Dell, Gold Key, and Dell Comics (PART I)

I am just starting to develop this blog entry on the fly, it concerns the comic book publisher (s) that may best be remembered by many "baby boomers", and one that may not.
The company, originally known as "Dell Comics", was related to the famous book publisher, Dell, and it's various imprints and subsidiaries.
The company was responsible for publishing some of the best-selling _ever_ comic book titles, including WALT DISNEY'S COMICS & STORIES and realted titles, such as MICKEY MOUSE, DONALD DUCK, and so on, all with the Disney name carefully atached to the opening, or "splash" pages of the stories, even though Walt Disney himself did not draw any of the stories.
The most famous cartoonist to work on the "Disney Dells" was known for years as "the good duck artist", and his name was Carl Barks. Mr. Barks passed away not very long ago (August 2000) at the age of nearly 100 years old, after a long career in both the animation and comic book business, and also a long additional career of painting fine works, in oil, of the Disney characters, after making a special arrangement with The Walt Disney Company.
Besides the Disney titles, Dell published comic books based on the LOONEY TUNES/MERRIE MELODIES stable of characters like BUGS BUNNY, PORKY PIG, and others. Dell also produced hundreds of pages of comic books devoted to the adaptation of movies and television programs and for many years was a much respected publisher of comic books, one that eschewed becoming a member of "The Comics Magazine Association Of America", an organization run by several comic book publishers as a self-policing effort when Senator Estes Kefauver and others mounted a Senate investigation into the world of comic books during the 1950's. Dell, instead, chose to use the motto "Dell Comics Are Good Comics", and print the "Dell Pledge To Parents", assuring Mom and Dad that their books maintained a high standard of wholesomeness and good reading, at least, in their own opinion.
to be continued...