Inducks

The International Network of Disney Universe Comic Knowers and Sources[2] (I.N.D.U.C.K.S.) or Inducks is a freely available database aiming to index all Disney Universe comics ever printed in the world. It is an international project[3] which provides indexes of around 130,000 Disney comic publications worldwide.[4] It is distributed with its own licence.[5]

I.N.D.U.C.K.S.
World-wide database about Disney comics
Type of site
Comics database
Available inDanish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.
Ownercollective
Created byHarry Fluks
URLInducks.org
Alexa rank 269,123 (As of 27 January 2019)[1]
Commercialno
Registrationoptional
Launched1994

Origin

Efforts to catalog Disney comic stories on a large scale date from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Among the most important works are an index of Disney comics published in Denmark,[6] a list of stories produced in Italy,[7] a list of American daily strips and Sunday pages,[8] an index of American Dell Disney comics[9] and a Carl Barks index.[10] All these lists include artists and writer credits that were previously unknown.

In August 1992, Per Starbäck (from Sweden) created the Disney Comics Mailing List.[11] Members soon contributed lists of Disney comics and gave references for printed indexes. In May 1994, expanding on information exchanged on the mailing list, Harry Fluks (from the Netherlands) created a database to organize comic indexes, and called it the Disney Comics Database.[12]

In 1999, a German member suggested the name Inducks as a cross between "index" and "duck" (for Donald Duck). It was playfully written I.N.D.U.C.K.S. to resemble acronyms seen in Junior Woodchucks comics.[13] Several meanings have been proposed, including "Internet Database for Uncle Walt's Comics and Stories", "International Network for Disney Universal Comic Knowledge and Sources",[14] up to 2008 when International Network of Disney-Universe Comic Knowers and Sources was selected.[2]

Over the years, a Web search interface was introduced, later replaced by a second search engine, COA,[2][15] in 2001.

Data details

The Inducks database lists publications, stories, characters and creators which are cross-referenced. Each story is given a unique "storycode"[16] so that reprints (often from all over the world) may be found for any story. A large number of Disney comics publications are indexed for the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and United States. Among countries with a significant Disney comics tradition, indexes for Mexico, United Kingdom and (ex-)Yugoslavia are still very incomplete.[17]

Inducks integrates previous studies and research works, with permission of the authors,[18] as well as its own research. Thanks to contacts with creators,[19] it provides credits to anonymous (or wrongly-credited) stories. In particular, most Disney comics were not given credits until the 1980s or 1990s. It also contains information about unpublished Disney comics stories.[20]

The main interface to Inducks is a search engine, browser and website abbreviated COA, which is daily updated based on Inducks data, and is available in thirteen languages. While COA uses Inducks data, it is not part of Inducks itself, but it enables users to navigate and search data which in its raw form consists of very user-unfriendly text files.[21] It has a few other features not part of Inducks, like a collection management system and an error tracker tool.[22]

Use as a source and in publications

Although parts of the database have been published in book form[23] and in specialized journals,[24] Inducks is most often used as a source by comic book historians in articles devoted to Disney comics.[25]

Inducks is also used by Disney editors around the world.[26] It is mentioned as a source by scholars[27] and is referenced in books about comics in general.[28] It has once been criticized for being a catalog of data rather than true (semantic) indexing work.[29]

Inducks sometimes gave talks and held meetings in comic-book fairs in Italy, such as in Lucca in 1997 with Don Rosa and Marco Rota[30] and in Reggio Emilia in 2007[31] and 2008.[32] In 2004, it won an Internet award from afNews, an association of Professional cartoonists in Italy.[33]

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References
  1. "Inducks.org Traffic, Demographics and Competitors - Alexa". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  2. Inducks lecture held at the 2008 DDF(R) summer meeting in Aalborg, Denmark, July 2008.
  3. As of January 2008, 26 contributors have provided more than 1,000 indexes, see the full list: The Inducks Disney Comics database: Indexers.
  4. As of July 30, 2011, see the statistics at Inducks.
  5. H. Fluks, F. Stajano, Inducks Licence Version 4B Archived 2011-07-09 at the Wayback Machine (a kind of permissive, "copyleft" "free" licence).
  6. Olsen, Martin (1979–1983), "Det Store Index", Carl Barks & Co. (13–15, 17–18), ISSN 0901-3555. (in Danish)
  7. Fossati, Franco (1982), "Disney made in Italy", IF 1 (2a serie) (in Italian).
  8. Becattini, Alberto; Boschi, Luca (1984), La produzione sindacata (1930–1980) (in Italian), Al Fumetto Club.
  9. Becattini, Alberto (1990), Disney Index, Comic Books - Vol. 1 & 2, Al Fumetto Club
  10. Barrier, Michael (1982), Carl Barks and the art of the comic-book, M. Lilien, ISBN 0-9607652-0-4 (published earlier in a shorter form in the fanzine Funnyworld in the 1970s).
  11. Commonly called the DCML.
  12. Interviews of H. Fluks in the fanzines Ankkalinnan Pamaus 2000-02 (in Finnish) (online English version Archived 2011-07-09 at the Wayback Machine), in DDF(R)appet 5, 2004 (in Danish) and on the Web site of the Danish Donaldist Society Archived 2011-05-27 at the Wayback Machine, 2005.
  13. The word Inducks is a combination of Index and Ducks. Brix Lichtenberg came up with this name as a replacement for the (more boring) name Disney comics Database. He intended it to be an abbreviation (I.N.D.U.C.K.S.) like the ranks in the Junior Woodchuck stories, but we haven't figured out yet what it is supposed to mean ... in Ankkalinnan Pamaus 2000-02 Archived 2011-07-09 at the Wayback Machine.
  14. From the Bolderbast Archived 2008-07-08 at the Wayback Machine, an Inducks website.
  15. A precise time-frame is as follows (from messages in the Disney comics mailing list): Disney comics indexes were exchanged as early as 1992, e.g., September 11; the first mention of the Disney comics database (DcD) is from April 18, 1994; its first public release is on May 25, 1994; the first mention of a web search program is from March 22, 1995; the first mention of Inducks is from February 9, 1999; the first mention of the COA search engine is from April 9, 2001.
  16. Details at Inducks Archived 2011-07-09 at the Wayback Machine.
  17. As of January 2008 - figures from Inducks.
  18. M. Barlotti, Da Fossati al'Inducks: il progetto I.N.D.U.C.K.S., Notiziario della Anonima Fumetti, 1999 (in Italian); a complete list is given at Inducks Archived 2011-07-09 at the Wayback Machine.
  19. The Brazilian "branch" of Inducks lists about 30 authors who provide information (in Portuguese); see also the biographical notice Archived 2011-10-02 at the Wayback Machine of comic writer Leonardo Gori (in Italian) or the "book work" Archived 2007-12-22 at the Wayback Machine of archivist and editor David Gerstein.
  20. As of January 2008, about 2,000 shelved stories are listed.
  21. Technical details at Inducks Archived 2011-07-11 at the Wayback Machine.
  22. Interview with the creator of COA, DDF(R)appet 10, 2007 (in Danish).
  23. A. Becattini, L. Gori, F. Stajano, H. Fluks, Don Rosa e il Rinascimento Disneyano, Comic Art, 1997 (in Italian); Giorgio Cavazzano Percorsi, Firenze: Edizioni II Penny, 2002 (in Italian); P. Castagno et al., Luciano Bottaro - Un "gioviale" omaggio (2006), Rodolfo Cimino - Dalla Tana del Bestio all'Angolo dei Salici (2007), Abramo e Giampaolo Barosso Fra logaritmi e fiordalisi (2008), Papersera (in Italian).
  24. Lapoussière, Tristan; Willot, François (2001), "Carl Barks: Bibliographie", Backup (in French) (8); Angot, Michel; Willot, François (2000) [1996], "Les belles histoires Walt Disney", Le collectionneur de bandes dessinées (in French) (81, 91).
  25. E.g. Stajano, Francesco (1999–2001), "Disney-serier i Italien", NAFS(k)uriren (in Swedish) (30–32), ISSN 0282-4493 (revised English version); F. De Salvia, La via Italiana a Topolino Archived 2008-06-26 at the Wayback Machine, Rivista di storia e storiografia 5, 2004 (in Italian); T. Lapoussière, Phil DeLara, bibliographie en France et aux États-Unis, Backup 12, 2002 (in French); F. Castanet, Romano Scarpa, Pimpf 13, 2006 (in French); Willot, François (1999), "Giovan Battista Carpi", Le collectionneur de bandes dessinées (in French) (89).
  26. See e.g. Mickey Mouse And Friends 287; Roope-setä 2006-02 (in Finnish); I Maestri Disney 20 (in Italian); interview with Sérgio Figueiredo, Abril's Disney editor (in Portuguese); the integral of Floyd Gottfredson published in by editor Glénat (in French).
  27. See e.g. D'Arcangelo, A, Zanettin, F (2004), "Dylan Dog Goes to the USA: a North-American Translation of an Italian Comic Book Series", International Journal of Comic Art, Akadémiai Kiadó, 5 (2): 187, doi:10.1556/Acr.5.2004.2.3CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link); Mahrt, N (2008), "A Comic Approach to Politics? Political Education via Comics", Journal of Social Science Education, 7/8 (2/1): 119
  28. J.-P. Gabilliet, Des comics et des hommes: Histoire culturelle des comic books aux Etats-Unis, 2005, ISBN 2-84274-309-1 (in French); H. Matla, Stripcatalogus (9th ed.), 1998 (in Dutch).
  29. S. Brügger, L. Peyraud, M. Schmid, Les images ne sont pas des mots, study presented to the Haute École de Gestion de Genève, 2002 (in French).
  30. Photos of the events at Inducks.
  31. News report from the fair administration, 2007 (in Italian).
  32. Videos and photographs on the Papersera website (in Italian).
  33. Link at fumetti.org (in Italian).
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