"All at Sea"

I feel guilty: I've been neglecting my flagship blog here. Granted, I've been kinda burning it up on the duck cartoons front, but this is the shit I REALLY care about. Let's kick it old-school with a little Barks, shall we? It's been a while. Every time I think "have I said all that can possibly be said?" I read a story and I think, huh, I have some things I want to say about this. So now: "All at Sea," from 1960. People often peg the late fifties and early sixties as Barks' weakest period, but I dunno. Sure, there may be some justifications for that, but there are also fun stories like this.

HOWL HOWL HOWL HOWL! O ARE YOU MEN OF STONES? HAD I YOUR TONGUE AND EYES, I'D USE THEM SO THAT HEAVEN'S VAULT SHOULD CRACK.

Yeah, let's be serious here. "Howler" does seem like a more rewarding job than money-polisher--more opportunity for creativity--but I also can see how it could get exhausting. Coin-polishing offers more opportunity to slack off.

Interesting stuff that I didn't think about reading this as a child: this "new nation of Tomali" is pretty clearly a response to the fact that this was around the time that African countries were breaking free of their colonial overlords. Interesting timing, actually: according to inducks, this was created on February 12, 1960 (I really want to know how they can possibly be that exact--is that the day Barks turned it in to the publisher?), and between then and its publication, in September, the floodgates really opened: a full thirteen countries achieved independence (according to this handy timeline). I assume we can credit that in large part to this very story's magical influence. I'm reading this guy in the CBL Library in Color volume, and there's an essay by Geoffrey Blum about how, with the way world cultures were changing, writing orientalist (THERE's a word Barks wouldn't have used) sorts of stories started to feel less appropriate to Barks, leading to what some might call a creative downspin, and definitely a tonal shift. This story side-steps the problem appropriately however, I think. Just don't spend too much time thinking about how exploitive these rubber tree sales might have been.

Donald also has a not-bad response there, I'll note.

I do like Donald-beaten-down-by-dumb-rich-uncle-problems.

Really, the story could take place anywhere; I'm sorry to say that it's fairly obvious that it's specifically Africa because of a perception of primitiveness: a European country would let you do these things remotely. This is certainly not a notably problematic story, but you can't help seeing these things seep in around the edges. If you're me, anyway.

Some smart Beagles there. I suppose with their constant string of failures to rob Scrooge, it's no surprise why other writers should depict them as incompetent, but...they're really not in Barks. Fairly consistently.

When you know the plot of the story, you really do see the pieces being put in place; I can't remember exactly, but I daresay even if it were your first time reading it, you would realize that things like the rats weren't exactly arbitrary. Maybe the obviousness seems a little artificial and puts this a step lower than Barks' all-time masterpieces? Well, maybe, but I still take a great deal of pleasure in seeing him working the levers, even knowing why he's doing it and where it's going.

You know, usually, these plays on real names in Barks don't do a lot for me. I mean, they're FINE, but they're just there. They don't move me in any way. Gotta admit, though: "Cootie Shark" cracks me up. That is all.

This MUST be an actual song that's being played on here. Someone tell me what it is!

You gotta wonder, though: first it was a research laboratory; now it's "the rat business?" I dunno. The former certainly seems more Woodchuck-esque, as long as we're not talking about any particularly gruesome experiments.

Also, Barks makes us spend A LOT of time in this story thinking about rats fucking.  Just saying.

A good example of the "terrible disguises effortlessly fool people" principle. I don't know about this business with the Beagles looting the entire town. Even though their REAL plan is to rob Scrooge? Hardest-working crooks in show business! I also don't know what to make of the Beagle jovially showing off the tied-up policeman. He doesn't seem, like, threatening about it or anything; it's just like, well, sorry, he's indisposed at the moment! I want to know how this interaction would've gone if they hadn't fled.

The question is: how are they robbing the town and simultaneously out on the ship? Is this evidence of the "international Beagles organization" thing that I'm not a huge fan of? Well, no, because the guy on shore is numbered 176-617, and later on you see that that same Beagle is involved in the shipboard robbery. I think what this is is a li'l continuity error.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Til you hae drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!

Anyway.

I very much enjoy the fact that the family is obviously just using this whole thing as an excuse to play dress-up (Dewey's sidelong irritated glance is fun too).  I'm sure I first learned of the existence of Nome, Alaska from this very comic, also. Why is Scrooge so full of rage about his "Mrs Cootley" costume?  Difficult to say.

I have another observation to make. In these panels, the guy's hair is just kind of an indifferent brown blob. But in the CBL album, he's blond, so you can see the original art better (although you can here too if you look closely enough): his hair's kind of natty. Given that this IS Africa, did Barks, in fact, envision him as a black person? I kind of think he did! But, as far as I've seen, no colorist has ever cooperated with him on this. Unfortunate.  I fear that colorists perhaps implicitly assume that if they're not racist caricatures, they can't be black.  We all know that Barks' record in that regard is somewhat spotty, but I think he did fine here.

I will say that in the CBL album, that little girl is unambiguously black, as opposed to...not. Good touch.

Beer comes in cans; it also comes in bottles. Soup comes in cans, but...not bottles. Where's my bottle of soup? I feel cheated. Well, I see that they DO exist, in a trendy way, but honestly, they don't look that appealing. So what am I complaining about? I just like complaining, apparently.

Gotta give the Beagles credit: when they can't find the gold, they don't try to take revenge or anything; they just basically admit defeat and leave. It's only sporting.

It is an oddity of Barks: this tendency to have characters address each other by name for no reason. Donald's line there is especially odd. It also looks like he's rubbing it in by explaining what exactly the Beagles are doing...which was probably already fairly apparent!

Well, hooray for that. I guess we just have to hope that the Beagles don't notice that they've been had until they're well out of range? Well, the story's over and they don't have the gold; therefore, they lose!

I would be remiss if I didn't note that this story is the subject of a vanishingly rare bit of inter-story continuity from Barks. "The Status Seekers:"

Whee!

Anyway, that's all. Fun story. I like it. Man, I'm as bad at ending blog entries as Barks was at ending stories. Well...bye!