Donald Duck and Other Adventures (Italian: Paperino e altre avventure), also known as Paperino giornale, is a 1937–40 weekly Italian Disney comics magazine published by Mondadori. The comic was launched by Federico Pedrocchi, Mondadori's art director, as a companion to the existing weekly Topolino (Mickey Mouse) magazine. Paperino published 149 issues from 30 December 1937 to 26 October 1940, at which point it was merged with Topolino.
The eight-page newspaper published the first Italian Donald Duck comic book story, "Paolino Paperino e il mistero di Marte" ("Donald Duck and the Secret of Mars"), which was written and drawn by Pedrocchi, and serialized in 18 one-page installments. Pedrocchi wrote eight serials starring Disney characters for the paper, featuring Donald Duck, Goofy and the characters from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. During the same period, he also wrote two further Disney stories which were printed in Mondadori's biweekly publication Albi d'oro.
Paperino also published non-Disney adventure comics from the United States, including Popeye, Buck Rogers, Ella Cinders and Tarzan, along with non-Disney comics created by Pedrocchi and others. In 1938, when the fascist Mussolini government ordered publishers to stop publishing American creations, Paperino dropped its American comics, except for Donald Duck; the Ministry's order made an exception for Disney comics.
Origin Pedrocchi, a former novelist and advertising illustrator, joined Mondadori in 1936. At the time, Al Taliaferro's Donald Duck comic strip was being reprinted in several of Mondadori's publications, including Topolino, I Tre Porcellini and Nel Regno di Topolino, and Pedrocchi thought that Donald was appealing enough to anchor his own magazine.
Pedrocchi's pitch to Mondadori in 1937 said:
In each issue, the front page contained either the latest episode of a Donald Duck story, or (for six months in 1938–39) a set of Taliaferro's Donald Duck daily comic strips. When Pedrocchi started writing comics about Goofy and Snow White characters, they were printed on the back page.
Pedrocchi was influenced by Taliaferro's strip, and some of the character poses in Pedrocchi's stories are copied from Donald Duck. But the settings were different: Taliaferro's strip takes place in US suburbia, while Pedrocchi's Donald lives in urban Milan, where the magazine was published. "Paperino" also lives on his own, with no sign of three little nephews.
Disney stories Federico Pedrocchi wrote eight Disney comics stories for Paperino e altre avventure between 1937 and 1940, and two stories for Albi d'oro in 1938 and 1939. All ten are described below, in chronological order.
Donald Duck and the Secret of Mars Paolino Paperino e il mistero di Marte (Donald Duck and the Secret of Mars) was published in 18 parts, from issue #1 to 18 (30 December 1937 – 28 April 1938). The story was written and drawn by Federico Pedrocchi. The story was reprinted as a full 17-page story in the biweekly Nel regno di Topolino #57 (25 April 1938).
While some cite this story as the first-ever Donald Duck comic book story, that distinction actually goes to William A. Ward's Donald and Donna, which premiered seven months earlier in the UK magazine Mickey Mouse Weekly in issue #67 (15 May 1937).
Having lost the key to his house, Donald Duck falls asleep on a park bench. When a policeman wakes him, he inadvertently smacks the cop, and then runs away. Two sinister strangers see him fleeing from the law, and drive him away. Dr. Kraus and his assistant, Baus-Baus, have built a rocket they plan to pilot to Mars, and they need a third person on their voyage. Thinking that the police are on his trail, Donald agrees, and they lift off. After destroying oncoming chunks of ice from a comet's tail, Donald accidentally breaks the helmets of the team's spacesuits, and Baus-Baus locks him up in a storage room. Donald finds a journal written by Captain Bluff, who set off on a journey to Mars forty years earlier. The spaceship lands on Mars, and Donald is sent out first to make sure the air is breathable. He's picked up a group of gangly cat-faced Pindos, who carry him to their leader, Chief Bluff. Thrilled to see another Earthling, Bluff reveals that he was tricked by Dr. Kraus into traveling to Mars decades ago, to discover the secret of the Pindos' power. Dr. Kraus takes charge of the Pindos' big, monkey-faced enemies, the Pondos, who invade the Pindos' stronghold. Donald is thrown down the stairs to the basement, where he finds the "Room of the Sun", the true source of the Martians' power. By standing in a concentration of solar energy, Donald temporarily gains super-strength, and fights off the Pondos single-handedly. He chases Kraus and Baus-Baus into their spaceship, which crashes into Bluff's palace, destroying the Room of the Sun and ending the threat that unscrupulous people would use the Pindos' secret power. Donald's boost of strength wears off, and he and Bluff pilot the ship back to Earth, taking Kraus and Baus-Baus as prisoners. Back on Earth, Donald is given a reward for apprehending the wanted criminals, but gets fined an equal amount for assaulting an officer, leaving him with nothing.
The art in this first Paperino story was influenced by Taliaferro's Donald Duck comic strip—in fact, Donald's pose in the fourth panel of the first strip, jumping on the park bench trying to chase away an imaginary mosquito, is taken directly from Taliaferro's first Donald Duck Silly Symphony Sunday comic strip of 30 August 1936. Comics historian Alberto Becattini also sees sci-fi influences: "There were also clear references to Dick Calkins' Buck Rogers—which was, by the way, one of the regular features in Paperino—and to Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, as far as the spaceships and the alien landscapes were concerned. Pedrocchi himself was quite familiar with science fiction plots, having been writing and laying out an s.f. series, "Saturn Against the Earth", since 1936."
Becattini and David Gerstein also point out Pedrocchi's debt to Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse comic strip, which was running in Paperinos sister paper, Topolino: "Like Mickey in 'His Horse Tanglefoot' (1933), a naïve Donald is tricked into helping the bad guys. As in Gottfredson's 'Island in the Sky' (1937), the villain's quest for a scientific secret ultimately leads to his destruction. And as in 'Mickey Mouse Sails for Treasure Island' (1932), a long-missing sailor is discovered ruling a lost world... As the art director of his country's Disney editions, however, Pedrocchi was professional enough to absorb more than just story details. He also taught himself how Gottfredson structured a Disney adventure: with character-based plot threads that built upon one another, dovetailing together neatly in the end."
Donald Duck, Special Correspondent "Paolino Paperino inviato speciale" ("Donald Duck, Special Correspondent") was published in 30 parts, from issue #19 to 48 (5 May – 24 November 1938). The story was written and drawn by Federico Pedrocchi. It was reprinted as a full 30-page story in the monthly Albi d'oro #21 (Sept. 1938).
At the start of this story, Donald bumps into an old friend, Peter Pig (called Meo Porcello), from Donald's first cartoon, the 1934 Silly Symphony short The Wise Little Hen. Peter remains Donald's sidekick through the next adventure as well, "Donald Duck Among the Redskins", and also makes an appearance in "Donald Duck, Fortune Teller".
Leaving the police station at the end of the previous story, Donald is approached by Lucius Linotype (Signor Linotipi), editor of the newspaper Another World (L'altro mondo). He hires Donald and Peter as reporters and sends them to war-torn Selvania, where they must take a picture of General Sweet (Generale Miele), who's never been photographed. On the road to Selvania, the boys meet another reporter, Bart Caterwaul (Bartolomeo Circonlocuzioni), also known as "the Cat", from rival paper The Old Globe (Mondo intero). He pretends to befriend them, but when they get to the Selvanian border, the Cat tells a soldier that Donald and Peter are spies from Selvania's enemy, Marinzia. After a disastrous trial, Donald and Peter are sentenced to be executed, but they manage to get a telegram to Mr. Linotype, who arrives in an airplane just in time to explain things to the authorities. The Cat continues to sabotage Donald and Peter's efforts to get to the front lines and photograph General Sweet, but Donald gets in the way of the Cat's photo, and a picture of the duck is printed in The Old Globe as the general. The rival paper is humiliated, but the Cat uses the opportunity to trick the Marinzians into capturing Donald, thinking that he's General Sweet. Donald pretends to be Sweet, and tricks the Marinzian's General Sour (Generale Fiele) into attacking at a strong point in the Selvanian defenses. Peter hears the real Sweet promising the Cat a photo, and sneaks across enemy lines to tell Donald. Furious, Donald steals a plane, kidnaps Sour, and brings him to Selvania. The war over, Donald and the Cat both rush back to their newspapers with a photograph of the general. The Cat's paper publishes first, but still gets a pic of the wrong man; Donald's paper gets a shot of the real General Sweet, and Linotype rewards Donald and Peter for their service.
Salesman Goofy "Pippo viaggiatore di commercio" ("Salesman Goofy") was published in 9 parts, from issue #40 to 48 (29 Sept. – 24 Nov 1938). The story was drawn by Enrico Pinochi. The story was reprinted as a full 17-page story in the biweekly Nel regno di Topolino #72 (25 December 1938).
In the story, Goofy is hired by the Rosatea perfume company. A jealous rival tries to trick Goofy into switching the normal bottles with bottles made of unbreakable glass, and Goofy ends up breaking all of the bottles to prove they're the right ones.
This "Pippo" (Goofy) story premiered in issue #40, replacing the American strip Ella Cinders as the American content was being phased out. Pedrocchi was hoping to produce another comic headlined by a Disney character, Il Giornale di Pippo, and created a dummy mockup of the first issue. The final panel in the last part has the word "Continua..." ("To be continued..."), presumably a lead-in to the proposed Pippo paper, which never materialized.
There was a six-month gap from Paperino #49 to #71 (November 1938 to May 1939) without a Pedrocchi-written Disney story. During this period, Pedrocchi wrote two stories published in Albi d'Oro—"Donald Duck and the Philosopher's Stone" and "Clarabelle in the Claws of the Black Devil"—while the front page of Paperino was filled with American Donald Duck comic strips.
Donald Duck and the Philosopher's Stone "Paperino e la pietra filosofale" ("Donald Duck and the Philosopher's Stone") was published as a 28-page story in Albi d'oro #22/1938 (15 October 1938). This story was the first Donald Duck comic story intended as a full-length adventure, rather than for serialization. The story was the third and last Disney story with Pedrocchi as both writer and artist.
Donald inherits a gigantic, complicated machine from his late uncle Paolo Paperis, which is supposed to turn rocks into gold. Uncle Paolo's faithful butler Socrate shows Donald the machine, which is kept in the dungeons of Paolo's mansion. Donald needs to load the machine with rocks, and then use the fabled philosopher's stone, which is buried in the garden. Donald ultimately discovers that Socrate is actually Paolo in disguise, who wanted to test his nephew.
The Italian Disney Comic Guide blog comments, "The stock moralistic ending of the so-called Socrate would risk confining the story to the list of stories for the little ones if it were not for the timely Donaldesque reaction to the forced life lesson."
Clarabelle in the Black Devil's clutches