And now, a Post-Connell Palate-Cleanser. Just for kicks, let's look at some one-page things found in Christmas Parades. Why not? Why not indeed?
BOY, I always found these text stories
with pictures representing sounds annoying back in the day. Were the
pictures supposed to make it more fun? They really, really didn't,
and it's not like the stories themselves generally made up for it.
Right, for your convenience, here's a decoded version of this one:
One day Donald and his nephews
went for a tramp in the woods! They took their cameras hoping to get
some pictures of the wild foxrabbits! They tramped far, but no one
saw any foxrabbits! By then it had grown late and Donald and the
boys were very tired! It was so still that they all spoke softly in
whispers! It was very spirits of the damnedy!
All at once, they heard something
moving! They were so startled that their feathers stood on end!
When they saw a dark shape, they ran! But before they did, one of
the nephews took a picture! Then they fled...
But soon they heard footsteps behind
them! They ran faster, but the footsteps followed! Then they heard
something that made them stop and laugh! It was a bark...and who
should it be but Pluto who had been out hunting rabbits in the woods!
So the only pictures they took that day was one of Pluto...and he
wasn't wild at all!
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? I've gotta
say, "tramp" seems like a reeeeeal reach here. Who the
hell describes a hike as a tramp? Really, now. Also, I want you to
picture Pluto slaughtering Thumper. Or at least, this story
wants you to. YOU CAN'T DO IT. Why would you bring that up, writer?
CRIKEY.
You say I'll "know what it's all
about" when I connect the dots, but I'm still pretty clueless.
I mean, I get that Goofy dumped Mickey and Pluto in a hole,
presumably out of incompetence, but why were they in the back of a
dump truck in the first place? This raises a lot more questions than
it answers. Also, this is the first in a long line of pages that
really seem to have nothing to do with Christmas.
No...I don't get it either. They
bought Donald handcuffs because...? And once he opened the package,
they apparently automatically locked onto him...? I could make some
risqué comments here, probably about his relationship with Daisy,
but I'll just leave it at that. Pretty damn weird.
And now, THIS. I've got to say,
Western's efforts at providing helpful homemade gift ideas are even
worse than most of their comics. However, I'm including this here
because I can't help but find the utter feebleness of "make a
calendar by putting a picture on a calendar!" actually sort of
endearing.
Gotta say...that is one of the worst
drawings of Mickey I've ever seen (inducks is mercifully silent as to
the artist). They may enjoy telling fortunes so much, but I
sincerely doubt I will too. Several observations:
1. These fortunes seem awfully fixated on their child readers' love lives. And also apparently think these same children are likely to be targets of lawsuits.
1. These fortunes seem awfully fixated on their child readers' love lives. And also apparently think these same children are likely to be targets of lawsuits.
2. "Bad news, usually within
twenty-four hours." Thanks for that probable time-frame, guys.
Gives us us time to prepare, while also not absolutely
committing to anything.
3. How ominous is that passive-voice "A
debt will be paid?"
4. Okay, the "gift of clothing"
one is fairly banal, if surprisingly specific. But "beware of a
blond rival?" Wut. How about: "beware of being stabbed by
the assassin your hunchback jester father hired to murder the
feckless duke who seduced and abandoned you." That seems good.
Oh, Huey Dewey and Louie, you hopeless dimwits, not knowing common alternate meanings of common words. Or,
for that matter, how Christmas trees generally work. You're just the
worst.
Is their secret hiding place just the
garage? Hmm. The chain of reasoning here is also a bit hard to
follow. We were found! Donald used an idiom about birds! If only a
bird would tell Scrooge about Christmas! Let's make a bird!
I was going to try to make one of these things to enter into the spirit, but it's weirdly difficult to find clothespins these days. I feel like they used to be all over, but now they've just vanished. And I don't want a pack of one hundred. That seems like overkill, and good luck purchasing a single clothespin on the internet.
I was going to try to make one of these things to enter into the spirit, but it's weirdly difficult to find clothespins these days. I feel like they used to be all over, but now they've just vanished. And I don't want a pack of one hundred. That seems like overkill, and good luck purchasing a single clothespin on the internet.
Is this a Christmas story? Well, maybe
they got the Indian costumes for Christmas. In a pinch, I suppose
you could use this to demonstrate the difference between "this"
and "that" to ESL students.
DEFINITELY not a Christmas story.
Sheesh, couldn't the outside at least be covered with snow? Well, I
suppose it's likely that some of these were just random things they
pulled out of storage and put to use here. Coulda been anywhere.
(Yeah, I know, they clearly figured out the solution before they'd gotten all the clues and just misspelled "perfume." Stop trying to be fair to this little monster!)
Not gonna lie: this seems sort of
voyeuristic to me. I think I'll pass on watching Mickey and Minnie
under the mistletoe, thanks. Which is good, because I find these
instructions very inscrutable; I couldn't if I wanted to.
Yeah, okay. Not gonna lie: it's hard
not to look at this and think, MAN, couldn't they have gotten Barks
on art-duty here? I mean, I like Strobl art better than most people,
but still...well, it's pretty nice in any case. Happy Holidays!
But if you think we're getting through
this thing without showcasing THIS Hieronymus-Bosch-esque nightmare
(I know it's actually two pages, but whatever), you don't know this
blog. The slaves endlessly pull the idol of their blind idiot god,
they know not where, accompanied by the obscene piping of the damned.
They've long lost the meaning of words like "where."
Seriously. Whose bizarre idea was
Giant Mickey here, and WHY. Fercryinoutloud.
Aside from the weirdness of Giant Mickey this last is full of bizarre details. Did you spot:
ReplyDelete• the fact that what Brer Bear is doing with that sign is a logical impossibility?
• Grandma Duck just tending a random small patch of grass as though it were part of her fields, which it clearly isn't?
• toddler-sized Tinker Bell?
• ENORMOUS Dumbo? (Compare the size of his head to the nephews' height.)
• Thumper thumping on the ground for no reason whatsoever, looking away from everyone else?
• the fact that considering the way the ropes are tied around their necks, Bambi and the cowboy duck's horse had better gallop at exactly the right speed, or somebody's going to get strangled to death?
(Oh, by the way, have you got the INDUCKS link for the "this and that" comic…?)
ReplyDeleteThis way, that way.
ReplyDeleteWow! Geox is on some review-writing rampage this December! You can't stop the guy! It's like he looks at the comics and writes a critical appraisal of them!
ReplyDeleteThis one is ultra interesting. I alwats wonder what was in old comics magazines/books aside from comcis. WOW!
P.S.
I posted the picture of Gigant Mickey to a friend and I learn who Buck Duck is... interesting. He fells to be a Moby Duck-like character.
Your "train of reasoning" summary of the clothespin-bird one-pager made me laugh out loud.
ReplyDeleteMy guess on the idea behind the handcuffs: they are meant to keep Donald from hogging the toy train, so that HDL will get to play with it. Since "grown-up guy hogging the toy train/racetrack while kids look on in helpless annoyance" was a comedic trope. I would assume that Donald got locked in them by HDL helpfully showing him how they work.
The instructions for the "mistletoe magic" thingy should have read, "making sure the mistletoe/hole is in exactly the same position back to back," should they not?
What are Mouses doing on Grandma Duck's Plaque, is what I demand to know!
OK, due to Pan's ID, I just looked up Buck Duck on Inducks, and found he was a brand-new character who had appeared in two stories when the Giganto-Mickey picture was produced. 1969, after my comic-book-reading childhood and well before my comic-book-reading adulthood. Looks like the original intent was to create a whole separate Western bunch of characters in their own world, though we'll never know whether Vic Lockman was then directed to throw Buck in with Donald & Co. in the one story that put them together (not counting the TNT story).
ReplyDeleteI too had to look on inducks to see who the guy who turns out to be "Buck Duck" was. I think I'd vaguely heard of him before, but for obvious reasons, I had forgotten. We may think of Moby Duck as a marginal character, but he was a massive, roaring success compared to ol' Buck.
ReplyDeleteThe pain inflicted on giant Mickey's nose by the tow rope and the injuries suffered by April (or May or June) when the rope inevitably slips are horrifying to contemplate.
ReplyDeleteBuck Duck had his own supporting cast and everything but then they only used him a handful of times over the course of like 8 years. What a bizarre attempt at creating a character.
ReplyDelete" The slaves endlessly pull the idol of their blind idiot god, they know not where, accompanied by the obscene piping of the damned. They've long lost the meaning of words like "where.""
ReplyDeleteThey're heading to Walt Disney's Wonderful World Of Fun, following the sign at the right - the only thing that makes some sense in this image...
Perhaps the intent was a tribute to MM, Disney's first greatly successful character. If so, they surely could have done much better, even under the multiple pressures of editing and printing deadlines, the Code and stuff...