Fethry Duck
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| Fethry Duck | |
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| First appearance | Topolino #453 (Italian Disney comic book) The Health Nut, 1964 |
| Created by | Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard |
| Aliases | The Red Bat |
| Fethry Duck is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney's comic book stories. He was created by Dick Kinney and Al Hubbard and was first used in the story "The Health Nut", published on August 2, 1964. The early Fethry comics were created for the Disney Studio Program for publication outside of the United States. An exception to this are three stories with Fethry drawn by Tony Strobl that appeared in Gold Key Comics published in 1966 (Donald Duck #105 and #106 plus Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #304). Also some of the Fethry Studio Program stories were reprinted in the Wonderful World of Disney giveaway magazine published in 1969-1970 for Gulf Oil. Since the mid-1970s, Fethry has mostly appeared in European- and Brazilian-produced stories. |
In Brazilian and Italian stories, Fethry is a major character depicted in various occupations, including as a reporter (alongside his cousin Donald Duck and, sometimes, Daisy Duck) and comic strip artist for Scrooge McDuck's newspaper. Fethry has also gained a superheroic alter ego, The Red Bat (parody of Batman, like Donald's Paperinik), and a number of supporting characters, among them his nephew Dugan Duck.
Fethry often tries to pursue various new hobbies and lifestyles based on books he reads. He is quite a blunderer, however, so his new hobbies tend to cause chaos for his friends and family. In some Italian-produced comics, he is also noted for his great laziness, with his habit of sleeping at work becoming a running gag (notably, laziness is quite out of character for Dick Kinney's original, more active version of the duck).
With Donald, Fethry is a member of the Tamers of Nonhuman Threats, a special super-secret organisation fighting hostile paranormal creatures of all sorts to protect the earth. These stories are all produced by Danish creative house Egmont Creative A/S and drawn by Flemming Andersen. They are published in pocketbooks.
Fethry also works, again together with Donald, for Scrooge McDuck's secret organisation, originally (in Italian) called the P.I.A.
In earlier times, Egmont used Fethry very seldom; from the late 1990s, however, Egmont decided to bring back the character and create a whole range of new stories around him, this time based on the original 1960s concept of the character.
Donald has often teamed up with Fethry to do all sort of jobs for Scrooge (usually with disastrous results), with Donald being the "straight man" and Fethry the "funny man". These terms are rather loosely applied, however, insofar as Donald's reactions to Fethry, and attempts to neutralize him, are often every bit as funny as Fethry's doings.
According to a version of Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree, Fethry is the son of Eider Duck and Lulubelle Loon, the cousin of Donald Duck, and has a brother named Abner Duck. However, since Fethry was not a Carl Barks character, and had never been used in any Barks stories, Rosa does not consider Fethry part of the Duck family. Be that as it may, due to editorial pressure stemming from the character's popularity in Europe, Rosa included him in the tree anyway—reluctantly, and only in select variations. [1]
Recently (2003-present), Fethry's modern Egmont and 1960s Kinney/Hubbard stories are being published in Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.
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