Don Rosa - Lo$, The King of the Klondike - Page 1

The opening page for an iconic story: Don Rosa's The King of the Klondike. This is certainly one of my favorite comic stories of all time and the one that I've read and studied the most. I can't think of any other story of which I'd rather own the first page. I never thought I could afford this page at the auction, but when I felt it was going for well below its value I placed a bid - and won!

The first panel displays my favorite introductory set-up to the stories in The Life and Times of Scrooge; the bowl for panning gold, the map of the Klondike, and the pictures of Scrooge's claim and Goldie perfectly encapsulate the feel of the story. The drawing of Goldie here especially shows Don Rosa's ability to convey subtle emotions with amazingly deliberate linework. I hope my close-up images of Goldie and Scrooge here can convey some of the quality of this work.

I've always had an idealized vision of Alaska as a place of stunning natural beauty and adventure, perhaps from reading works like Jack London's Call of the Wild. This page captures this promise of adventure to me. Also traveling the world for free by working on a cargo ship is a classic adventure fantasy that I've shared.

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The original lettering has been printed on a piece of clear 1 mm polystyrene plastic with the speech bubbles thus "floating" 2 mm on top of the page. Todd Klein always lettered Don Rosa's art on vellum overlays so the OA is without lettering. I experimented with several techniques and overlay materials to reach the best optical and protective result. There is, for example, an extra sheet of 99% UV-protective conservation glass layered on top of the plastic. I'm not sure if this method of displaying original comic art with "floating speech bubbles" has been used before so I may have been a pioneer in this endeavor. Feel free to ask me for more detailed information. :)