Fan favorite Mark Dos Santos looks at life in Gotham City from Norman Rockwell’s point of view. Santos tips his hat to artist Rockwell who captured American life on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post for five decades. For more information on Santos and his other creations, click here.

 

A 2006 one-shot, The Bakers Meet Jingle Belle is another romp through a Paul Dini-demented Christmas season.

Santa Dad hijacks Jingle for another Christmas Eve spin. As usual his pixie-offspring is less than enthusiastic about the annual around-the-world romp. During one stop Jingle makes a break for it and finds herself mistaken for a last-minute nanny for the night.

To prove she’s really Santa’s daughter, Jingle steals Santa’s sleigh and takes the tykes to the North Pole. There they revel in the magic that is Christmas while their parents fight last-minute shoppers at the mall.

By book’s end the mood is mellow as seasonal magic sooths fraying nerves and flaring tempers.

Jingle first appeared in 1999 for Oni Press in “Sanity Clauses.” The short story led to a two-issue mini entitled “Miserable on 34th Street”/“Santa’s Little Hellion.”

Dini’s creation has bounced from distributor to distributor, most recently landing with IDW. The company released a collection entitled Jingle Belle: The Whole Package! and a one-shot for the 2018 Christmas season, Jingle Belle: The Homemades’ Tale.

It being November 1st, let’s start with a first. Also known as Donald Duck issue seven, Four Color Comics 178 has the distinction of hosting the first appearance of Uncle Scrooge McDuck.

Donald Duck and the nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louis; are dreading Christmas. None have the finances for food or festivities. Donald’s wealthy Uncle Scrooge could change that – if he wasn’t such as skinflint.

As fate – and writer/creator Carl Barks – would have it, Scrooge is whiling his time away thinking up a way to trick his nephew. He decides on inviting Donald and the boys to his cabin on Bear Mountain, hence the story title “Christmas on Bear Mountain.”

Scrooge wishes to humiliate his nephew. To do so he buys a bear suit which Scrooge plans to don at the appropriate moment and scare Donald.

In the meantime, Donald and the nephews take the bait and arrive at the cabin. The only thing they lack for a true holiday is a Christmas tree. Pines are scarce so they chop down a hollow oak and drag it back.

Unbeknownst to them a bear cub is hibernating in the tree. The warmth of the cabin wakes the cub and he begins foraging for food. The mother, still in the stump, awakes and follows the web prints to the cabin.

Scrooge arrives to find an idyllic scene where Donald has fainted on the mama bear who is snoozing by the warm fire. The nephews are content to play with the cub and all is well.

Scrooge has the group formerly celebrate Christmas at his mansion where Donald is rewarded for his seeming bravery.

Barks packs a lot into 36 pages for the December 1947 comic book.