Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #729 review

Our 4 year old absolutely loves Mickey Mouse. It’s his go-to streaming programming on Roku and that’s with only having a handful of Christmas or Halloween episodes. Thus, Mickey is his comic of choice, even though he can’t read yet. In 2015 IDW Publishing relaunched a variety of Walt Disney titles including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. The later was kept at its previous numerical sequencing to pay homage to the decades of work that went into the title.

Knowing all of that, we took our 4 year old to the comic book store to pick up a comic book. The first challenge was to get him through the entry way where all of the pins, trading cards, sodas and candy are located. We’ve gotten pretty good at having a ‘carrot’ at the end of the visit, being that it’s around Easter we had a Peep for him in the car if he listened to us during our trip.

Once in front of the new comic books this week I steered him over to the all age books. He immediately gravitated to Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney Comics and Stories. The difference between those two comics is that the former is all Mickey Mouse while the later has a couple of stories between Mickey, Donald or other classic Disney characters.

With a little prompting he chose Walt Disney Comics and Stories #729. This issue has the ninth chapter of The Search for the Zodiac Stone, an ongoing story that stars Mickey and Minnie. The comic also has a one page story with some Disney-esque looking duck who is a friend of Donald’s and a 10 page story with Donald about his date with Daisy.

All of these stories were originally printed elsewhere. In these cases they were published in Italy (1990), Norway (2011) and the Netherlands (2002).  Their appearance in this comic is their first time in the USA. It’s our first time seeing them and they’re great fun. Does it matter that it was written more than 25 years ago? No. There aren’t any pop culture or technology references in the comic that make it seem weird, dated or something that a young reader wouldn’t want to spend some time with.

The main story has Mickey looking for the ninth pendant in The Zodiac Pendant. There are some sight gags with Pluto, chases with other spies, cases of mistaken identity and more light all age fare that anyone will enjoy. The vocabulary is on par for an upper elementary or middle school student to understand all of it. His kindergarten age brother can read most of the dialogue and understand what’s going on with the help of the art.

Five minutes into our car ride home I heard him rip something. My inner comic geek internally yelled “IT IS NOT IN MINT CONDITION NOW”. I refrained from saying anything that would deter his enthusiasm about the comic. ‘Try not to rip the pages’, I casually said. “OK, I will, sorry about that”, he said. The rest of our 20 minute trip continued with him looking at the pictures and laughing. That night we read it him and he sat still, for the most part, until it was over.

If you’re an older reader getting this comic it’s packed at 40 pages of story on great quality paper; that will still rip if you’re 4 and thumbing through it in the car. The cover for the comic book has Donald being unlucky while his better looking half is catching money from the sky. This issue is mostly Mickey and that’s OK. Come for Donald slipping on a banana and stay for the timeless Mickey story with a side order of Donald.