The International Network of Disney Universe Comic Knowers and SourcesFrom Inducks lecture held at the 2008 DDF(R) summer meeting in Aalborg, Denmark, July 2008. (I.N.D.U.C.K.S.) or Inducks is a freely available database aiming to index all Disney comics ever printed in the world, created and maintained by both amateurs and professionals.Irene De Togni, The Inducks index, editorialized by Disney comics amateurs and professionals: New dynamics, new participatory models, Hybrid. Revue des arts et médiations humaines 8, 2022. https://doi.org/10.4000/hybrid.2145. It is an international projectAs of January 2008, 26 contributors have provided more than 1,000 indexes: The Inducks Disney Comics database: Indexers. which provides indexes of around 170,000 Disney comic publications worldwide.As of July 30, 2024: Statistics at Inducks . It is distributed with its own license.H. Fluks, F. Stajano, Inducks Licence Version 4B (a kind of permissive, "copyleft" "free" licence).
Origin Efforts to catalog Disney comic stories on a large scale date from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Among the most important works are an index of Disney comics published in Denmark,. a list of stories produced in Italy,. a list of American daily strips and Sunday pages,. an index of American Dell Disney comics and a Carl Barks index. (published earlier in a shorter form in the fanzine Funnyworld in the 1970s). All these lists include artists and writer credits that were previously unknown.
In August 1992, Per Starbäck (from Sweden) created the Disney Comics Mailing List.Commonly called the DCML. Members soon contributed lists of Disney comics and gave references for printed indexes. In May 1994, expanding on information exchanged on the mailing list, Harry Fluks (from the Netherlands) created a database to organize comic indexes, and called it the Disney Comics Database.Interviews of H. Fluks in the fanzines Ankkalinnan Pamaus 2000-02 (online English version ), in DDF(R)appet 5, 2004 and on the Web site of the Danish Donaldist Society , 2005.
In 1999, a German member suggested the name Inducks as a cross between "index" and "duck" (for Donald Duck). It was playfully written I.N.D.U.C.K.S. to resemble acronyms seen in Junior Woodchucks comics.The word Inducks is a combination of Index and Ducks. Brix Lichtenberg came up with this name as a replacement for the (more boring) name Disney comics Database. He intended it to be an abbreviation (I.N.D.U.C.K.S.) like the ranks in the Junior Woodchuck stories, but we haven't figured out yet what it is supposed to mean ... in Ankkalinnan Pamaus 2000-02 . Several meanings have been proposed, including "Internet Database for Uncle Walt's Comics and Stories", "International Network for Disney Universal Comic Knowledge and Sources",From the Bolderbast , an Inducks website. up to 2008 when International Network of Disney-Universe Comic Knowers and Sources was selected.
Over the years, a web search interface was introduced, later replaced by a second search engine, COA,A precise time-frame is as follows (from messages in the Disney comics mailing list): Disney comics indexes were exchanged as early as 1992, e.g., September 11; the first mention of the Disney comics database (DcD) is from April 18, 1994; its first public release is on May 25, 1994; the first mention of a web search program is from March 22, 1995; the first mention of Inducks is from February 9, 1999; the first mention of the COA search engine on the Disney comics mailing list is from April 9, 2001 (archived copy here). in 2001.
Data details The Inducks database lists publications, stories, characters and creators which are cross-referenced. Each story is given a unique "storycode"Details at Inducks . so that reprints (often from all over the world) may be found for any story. A large number of Disney comics publications are indexed for the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and United States. Among countries with a significant Disney comics tradition, indexes for Mexico, United Kingdom and (ex-) Yugoslavia are still incomplete.As of January 2008 - figures from Inducks.
Inducks integrates previous studies and research works, with permission of the authors,M. Barlotti, Da Fossati al'Inducks: il progetto I.N.D.U.C.K.S., Notiziario della Anonima Fumetti, 1999 ; a complete list is given at Inducks . as well as its own research. Thanks to contacts with creators,The Brazilian "branch" of Inducks lists about 30 authors who provide information ; biographical notice of comic writer Leonardo Gori or the "book work" of archivist and editor David Gerstein. it provides credits to anonymous (or wrongly-credited) stories. In particular, most Disney comics were not given credits until the 1980s or 1990s. It also contains information about unpublished Disney comics stories.As of January 2008, about 2,000 shelved stories are listed.
The main interface to Inducks is a search engine, browser and website abbreviated COA, which is daily updated based on Inducks data, and is available in thirteen languages. While COA uses Inducks data, it is not part of Inducks itself, but it enables users to navigate and search data which in its raw form consists of very user-unfriendly text files.Technical details at Inducks . It has a few other features not part of Inducks, like a collection management system and an error tracker tool.Interview with the creator of COA, DDF(R)appet 10, 2007 .
Use as a source and in publications Although parts of the database have been published in book formA. Becattini, L. Gori, F. Stajano, H. Fluks, Don Rosa e il Rinascimento Disneyano, Comic Art, 1997 ; Giorgio Cavazzano Percorsi, Firenze: Edizioni II Penny, 2002 ; P. Castagno et al., Luciano Bottaro - Un "gioviale" omaggio (2006), Rodolfo Cimino - Dalla Tana del Bestio all'Angolo dei Salici (2007), Abramo e Giampaolo Barosso Fra logaritmi e fiordalisi (2008), Papersera . and in specialized journals,; . Inducks is most often used as a source by comic book historians in articles devoted to Disney comics.E.g. (revised English version); F. De Salvia, , Rivista di storia e storiografia 5, 2004 ; T. Lapoussière, Phil DeLara, bibliographie en France et aux États-Unis, Backup 12, 2002 ; F. Castanet, Romano Scarpa , Pimpf 13, 2006 ; .
Inducks is also used by Disney editors around the world.Mickey Mouse and Friends #287; Roope-setä 2006-02 ; I Maestri Disney 20 ; interview with Sérgio Figueiredo, Abril's Disney editor ; the integral of Floyd Gottfredson published in by editor Glénat . It is mentioned as a source by scholars; and is referenced in books about comics in general.J.-P. Gabilliet, Des comics et des hommes: Histoire culturelle des comic books aux Etats-Unis, 2005, ; H. Matla, Stripcatalogus (9th ed.), 1998 . It has once been criticized for being a catalog of data rather than true (semantic) indexing work.S. Brügger, L. Peyraud, M. Schmid, Les images ne sont pas des mots, study presented to the Haute École de Gestion de Genève, 2002 .
Inducks sometimes gave talks and held meetings in comic-book fairs in Italy, such as in Lucca in 1997 with Don Rosa and Marco RotaPhotos of the events and in Reggio Emilia in 2007News report from the fair administration, 2007 . and 2008.Videos and photographs on the Papersera website . In 2004, it won an Internet award from afNews, an association of professional cartoonists in Italy.Link at fumetti.org .
See also Disney comics Donald Duck universe Donald Duck in comics Donaldism
References
External links Inducks Bolderbast, site with general information on Inducks COA, the Inducks browser