"The Vat Man"

Ha!  Bet you didn't expect to see me talking about THIS, did you?  Good lord it would be weird if you did.  Well, what happened is that, in the entry on "Family Fun," I made a casual disparaging reference to Daisy and Donald as a metonym for "bad late Western Disney comics" in general.  But then I thought, huh.  I dunno.  Have I ever actual READ anything from that particular line?  The main reason I wouldn't have I think is because I see that title and think, oh gawd, this is going to be NOTHING but regressive gender stereotypes, isn't it?  That sounds hard to take.  But out of curiosity, I dipped into it, and found THIS, from 1979: truly the Götterdämmerung of Disney comics.  Let's take a look, shall we?

'Cause he's a vat man.  Yeah, he's a vat man.  Got some Bob Gregory art for you to enjoy.  Inducks doesn't say, but I'm gonna go ahead and assume that Gregory also wrote this.  It's silly and disposable, of course, but you know what?  It COULD be worse!  We have seen MANY examples of it being worse.

An amusing mistake, indeed!  These panels actually made me laugh harder than I have at any other comic in recent memory.  Just the juxtaposition of the inexplicably off-kilter dialogue and the art, particularly Daisy's expression in the second panel there.  I know it cannot be, but I want so badly for this to be intentionally absurdist.  Anyway, well done Bob.

If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it; check out the hook while my DJ revolves it.

All right, that's enough harmless merriment.  This is VERY IMPORTANT, people!  Gyro is revealing the secret to being an inventor!  People always wonder about the secret of Gladstone's luck, but they never think similarly about Gyro's genius.  Go figure.  

Random hecklers making fun of Donald's job!  That's just how it goes, in Duckburg!

One thing you notice about this story is that everyone's smiling all the time.  Occasionally they get alarmed, as we'll see, but you wonder, was Bob Gregory incapable of drawing angry-looking ducks?  Like here, for instance, in that top panel at least, you'd expect Donald to be responding angrily, but he's not.  He seems perfectly happy about this whole business.  And in this whole story, you won't find any images of avian agita.  But you will in other stories he drew, so the mystery thickens.  Like delicious stew.  

But the point is: I actually kind of like this.  I mean, sure it's childish and naive and all, but somehow it seems good-spirited (and there are none of the bad gender dynamics I was worried about).  I'm struggling to articulate what separates this from quite a lot of other stories that I hate in spite of people mostly being happy, but I dunno; somehow, in spite of themselves, the art and writing synergize well for me.  Don't get me wrong; I'm certainly not suggesting that this is some sort of deathless classic, but, you know, any port in a storm, considering.

Against all odds, Daisy's cunning plan to make Donald into an inventor appears to be paying off, though you have to wonder, if this is really going to be his new career, how is he supposed to monetize it?  I guess we can assume there are wider implications to this, and that this free wind power idea could revolutionize the world?  Maybe?  The science is kind of vague.

And I really can't even comment on the climactic action here, because I don't really understand what's supposed to be happening, and I'm not entirely sure that Gregory did either.

I can safely say that none of my questions have been answered, alas.  Fortunately, I didn't, in my heart of hearts, care about any of them.

And there you have it.  See?  This is what I'm talking about.  Donald's so dang cheerful about being a vat man, and Daisy's so chill about having failed to change his career.

HA!  VAT HEAD!  ZING!  So dang silly, but we're all having fun!

Anyway, that was fine.  Don't know what else to say about such a trivial story.  Well...one thing: it seems like the whole thing was just BEGGING for a "vat man and little boy" joke, but I can see how that might come across as incongruous and probably inappropriate.  OH WELL!