"The Not-So-Ancient Mariner"

HA! You didn't EXPECT a story that has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Halloween, DID YOU?!? Well...my excuse is that "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is kinda spooky. I know some people don't think ghost pirates are really Halloweeny enough, but surely we can all agree that the Pogues' "Turkish Song of the Damned" is the best Halloween song of all? C'mon.

I feel like this story is kind of obscure, which is perhaps surprising given that it's Barks' final ten-pager. You could really feel him fading: he drew a Lockman-penned story, "Monkey Business," for WDC 297 (November 1964); then he took a hiatus from ten-pagers until he was somehow coaxed back for the quite unpleasant (albeit intentionally so) "Beauty Business" for WDC 308 (May 1966), which he followed up after a few more months off with this, in October. Well...you certainly wouldn't expect it to be exactly a career high, but as send-offs go, it could be a lot worse. Whaddaya wanna bet the whole thing was inspired by him somehow hearing about the Coleridge poem and deciding to just sort of free-associate in the idea of shooting albatrosses? Not entirely different from the way "The Twelve Days of Christmas" inspired "The Thrifty Spendthrift." Note that, like "The Beauty Business" and other, non-Barks, ten-pagers of the time, this is credited as a "Donald and Daisy" story. This was due to a mandate from the top, I think, to try to appeal to a female audience. Certainly, you'd think this one would be more effective in that regard than the last, though Daisy remains very much a secondary character here.

If there's one thing this story's notable for, it's Daisy's bewildering array of outfits and, more noticeably, hairstyles. Difficult to say if some editor suggested this to Barks ('cause, you know, girls like playing dress-up) or if he was just amusing himself, but either way, it amuses me, at any rate.  Certainly a lot more appealing than her grotesque metamorphosis in "The Beauty Business."  This groovy-chick one is probably my favorite.

We'd also see Daisy with unusual hair in "Hall of the Mermaid Queen," but if it's Gladstone's rather incredible beatnik mane you're looking for, this story is the only game in town. Surely this, at least, is Barks' own idea--we all know that his interpretations of the counterculture of the time tended to be idiosyncratic.

Well, Donald driving himself mad memorizing poems (or "poem") is definitely a thing. Hey, it's amusing enough, but it's also pretty obvious how seriously Barks was taking this whole endeavor. I hadn't thought about it, but surely the word "God" as referring to a specifically Christian God, even as part of a quotation, is unusual in Disney comics, or at least American ones? Yeah, you see the word itself aplenty in "Mythtic Mystery," and I imagine--though examples don't come immediately to mind--that you can find comics where the Superstitious Natives talk about the gods being angry and stuff, but this? Is there anything else like it? Someone get on it.

Yes, that checks out. Barks and Donald are accurately quoting Coleridge. Good for them!

Daisy's second hairstyle. I'm amused by the utter contempt with which the crew treats Donald and his horrible ticket. That...doesn't seem like a good way to attract business, even if they didn't have Yelp reviews back then.

And WHOA, it's...Aunt who now? Yup, Aunt Drusilla, who only gets two images and one line. She doesn't really stand out in any way, but it somehow always seems memorable when Barks uses these distinct, one-shot characters. Right, so it's pretty obvious that when HDL refer to her as "Aunt Daisy," they're really just using a term of affection, not implying an actual biological relationship. Nonetheless, if we wanted to take things way the hell too seriously (more seriously even than Rosa did in his family tree), and wanted her to be their actual aunt while at the same time not biologically related to Donald, she has to be their father's sister. So then Drusilla would have to be their father's father's or mother's sister. Or, I suppose, a hypothetical brother's wife. Likely widow by this point. I...don't know why I said that, or what anyone would possibly do with that information. But it's out there! People are raising questions!

I must say: a world where people are routinely rewarded "for being sharp at poetry" is a world I'd like to live in.

This is like points I've raised before about late Barks and postmodernity, but I think it's relevant here: we see that Donald was operating entirely under an illusion: neither Daisy nor Gladstone actually won a contest to get these tickets. All that is solid, and that. Donald's foundations are entirely shifted. Hmmm...that might be more modern than postmodern. But now I'm just babbling to myself about things no one cares about. THIS BLOG POST IS NOT AN ACADEMIC PAPER. But maybe it should be.

Seriously, Donald got a ticket for free, but how do they actually SELL tickets when the main selling point is "you chumps are WORTHLESS GARBAGE! Into the hold with you!"

Third hairstyle. Nice shades. Question: is "Fatsonia" some kind of play on something? If so, what?

Fourth hairstyle! And fifth, if you want to count the wig as a "hairstyle," and indeed why wouldn't you. I like Daisy here; sure, you'd think she might've helped Donald out earlier, but at least here she's helping Donald and putting Gladstone in his place. But what in God's name is a "Go-Go Howler?" Does it have something to do with this? That's pretty darned strange even for late-you, Barks.

Yeah, there's this whole silly thing with the albatross. Gotta remember where we are, I guess.

Hairstyle five or six, depending how you count, which could conceivably just be hairstyle three but without the glasses, but it looks different to me. Note that this is another example--a last example, I suppose--of Barks sort of fudging the "luck" thing so Donald can win out over Gladstone. Is there any reason why his luck wouldn't've accounted for this turn of events, resulting in Gladstone's victory anyway? None but narrative convenience. Still, nobody would be able to tolerate Gladstone if he didn't frequently lose, so this is all right. I like the fact that Donald goes out on a high note in Barks final ten-pager. Happy Halloween.