In honor of the 75th anniversary of the first publication of comics based on Walt Disney's beloved family of cartoon characters, Gemstone Publishing has released Walt Disney Treasures - Disney Comics: 75 Years of Innovation. It is billed as the "official anniversary book" and it is cleverly designed to look like the collectible Walt Disney Treasures DVD sets. It is filled with lots of Disney comics classics and obscurities spanning 75 years compiled by David Gerstein. This book makes a terriffic companion to David's "Mickey and the Gang" book. Pretty much every major Disney comics artist is featured and the incredible talents of Carl Barks, Don Rosa, Daan Jippes, Romano Scarpa, Al Hubbard, Al Taliaferro, and Floyd Gottfredson are all showcased. Hopefully this is the first in a long series of WDT comics collections.

It is a very nice sampling of Disney comics from throughout the years. All the characters you expect to be featured in such a collection make an appearance or two (Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Uncle Scrooge McDuck, Lil' Bad Wolf, Chip and Dale, and Goofy) and even a few you may not have expected to see (Brer Rabbit, Grandma Duck, Jose Carioca, and even Launchpad McQuack of DuckTales fame). The only real glaring omission, to me at least, was the absence of the precocious pup, Scamp (a staple of many a issue of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories).

The book does seem to promise a bit more than it delivers. Anyone who goes in expecting a comprehensive history of Disney comics through the years may go away disappointed. The entire 75 years of the comics is summed up in an introductory 2-page essay. I would have preferred to see an introduction to each story with history, trivia, profiles of the artists, and why that particular story was selected to be featured in the book (similar to the treatment the Good Housekeeping pages got in Gerstein's "Mickey and the Gang" book).

It should also be noted that the book is more geared towards the diehard Disney comics buffs who are already familiar with the characters/artists than it is to a general audience. I consider myself a bigger Disney comics fan than some, but

Who the heck is this guy?

even I could have used an intro explaining such unknown-in-the-United States characters as Goofy's wisecracking sidekick Ellsworth the Mynah Bird (and I imagine there aren't too many casual comics readers in the USA who have heard of Donald's scatterbrained hippie cousin, Fethry Duck, either). The book, with only a few exceptions, also focuses primarily on the characters from the shorts. Comics based on Disney movies and television shows aren't mentioned at all.

Overall, the stories are all rather good choices and the book featured many that I had never read before. There aren't many duds in the bunch, though a rather weak, sitcom-esque modern Mickey Mouse story was chosen to conclude the book. A couple of the more "politically incorrect" (by today's standards) stories are presented in their original, unaltered format and are preceded by the required 1-page "These-were-made-in-a-different-era... (...you know the rest)" warning intro (a la Leonard Maltin's frequent warnings to us on the DVDs).

This book is still a load of fun and feels like a supersized issue of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories (which is not a bad thing!). Even though I wished for more "meat", you have to admit that getting over 150 pages of great Disney funnies for about thirteen dollars (even less if you order through Amazon) is a deal that could even make tightwad Scrooge McDuck smile. It is a delightful hodgepodge of Disney rarities that deserves a spot on your bookshelf.

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