Violence!

You heard me: VIOLENCE!

Anyway, here's a page from a story that I feel is unlikely to be approved for US publication (as translated by yours truly):

That's from a Scarpa story, "Mickey and the Coral Kangaroo."  To be fair, it's not just violence for its own sake; the idea is that Minnie is getting increasingly annoyed with Mickey's two-fisted exploits, which kicks off the action.  Also, note that in spite of everything, Scarpa is careful to clarify that no one was hurt in the explosion.  STILL, it is what it is!

"Want to Buy an Island?"

When I wrote about the story entitled "Why All the Crabby Ducks?" I completely forgot that we already had a much better-known story with a question for a title. From 1960, it's "Want to Buy an Island?!" A less-funny one, granted, but still! Do you want to buy an island? Do you want to build a snowman? Do you want to be a spaceman? These are all valid questions.

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"In the Footsteps of Jules Verne"

Ben Verhagen! A Dutch artist who drew a number of stories in the eighties and nineties--and who maybe, possibly, is still active, though certainly not very active. He's never been very prolific, but he's overrepresented in US comics since someone at Gladstone I decided, whoa, getta loada this guy! and started publishing all his stuff they could get their hands on. This month's WDC happens to feature a Verhagen-drawn short, which made me think I should spotlight one of his stories. Not the newly-printed one; it's fine, but it's short and I don't have much to say about it. We could look at "The Last Voyage of Ringtail Van Dukke," often regarded (by me too, probably) as his best story, but, while we may get to that someday, for now, instead, we are going to examine "In the Footsteps of Jules Verne." We have our reasons! It's a long (thirty-nine pages!) story written by Jan Kruse, who seems to have written most things.

Is it obvious what I'm going to complain about here? Seriously, are you thinking "come on, I KNOW what's after the jump, just get it over with?" I am genuinely curious about whether other people notice the same thing I do about Verhagen's art, so let me know in comments if it is.

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