Disney Masters

Fantagraphics launched the Disney Masters Series with Vol. 1: The Delta Dimension in May 2018. Since then they have published a few new volumes in the Disney Masters series each year. Volumes have been alternating between the central character and story being Mickey Mouse related or Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge.

Fantagraphics presents Disney Masters – acclaimed artists from around the world working in the grand Walt Disney tradition. Many of these stories are new to American readers and appear here for the first time in English. Fresh new artwork, fresh new adventures, and fresh new laughs!

Disney Masters Vol. 14: Donald Duck: Follow the Fearless Leader

Book Description:

With this volume of the Disney Masters series, we begin collecting the Duck tales of Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard ― for the first time in North America!

Donald’s nerdy cousin Fethry Duck is a mallard on a mission, determined to include Donald in all his sudden passions: from a super exercise regimen to building an indoor farm, to stage magic that turns startlingly real! With this volume of the Disney Masters series, we begin collecting the Ducktales of Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard ― for the first time in North America! Kinney and Hubbard were a Disney dream team in the ’60s, hatching Donald Duck co-stars like Fethry, master spy Mata Harrier, and terrible tomcat Tabby. From Fethry’s very first story through the doggy doings of Scamp to Uncle Scrooge in “The Case of the Purloined Pearls,” Kinney and Hubbard keep the laughs rolling and the hijinks hopping. Full-color illustrations throughout.

Disney Masters Vol. 14: Donald Duck: The Forgetful Hero will be released by Fantagraphics on 11/17/20.

This edition of the Disney Masters series is 192 pages, and it includes stories that were originally created in English in the United States and made for publication worldwide. This volume’s featured Disney Master artists are Dick Kinney (writer) and Al Hubbard (artist).

A short biography on Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard is included at the back of this volume.

Disney Masters Vol. 14: Follow the Fearless Leader is available in hardcover and Kindle\Comixology versions. A link to buy this book can be found at the end of this review.

The next four volumes in the Disney Masters series have already been announced and are available for preorder:

Disney Masters Vol. 15: Mickey Mouse: New Adventures of the Phantom Blot

Disney Masters Vol. 16: Donald Duck: Jumpin’ Jupiter

Disney Masters Vol. 17: Mickey Mouse: The Man from Alcatraz

Disney Masters Vol. 18: Uncle Scrooge: Pie in the Sky

Included Stories

There are 23 stories included in Disney Masters Vol. 14:

• The Health Nut
• Weaving and Ducking
• The Big Dig
• It’s Music?
• Haste Makes Waste
• The Case of the Purloined Pearls
• The Frontiersman
• Time to Duck
• The Blackboard Bungle
• Pop Goes the Art
• The Whopper Stopper
• It’s Magic
• Follow the Fearless Leader
• Must the Show Go On?
• Jumping Pup
• A Hutch Is Not a Home
• The Big Cabbage Field in the Sky
• The Heck Ship
• The Cat Caper
• Hot and Cold Running Ducks
• Put It On the Diners
• Ditch Day
• The Retriever

Fethry Duck’s very first comic appearance was in The Health Nut. Fethry comes over to Donald’s house to teach him a new healthy way of life that he is living thanks to a new health book that he is reading. Fethry wears a stocking cap on his head because the book that he is reading says that one’s head is healthier when it’s kept hot. The new healthy lifestyle is a little eccentric so Donald calls on Uncle Ludwig Von Drake to write a new book that makes food fun again.

Fethry has another book to obsess over in Weaving and Ducking, and this time he wants to make a winter coat for Donald with his new passion for weaving.

Scamp, the son of Lady and Tramp, buries a bone in The Big Dig.

Fethry’s latest obsession is Hoot-nonny Folk Music in It’s Music? Donald and Fethry end up coming up with a more pleasing sound they call Mutenanny.

Fethry spends the day with Donald to teach him the ways of saving time in Haste Makes Waste. Donald finds out that saving time costs a lot of money.

Secret Agent O.O. Duck is on The Case of the Purloined Pearls. Someone is stealing pearls from Scrooge’s oyster harvest and replacing them with fake pearls. Agent O.O. along with his assistant Mata Harrier and Donald travel to the North Forty to catch the thiefs and save Scrooge’s oyster crop of pearls.

Fethry and Donald plan a trip out west in The Frontiersman. Donald’s plan includes sunshine, swimming pools, and palm trees. Fethry‘s plan includes a horse and a stage coach.

Fethry tries to teach Donald the art of multitasking to save time in his day in Time to Duck.

Fethry creates Fethry’s School of Progressive Thinking in The Blackboard Bungle. He takes his school on a house trip to visit Donald’s house where the kids show him how progressive they can be.

Fethry goes to art school in Pop Goes the Art. His speciality is in pop art. He brings all of his avante garde art materials to perform his pop art and exhibit on wDonald’s lawn.

Scamp and a pigeon go on a search for a whopper of a bone in The Whopper Stopper.

Fethry becomes a party magician in It’s Magic. Donald can’t wait to see his disappearing act.

Fethry becomes an exercise regime officer in Follow the Fearless Leader. He challenges Donald go play a game of follow the leader through a challenging obstacle course.

Fethry’s new career is in the theater in Must the Show Go On? Except the theater is a tent setup next to Donald’s house.

Scamp is in a jumping over fences mood in Jumping Pup.

A tricky door to door salesman sells Fethry on an idea to be a rabbit rancher in A Hutch Is Not a Home. The rabbits soon take over Donald’s house.

Secret Agent O.O. Duck and his assistant Mata Harrier are on the case of stolen plants from the Duckburg Botanical Gardens in The Big Cabbage Field in the Sky. Donald Duck is hired to be an undercover agent working at the gardens.

Fethry takes Donald on the waters to Batalina in his newly acquired yacht in The Heck Ship.

Fethry believes that Donald’s cat, Tabby, is a rare and valuable Tasmanian Temple cat in The Cat Caper. Fethry offers maximum protection for the cat, but Tabby wants nothing to do with Fethry so he hides. Fethry is now on the case for the cat burglar.

Fethry is a not so expert rainmaker in Hot and Cold Running Ducks.

Fethry gets a job at a restaurant that Donald is having dinner in Put It On the Diners. Fethry is the waiter and the chef. What could possible go wrong?

Donald gets hired as a school bus driver in Ditch Day. The school kids take Donald on an unauthorized field trip.

Fethry recruits Donald’s cat, Tabby, to go duck hunting with him in The Retriever. The only thing that Fethry bags are some decoys.

Final Thoughts

Fethry fans…this is the Fantagraphics Disney Master volume that you have been dreaming of. I have been wanted to educate myself more about Fethry ever since his first animated appearance in DuckTales (2017) last year. This volume collects Fethry’s first story, The Health Nut, as well as more than handful of his first fad obsessions that he is learned from reading books. Fethry has a great following in other countries, but not so much in America where his origin stories were born. My favorite Fantagraphics volumes have always been the ones that include the first appearances of characters. Also in this volume, you will find a handful of Scamp and Agent O.O. Duck stories. All of the stories in this volume were entertaining as well as a great Disney comics history lesson into the character of Fethry Duck and the works of Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard.

I love the Disney Masters series because we get treated to stories and illustrations from other great Duck comic creators besides the legendary Barks and Rosa. We may have never had a chance to read these stories outside of Fantagraphics’ Disney Masters series.

I am definitely looking forward to reading future volumes of Fantagraphics’ Disney Masters series.

You can purchase Disney Masters Vol. 14 at the link below:

Disney Masters Vol. 14: Donald Duck: Follow the Fearless Leader

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