Disney Mickey and Donald Christmas Parade Review
Happy Holidays from everyone here at DISKingdom, we have a special treat for you, two reviews of the newest incarnation of Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade, a long running title which showcased holiday titles for the past 50 years. This review will be covering the first two issues of Mickey and Donald: Christmas Parade, the newest incarnation of the title. I have already reviewed the third issue last year if you are curious, these will be shorter lookthroughs than usual due to the amount of content in this book.
’Tis No Season
Writer: Byron Erickson
Artist: Massimo Fecchi
In our first story, Mickey finds himself in an alternate dimension where Christmas has long been banished as he tells Donald that he tested out a device from his friend Doc Static a couple of days past. He enlists the help of Gyro Gearloose to get a time machine to go back in time along with Donald’s nephews who informs him of the exact time he needs to go.
Gyro informs him that he needs an expensive part that only Scrooge could afford. He accepts since he is the only one old enough to remember how Christmas used to be and preferred when people bought more than chimney traps for the evil Santa Claus.
They go back to the 1950s as the nephews see how the holiday was much more jolly as they soon go hide out at Scrooge’s former mansion as they soon see a giant time hole open up as miniature Santas began robbing people’s houses including Scrooge’s
They soon go back to earlier that day with the time machine, this time going to the North Pole as they find Old Saint Nick trapped in a time hole of his own. The boys need to figure out who is behind this holiday sized caper.
High-Tech Herbert
Writer and Artist: Carlo Gentina
The nephews go over old sleds vs new high-tech sleds in this short one page story
That Sinking Feeling
Writer: Otto Veenhoven
Artist: robert van der Kroft
In this Big Bad Wolf story, the Wolf comes up with a plan to put the Pigs on ice through a ice shack.He covers the ice on top of a lake with some snow and builds a wotten cottage to trick the 3 Pigs to light a fire right into the cold water. Little Wolf notices something is off with his old pop’s sudden change of heart.
This classic is nice and short including cameos from some familiar characters from Song of the South. The art is nice and bright for an old retro story from the 60s.
Economy Class
Writer And Artist: Giampaolo Soldati
In this short story, we go over how Scrooge flies cheap on Christmas Eve
Christmas Clubbing
Writers: Kirsten de Graaf and Mau Heymans
Artist: Mau Heymans
We start off this story with Donald and Gladstone fighting outside of Daisy’s house over who gets to invite her to the Christmas party. Unfortunately for them, Daisy already plans or rather too many of them as she needs to fix up Christmas dinner and sell tickets for her charity club. Donald and Gladstone offer to help out as she offers the spot next to her at dinner to whoever sells the most tickets.
You can tell this one is from the Netherlands, their Duck stories have quite the unique art design from the longer duck bills on the characters to the expressions being a little crazy at times. This was a real heartwarming story about trying to do good although it takes a lot out of you.
Meter Your Maker
Writer: Alberto savini
Artist: Corrado Mastantuono
In this one page story, Scrooge puts a parking meter on top of his Money Bin in anticipation of Santa Claus.
The Sinister Space Santa
Writer: Stefano Ambrosio
Artist: Marco Mazzarello
In this story, we see Goofy receiving mail from his super genius nephew Gilbert along with a letter from outer space for his super-hero alter ego Super Goof. The letter is a reminder to go back to a galactic super hero college to get his galactic hero licence.
He is directly teleported to the class as he finds it rather long and tedious as he decides to sneak out to help out a stranded family although they begin shooting him due to his festive Santa Claus outfit. He soon finds out why as an intergalactic version of him soon attacks, striking fear in the galaxy.
I need to say that it was a real treat to see another Super Goof story, these are pretty rare in the IDW issues, this one is a real treat for anyone who loves intergalactic stories along with your occasional superhero comedies. Am I the one who is reminded of a certain Martian from a rival studio when I look at Santa Claus’ minions in this story ?
Vacation Ingenious
Writer: Carlotta Quattrocolo
Artist: Carlo Limido
This story begins with Duckburg being hit by a large whiteout as Donald furiously walks home from the grocery store as he decides to stop in at Gyro’s for a quick hot cocoa. Gyro meanwhile is too busy with various problems including making a new cheap fuel source for Scrooge that he eventually breaks down and decides to go out of town with Donald.
They book a room at Hotel Snowflake ( Guess this considers it a Christmas story then) as Donald goes over the rules with Gyro to make sure he does not get into inventing during the get-away. Unforntuately, old habits are hard to kick as he proceeds to help various hotel guests to the disappointment of Donald.
This was a nice little Donald and Gyro story but I have to be honest, this one does not fit in with the other stories in this volume, it is just another generic winter story compared to the holiday hijinks mainly featured in this volume. It’s nice to see more of a focus on Gyro this time around outside of just doing work for Scrooge. The art is nice and expressive with close-up shots of either Donald or Gyro’s faces.
Blight Before Christmas
Writers: Abramo and Giampaolo Barosso
Artist: Giovan Battista Carpi
The Disney gang are preparing for their holidays as they go window shopping in their respective towns, everyone is happy except for Scrooge who wishes the holidays would not be around (Hey, read the first story to see how that goes).
He would rather save money than host a big party for Mickey and the gang by tricking them into going a cottage in the woods so they can restore for him to prepare for the party. Meanwhile, Pete and the Beagle Boys are up to no good as Pete plans to rob a bank while the Beagles investigate what could be inside the crates Scrooge sent to the villa.
This is a really good crossover story featuring all the major Italian Disney characters of the period. The writing and translation are pretty good considering they have to write for over a dozen characters in this story. This is a high recommendation for me.
Tree-mendous
Writer: evert geradts
Artist: Mau Heymans
In this final one page story, Donald and Jones once again quarrel over who has the biggest Christmas tree.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Mickey and Donald Christmas Parade is the perfect book for all youg Disney fans to enjoy during the holidays year after year with a handful of wonderful stories they can all enjoy with some of your favourite Disney characters.
Aside from one or two stories, these were well picked, I would have preferred having some of the other holiday stories from the other IDW titles such as the Oswald story from Comics and Stories or Counterfeit Santa from the former Donald Duck title.
But for all Disney fans, Mickey and Donald Christmas Parade will be a volume that will be beloved for many years to come. Hopefully the next volume lives up to its boots.
RATING: 8 out of 10