While Mickey Mouse may be the most famous character created by the Walt Disney Company, longtime fans feel that his faithful duck sidekick deserves just as much attention.
A new book from the publisher TASCHEN — Donald Duck. The final history — offers a comprehensive look at the character first introduced in 1934.
Model sheet for Donald’s design, dated 1938.
Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Donald Duck chronicles nine decades of the eponymous animated character, who the book’s publishers say has appeared on screen more than any other Disney character.
Drawing on the editors’ and writers’ unprecedented access to Disney’s vast historical archives, it gives readers access to rare animated drawings of the 20th century design icon, vintage comics, behind-the-scenes photos, charming memorabilia, and even unfinished projects.
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Walt Disney and Donald Duck, advertisement for “A Day in the Life of Donald Duck”, an episode of the TV anthology series Disneyland (1956).
Disney Enterprises, Inc.
The book’s editor, Daniel Kothenschulte, not only wrote the introduction, but counts himself among the character’s biggest fans.
“It’s a dream come true for me because I’ve always been a Disney fan,” Kothenschulte told PEOPLE in a recent interview. “I was a Disney collector as a kid. I was already collecting Super 8 movies and that was the only way to really own them in the ’70s when I was little. When I was 6 years old, I had a projector and Donald Duck makes movies on Super 8, and I’ve been watching them back and forth and I’ve been studying the animation and that really brought me to the idea of how beautiful they are.”
Kothenschulte adds that the book was a “very personal” project for him — one that allowed him to get an up-close look at the character’s history through drawings pulled from the Disney archives and the Animation Research Library.
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Carl Barks, “Donald Tames His Temper”.
Disney Enterprises, Inc.
As Kothenschulte explains, Disney Archives employs “Disney fans who are extremely knowledgeable about what they really care about.”
“So it’s like one fan talking to another about the geekiest of topics,” Kothenschulte continues. “So really for me … going to the Disney archives, it’s like visiting this wonderland or this wonderland from your childhood, and you go there and try to find out as much as you can about what you always thought you knew a lot about. ”
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Story sketch in the “Aquarela do Brasil” segment of Saludos Amigos (1942).
Disney Enterprises, Inc.
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Kothenschulte adds that researching unreleased animation was among his favorite discoveries — along with a behind-the-scenes look at his favorite Donald Duck appearance: in the South American film, Saludos Amigos, Three Caballeros.
“There is an artist, Mary Blair, who designed the colors for these early films. And we also have a special collection that comes with the book. If you invest a little more, you will get reproductions of some of these artworks, these pastels made by Mary Blair and her fellow artists. This is something I really like,” he says.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education