Bonus! Gyro One-Pagers!

The completist in me cannot bear to end the coverage of this issue without looking at the one-page gags included therein.  This includes a few rather obscure Barks-drawn pages, so c'mon--let's do this thing!

Here's the cover.  Obviously.  Not, I would say, one of Gyro's more inspired inventions; in order to actually keep flies away, it would have to be whirling around at really disruptive, helicopter-like speeds.  Otherwise, they're just not gonna care.  And why are Gyro and Helper stranded on a tiny island like that?  Well, maybe it's some sort of lake and they just waded out there, but it looks pretty cramped.  Finally, it will be noted that Helper is literally red-hot here, or else has a really tacky paint-job (not Barks' fault, obviously).

Not gonna lie: pretty insipid.  Not that very many of these one-pagers were ever great works of art or anything, but still…bah.  It does, however, remind me of that one Barks ten-pager where an evil scientist is sabotaging rocket launches with fake bugs made of explosives and then Donald saves the day.  That was a good story.  Maybe that dude's back, and this time he's out for Gyro.  Probably jealous of his genius, dontchaknow.

For my money, this simple Strobl-drawn thing is probably the best gag in the issue.  The mama eagle's surprise there is amusing to me.  What else can I say?  It's a good thing we see the actual eaglet escaping there--otherwise it would be kind of gruesome.  And sure, maybe it was just about to hatch when Gyro landed, so that's why it's fully formed.  And maybe it can already fly because…and it's not soaked in amniotic fluid because…okay, that's enough of that.  No need to be an asshole here.

"Oh no!  I've created the first ever sentient machine--but alas, it doesn't also have a built-in calculator!  I'm a horrible failure!"

Hey!  What's this madness?  You couldn't get it together enough to make sure that all the gags in the Gyro comic book were Gyro gags?  Not impressed, people.  A pretty standard-issue gag; at least Strobl's art is decent enough.

This reminds me very strongly of the one where Scrooge is constantly one-upping Donald about how awesome his new lawnmower is, and then it turns out--spoiler alert!--it's a sheep.  This one's significantly lamer, though.  And really, your car is so awesome and thought-out and futuristic, and yet a cup holder was just too much of a wild, fanciful notion for you?

I like this one too, because it shows a funny way that a standard Gearloose invention really would backfire, and in a way that wouldn't necessarily occur to us.  When you think about it, a lot of seemingly innocuous Gyro inventions would be terrifying in real life, and this underscore that fact.  Cheers to everyone involved.

Anyway, that's that nonsense taken care of.  In the near-future we may look at some other Gyro stories that people have been bandying about in comments.