A Duck’s Life
The legacy of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck
Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes, but in the case of Donald Duck the opposite is true: the candor with which Donald reveals his weaknesses wins our hearts and stays with us forever.
Revisit Donald’s life’s work from nine decades in one of the most expansive illustrated publications on the Disney universe. Following Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History by TASCHEN, we witness the career of Mickey’s only rival for the throne as Disney’s most popular creation. From his debut in the Silly Symphony short film The Wise Little Hen on June 9, 1934, the authors trace Donald’s more than 170 cartoons, groundbreaking adventures in comics and TV, and theme park appearances. As a special treat to his fans, they also dive deep into the vaults to tell the story of his unfinished film projects.
With unprecedented access to Disney’s vast historical archives and collections as well as public and private collections, the authors illuminate Donald’s life story with rare concept art, story sketches, background paintings, animation, and comic drawings as well as historical photographs. We encounter the work of all major Donald artists in both film and comics who defined his character, including a vast tribute to the “Duck Man” himself, master storyteller Carl Barks, alongside unseen early storyboard drawings.
In the history of comics, Donald Duck is the most frequently printed figure outside the superhero genre, and has appeared on screen more often than any other Disney character. Since the 1950s, Duckburg has expanded into a truly global village, with American artists being joined by a new generation of international colleagues.
As Carl Barks once said of Donald: “He is everything, he is everybody; he makes the same mistakes that we all make.” He may often be unlucky, but this is precisely why everybody can relate to the world’s most famous and best loved Duck, fittingly celebrated with this monumental tribute.
Copyright © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
The editor
Daniel Kothenschulte is an author, curator, and lecturer on film and art history, and a lover of animation since he first saw The Jungle Book at the age of three. As a film journalist, he is responsible for the film section in the German national daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau. He has taught at various universities. He is the author of numerous books, including The Walt Disney Film Archives and Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse.
The authors
David Gerstein is an independent animation and comics historian, writer, and editor working extensively with The Walt Disney Company and its licensees. His published work includes Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Don Rosa Library and the Floyd Gottfredson Library of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Gerstein has worked in efforts to locate lost Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Laugh-O-gram shorts and to preserve the Mickey Mouse newspaper strip.
J. B. Kaufman is an author and film historian who has published and lectured extensively on Disney animation and American silent film history. His books include The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, South of the Border with Disney, and Pinocchio: The Making of the Disney Epic. Together with Russell Merritt he published the award-winning Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney.
