The Happiest Place on Earth

The Happiest Place on Earth

 

Original Vintage Art & Text

Pencils by William Tewkesbury from the story “Private Affair” in All True Romance #19, 1954. Publlished by Comic Media. Curious to see more? Click the link to read the entire vintage comic book.

↓ Transcript
BUSTY WOMAN (with lots of cleavage): You need to visit “the Happiest Place on Earth!”

MAN: Disneyland?

BUSTY WOMAN (with lots of cleavage): No, my bedroom!

1954 Art: William Tewkesbury
Color: Diego Jourdan Pereira
Happiness Expert: John Lustig

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Cruella de Sheena

Cruella de Sheena

I’d love to add a laugh track to this consisting entirely of hyenas guffaws. Hyenas love a good joke—or even a mediocre one.

Art by Joe Doolin from the cover of Jumbo 105 (Fiction House), Nov. 1947.

 

 

Transcript:

SCENE: Wearing a skimpy, leopard skin outfit, Sheena battles what appears to be a native woman who is either a priestess or chieftess. The native woman—who like Sheena—wears a skimpy outfit. She’s holding a spear that Sheena is trying to wrest away from here. Meanwhile a pack of angry and apparently hungry hyenas are rush towards a man who is tied to a stake in the background.

NATIVE WOMAN: You can’t stop me…or my hyenas, Sheena!

SHEENA: I don’t want to stop them! I want to wear them!

CAPTION: Watch for Sheena in Disney’s new, laugh-filled masterpiece:101 Hyenas

1947 Pencils: Joe Doolin
Restoration & New Dialogue: John Lustig ©2020 Last Kiss Inc

ART: Jumbo 105 Cover

↓ Transcript
SCENE: Wearing a skimpy, leopard skin outfit, Sheena battles what appears to be a native woman who is either a priestess or chieftess. The native woman---who like Sheena---wears a skimpy outfit. She's holding a spear that Sheena is trying to wrest away from here. Meanwhile a pack of angry and apparently hungry hyenas are rush towards a man who is tied to a stake in the background.

NATIVE WOMAN: You can’t stop me…or my hyenas, Sheena!

SHEENA: I don’t want to stop them! I want to wear them!

CAPTION: Watch for Sheena in Disney’s new, laugh-filled masterpiece:101 Hyenas

1947 Pencils: Joe Doolin
Restoration & New Dialogue: John Lustig ©2020 Last Kiss Inc

ART: Jumbo 105 Cover

My Life as a Duck Brain

 

“Seafood Blues” from Donald Duck #268, 1988. Art by William Van Horn. Script by John Lustig & William Van Horn. ©Walt Disney Company

 

Although I concentrate on Last Kiss these days, I spent decades writing Disney comics—mostly Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories. For Disney, I started out doing one-page gags, then graduated to two-page stories and then finally stories that ranged from 10 to 28 pages.
The one-pager pictured here is one of my first and is from 1988: “Seafood Blues.”

 

The art is by my pal—the great William Van Horn. Bill—who was already established as a Disney artist and writer—provided me with invaluable advice and help on this script. We teamed up on many stories over the years and remain close friends.

 

 

A “New” Carl Bark Story Completed by John Lustig

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Given all the strange and salty Last Kiss comics I write, you wouldn’t think I’d also be writing Donald Duck & Uncle Scrooge comics for Disney. But, you’d be wrong.

This Wednesday (Oct. 28, 2015), “The Duck Who Came to Dinner” in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #724 hits comic shops. What makes this really special is that it was a story started decades ago by Disney legend and one of my personal heroes Carl Barks. Carl scripted seven and a half pages of what I presume was supposed to be a 10-page Donald Duck story. But he never completed it.

Segment of the first two panels of Carl Barks's handwritten script for "The Duck Who Came to Dinner."

Segment of the first two panels of Carl Barks’s handwritten script for “The Duck Who Came to Dinner.”

My editor at Egmont (Disney’s main Northern Europe comic licensee) gave me the go-ahead to finish the script—as well as several other stories that Carl either started or left notes for. Some have been printed in Europe. But this is the first to appear in America. And it’s the story that Carl came the closest to finishing.

I’m happy to say that artist Daan Jippes—who’s a Disney legend himself!—was my artist on “The Duck Who Came to Dinner.”

I think Carl would’ve liked how it came out. But, ultimately, it’ll be up to readers to decide. So check it out—if you can find a copy.

“Turkey Trouble” from Carl Barks

©The Walt Disney Company

 

This has nothing to do with Last Kiss, but here’s a great scene from a Thanksgiving-themed Donald Duck story written and drawn by the great Carl Barks. Original publication in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #75, 1946. ©The Walt Disney Company.