"Why All the Crabby Ducks?"

WHY?!? TELL ME!! I REALLY WANT TO KNOW!!!

It's really one of the great questions of our time, right up there with "Is there life on Mars?" "Is she really going out with him?" and "What in the world can make a brown-eyed girl turn blue?"

Yes okay, so obviously, I'm only writing about it because of that title. Yup, it's a real story.

If you look on inducks, you'll notice that most of the foreign translations do not maintain the title's question form, which really seems to be missing the mark. I mean really, isn't the title the main reason anyone's gonna be attracted to this in the first place? Take it away and what do you even have? Well, let's see.

The initial indications are not good: this is a story written by Vic Lockman in 1971, certainly not a great time for Lockman in particular or Western-published comics in general (attentive readers will recall that several years previous, Lockman had written fan-favorite "Bird-Bothered Hero"). It's drawn by some dude named Mike Arens, which I must admit is a new one on me. Seems he was a pretty prolific Disney artist, actually, but he mostly worked on Scamp stories. This is one of only two DD stories he did. That may not seem terribly promising either.

The hell of it is, though, it's actually not a bad little story, even apart from the naming. Trawling through old Western comics to try to find worthwhile stories--especially ones of this particular vintage--is pretty rough going, because GOOD GOLLY, PEOPLE, when they're bad--as they overwhelmingly are--reading through them really sucks away your will to live. So when one is actually passable, it really stands out. And to think, I probably wouldn't have even bothered with it had it a more prosaic title.

So here's the deal. I'm...pretty sure they're crabby because of the traffic problems. That's what the evidence would suggest, anyway. But is there more to it?!?

I'm surprised to find myself saying it, but there's actually some pretty snappy dialogue from Lockman. His characteristic style is in full effect here, which is always a bit chancy, but in this case I find it's more hit than miss. I even kind of like Arens' art. Yes, obviously, his characters can look a bit wonky, but to my eyes, it doesn't look crude, and there's an energy to it that you don't find in the likes of Kay Wright.

I don't know; Donald getting outraged about this stuff is funny, and seeing him bouncing up and down on his car like that is funnier.

"Those kids take an abnormal view of everything! I just wanted to quote that line.  If there's meant to be some kind of philosophical message here about people taking advantage of human suffering, it sure isn't well developed.

Wait, the park what? What happened? So forget about that other stuff; this is why I like this story. Quickly granting the traditional racism and wholly unacknowledged colonialism here, this is so surreal as to be quite delightful. You can imagine this in a Pynchon novel or something.

(Incidentally, ever read "The Indian Uprising" by Donald Barthelme? One of his better known stories I think; it's pretty great and I recommend it. It doesn't have much to do with anything, but this vaguely reminded me of that.)

...and it continues to be like this.  Built on sand lolwut?

Mind you, it all becomes--to my mind--significantly less interesting when it turns out this is all due to some dude's incompetence, not just general Duckburg weirdness. But yeah! Let's find this guy and beat him up! That'll solve our problems!

The statue did what? Yup, that takes a pretty incompetent sculptor, there's no denying! I love it.

DOGGONE THAT DUDLY [sic] DUCK! Speaking of Brazilian weirdness, you will be interested to note that the character went on to appear in a couple of additional stories down there. Anyone who repurposes massively obscure old Western characters like that is okay in my book!

BLAST DUDLY DUCK! Honestly, this entry could just consist of me hollering dialogue that makes me laugh. THAT AWFUL ROGUE! Who knows what the deal is with the little blue top hat duck there.

Anyway, now everyone hates Donald, 'cause it turns out they're related. As why wouldn't they.  I can't help noting with some dismay that "No duck is a good duck" is pretty clearly a repurposed, g-rated version of "the only good Indian is a dead Indian."  Gah.

What, you may incidentally ask, is "jog tunnel?"

Well, it's a major reason why all the ducks are crabby, is what it is. It's kind of interesting: as far as I'm able to determine, the word "jog" has never, ever been used elsewhere for the purpose Lockman's trying to use it for. I feel like he just took a word that "felt" as though it meant what he wanted it to mean and just shoved it into his story hoping that would somehow come through.  I mean, you could say "oh, that's just the tunnel's name: "Jog Tunnel," but as you can see Donald refers to it specifically as though a "jog" is a thing that ordinary humans should know about.

...and yet, he must have been aware on some level that it doesn't, really; that nobody would know what the hell he was talking about, because later on he included this helpful diagram. Very odd.

(UPDATE: Okay, I think I'm wrong about this.  But it IS a pretty darned esoteric sense of the word!)

WELL ANYWAY, it all comes down to this not-massively-compelling bit where Dudly [sic--seriously, does ANYONE spell it without an E?] has this invention that's gonna save the Duck family's good name.

CAN HE DO IT?!? THE SUSPENSE ARGH!

Yes he can, BUT WAIT COMICAL UNEXPECTED SIDE EFFECT. And that, teman teman saya, is that. I hope you now have a clear idea of why all the crabby ducks, and why, it appears, they will remain crabby into the foreseeable future.

It's not a lost classic or anything, but it wins me over. I will endeavor to bring you more obscure Western things like this in the future.