"Mickey's Dog-Gone Christmas"

 Well, due to unexpected events, I've sort of had to give up my idea of cramming something else into the Christmas schedule, but we will, at any rate, finish up Twice Upon a Christmas with a story about...Pluto!  Very climactic.  Merry Christmas, by the way.

So...yup.  In this story, Pluto is on the outs due to having caused a mess, although the comic version is substantially toned down: here, he knocks down the tree, and probably-possibly breaks the punch bowl, the art isn't quite clear.  Whereas in the original version he causes a whole big power outage and really fucks up the whole room, and Mickey is much more angry about these goings on, giving a bit more of a justification for him running away.

You will have noted, of course, those narration boxes, which of course--how could they have been?--are not in the animated version, doing that weird thing that old Western Pluto stories did where the boxes are narrating Pluto's ideas and also talking to him and tempting him to do certain things.  Who came up with that concept, anyway?  Well, it's cool to see it done here in that it makes it seem more comic-y, though I can't say I was ever a huge fan of the sort of stories it's mimicking.

Anyway, Christmas is ruined.  I hope you're happy!  There's a whole thing in the cartoon where, after shopping (at "Saint Knickknack's's Megamall," the cartoon specifies) and then has a bunch of stuff strapped to the roof of his car that all gets knocked off when he tries to go through a tunnel.  It's fun!  And it's not here.

Well right okay, the main thing here is where Pluto gets adopted by one of Santa's reindeer.  These guys get more characterization in the original--or at least the one who adopts Pluto and the chief reindeer do--but it's not super-exciting in any event.  I'm not overly fond of that super-cartoony style they're drawn in.

Right.  Murray Christmas.  I will admit that that is dopey enough to be at least a little funny.

I'm struggling to find anything super-interesting to say about this, or anything period, but I will say that out-of-context and without the dialogue box, that last panel there is extremely psychedelic, which is kind of cool.  Hey, you take your small pleasures where you find them.

Anyway, the story wraps up very abruptly, which I suppose is for space reasons more than anything else, but it's kind of hard in any event to see how you'd drag this out much further, unless possibly you wanted to turn it into something completely different.  Which, maybe you should!  But, well, we have what we have.

Within the limits of this story, the final panel is kind of okay-looking.  And that is my highest praise.

Well, I guess we can't forget about the outro page (...or can we?), not that it's overly fascinating either.  I don't like the idea of Donald getting this book on "manners."  I really don't.  His id cannot be contained by social limitations, and you shouldn't try.  It looks like bullying.  Bah.  Also, how come now HDL have bagpipes, which they definitely didn't at the end of "Christmas: Impossible," and why does Scrooge now apparently hate them?  I can't tell whether that's an intentional inversion or not, but either way, I don't really care for it.  But at least unlike the cartoon, the comic doesn't end with an irritating Christmas pop song, so count your blessings.

Hurray!  As I said, I've been busy lately, but maybe I'll find the time to put something else up during the twelve days of Christmas.  Or maybe not.  But it'll be fun to find out!  Maybe.