80 years ago. The book is a series of blackout gags, essentially, that all come together into an explosive finale perfectly. Donald acts as you’d expect Donald to act — impetuously. That mixes well for a story with nature’s creatures, which includes bees, bears, a pair of familiar chipmunks, ants, butterflies, and even cows.

There are also those classic isolated moments that are quietly hilarious. The physical comedy bounces off the page. Watching Donald trying to pitch his tent while the rain comes pouring down is the perfect scenario for physical comedy. This whole book is as far from “illustrated radio” as comic book storytelling can get.

Oh, I didn’t mention it yet — the entire book is silent. There’s not a line of dialogue or a single caption box in the whole book. And every page is loaded with storytelling. Yes, there’s four tiers of panels on every page and usually around 10 panels per page, give or take, but that’s just how we get there. What we get in this book is masterful storytelling on a panel-by-panel basis that’s doubly impressive for its forgoing of words. Those moments when we see things like Donald’s reaction to a crazy situation for four panels or watch him cook breakfast across 12 panels are pure storytelling, not just art.

Bertolucci’s art is beautiful, too. He’s working well within the confines of that classic animated short styling. Because everything is painted, you naturally get those painted backgrounds like you used to get in the shorts. Donald is spot-on on character and acts believably. All of the animals show signs of strong character in addition to their different anatomies. Bertolucci is an animal painter and puts those skills to work here in a far more cartoony way than we’ve seen him do before.

You may remember his painted style in the (also silent) “Love” titles, such as the “The Fox” one I reviewed. It’s a different style of painting there. It tries to be more cinematic and more anatomically correct. There are more textures and shadows. With this Disney book, we’re also seeing the black ink outlines on all the characters and most of the close and midrange backgrounds. Deep backgrounds tend to go lineless, which makes sense. Things in the distance will always be less refined and that soft focus background always works.

Bertolucci’s work in this book is significantly toned down to fit the classic Disney style more closely, but without losing those detailed natural backgrounds and storytelling capabilities. Heck, there are moments where he abstracts the backgrounds to a degree that it almost feels like he’s channeling a Mary Blair influence.

His character movements show more exaggeration and playfulness than the more realistic, though still graceful, animal movements he plays with in the “Love” series. Donald isn’t gliding across the pond smoothly while his feet madly paddle under the water. Chip and Dale spend most of their time on two legs instead of four. The bears enjoying a sunny day in the pond act more like humans than bears.

But it’s his Donald that’s the most impressive. This is the quick-to-react character who is most likely to put his fists out while jumping up and down. This is the Duck that’s balanced in such a way that his butt is always sticking back a little bit while he leans forwards to keep the center of gravity right.

The bill fits on his head perfectly, his eyes tell the story, and he has a wide range of emotions. (You’d be surprised how tricky it can be to land the beak correctly…)

And the colors on Donald are fairly flat, which might not be what you expect for a painter doing a comic. There are plenty of shadows and even more highlights on the pages, but there’s an overall feeling of calm on these pages. No colors are competing for your attention across the page.

The Fantagraphics Presentation

It’s good news here on every front.

First, this is a full-size album in hardcover. It’s as tall as an Asterix Collector Edition, roughly the same dimensions as Papercutz’s Smurfs Archives books, and even bigger than Fantagraphics’ Don Rosa Library.

The paper stock is a solid non-glossy white that has a heft to it. It’s thick enough that nothing bleeds through.

On top of all that, the color reproduction is glorious. The paper doesn’t muddy up the colors. True, Bertolucci’s paint leans towards the brighter end of the spectrum, but there are nighttime scenes in the book and nothing gets lost in the texture of the page. In fact, the book opens with a nighttime exterior shot of Donald’s house and, while dark, everything remains easy to read. The line work is clear. It’s not a shadowy mess.

The paper captures every brush stroke from Bertolucci, too. Literally. Look carefully at the pages and you’ll see brush strokes in places you might not expect them. He does a great job with white highlights, in particular, throughout the book. It’s nice to find an artist who works as hard at hitting the highlights as he does the deep shadowy areas.

The inside front and back covers reproduce pencil layouts for the book, which gives the book an even more retro feel. The thumbnails remind me of 60s cartoons in their simplicity.

Beyond that, the book is just the story. No sketchbook material or introductory text explaining itself. The book doesn’t need it. It stands on its own.

Recommended?

Yes, if you enjoyed the cartoon shorts of yesteryear or just good comic book art and storytelling, this book has what you need. Brrémaud and Bertolucci put together a terrific tale with a stylish twist that’s perfect for the whole family to read.

You can order it through your local comic shop or pick it up directly from Fantagraphics or through Amazon. (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)