"The Magnetic Curse"

 I swear, I'm going to try to have something about a Barks classic soon, but I need an easy layup, and for that, we have this story, recommended (or...highlighted, anyway) by Debbie Anne on social media.  This is from Uncle Scrooge 204, in 1983, as Western was entering its death spasms.  But that doesn't mean they couldn't churn out stories like...this!  Drawn by Jack Manning; inducks doesn't specify, but it's definitely written by Vic Lockman.  THERE'S a name I haven't heard in a long time.

We open in media res, as Barks did in a series of quite good stories in the mid-sixties.  I'd say this is about as good as those, so get ready for FUN!  I do quite enjoy "What's with Uncle Scrooge?" It just makes me picture some dudes commenting on the scene: "hey, what's wit dat guy? What's 'is deal?  Can 'is mattress evade 'im, or what?  Aw, 'e must be screwy!"  I don't know what kind of accent that was supposed to be.  And how, truly CAN his matress evade him?  This question piques your curiosity and demands that you read on.

Yes, let's.  Ooh, computers.  It's kind of interesting to see these later stories grappling with the sort of computers that would directly lead to what we have today.  Sure, older stories would feature giant mainframes, but that's not quite the same, is it?  Still, writers didn't necessarily seem to have much of a grasp on what these things are good for.  Was there any younger talent doing Disney comics at this time?  You always see the same names.  Was it a gerontocracy, like the Democratic party?  Shit, I mentioned politics.  Grrbah!

Books on "how to make money," indeed.  Hard to imagine there are too many ideas he hasn't thought of yet.  Also, sorry, but that's BORING!  "How to make money," indeed!  Zhuzh it up a little, eh?  And holy crud, that is definitely the first time I've ever used that word.  How do you do, fellow kids?

Anyway, to my disappointment, the computer doesn't actually play any significant role in the story.  It's just this springboard to launch the improbable action.  Lockman gets to gesture at a new-fangled thing without really doing anything with it.  Unacceptable!

A Scroogian dilemma with precedent.  I don't know if it's a compliment or criticism to say that I doubt Lockman knew any of those, though.  Huh.

Yes.  These beloved characters.  Did you see this coming?  Maybe!  Why do they look like that?  Who knows?  They have to look like SOMETHING, don't they?  "Elementary elving" is one of those litle Lockmanian touches; it's not bad, though the horrid non-euclidean geometries they employ to infiltrate out world may causes us to wake up in a cold sweat for years to come.

And so...

Lockman, you orientalist motherfucker.  I mean that in a friendly way.  Kind of.  I want to mention Dorfmann and Mattelart, but this is probably more an Edward Said situation, innit?  Also, I mentioned them in passing, which still counts!  Ka-ching!  But in all seriousness, this sort of "Mystical East" stuff is a bit jarring in a comic of this provenance.  Sure, this stuff is still present to some extent, but rarely in such an unadorned fashion.  Whatevz!

Okay, "the code words were changed" is kind of funny, though as is often the case, I'm not sure I'm laughing at it in a way Lockman would have intended.  Well, never mind; death of the author and all.  Not that it really should be "the code words had been changed," but that would've overflowed the speech bubble.  Was this intentional?  Am I getting into conspiracy theories about old comix?  Maybe.  And not to spell out the obvious, but I'd love to know what administrator is in charge of password security.

I have my doubts that you even tried every"open"+[plant] combination, let alone every phrase known to man, but okay, we'll let it slip.  It's nice that we're getting some background detail, I guess.

...a slightly unnerving amount of background detail, even.  What is a "perfectly good supersonic blast?"  It sounds like it's supposed to be some kind of missile.  I think we can safely use the word "iffy" to describe Lockman's grasp of technology.

Dammit.  "The Genie."  Who's the genie?  Does Lockman think the story of Ali Baba involved a genie?  You just make your weird assumptions, and then you stick them in your duck story.  THAT is how we roll around here!

There's just something about that "where I'm still a very rich duck!" panel--you can find similar things in other undistinguished stories.  I can't scientifically say how frequent it is, but you know.  You see it around.  Sure, Barks does similar things sometimes, but with these z-tier artists, it always, always looks like he's desperately trying to convince himself.

So the idea is that his mattress is filled with money, which now magnetically repels him due to the Terrible Curse.  Sure it's dumb, but this low-grade slapstick is the best we can expect from this story, so do your best to enjoy it.  I do have to note that the fact that his matress is apparently just plopped down on top of a bunch of bare springs (which look none too stable, the way he's pawing through them) seems...bad?  Is this how they did things back in the day?  Manning, dude, as much as I'm not a fan, I hope they were at least paying you enough for you to have a normal bed.

A GREAT HORROR!  I'll show you great horror, mumble mumble.  I feel like the main reason Scrooge is so off-model in that bottom panel is that Manning felt the need to squash him a bit to make him fit along with the bin and the largish text box.  You can see Barks do that occasionally, but rarely in stories he actually wrote; the best solution is to not get into this foolishness in the first place.

BONK!  It is, I suppose, sort of interesting to envision what this would actually LOOK like. Someone like Marco Rota could probably do a good approximation, though.  Jack Manning, I dunno, man.  I feel sort of bad constantly disparaging the art of this super-obscure (not even a wikipedia page) cartoonist from lo these many years ago.  I hope none of his loved ones are reading this.  But DANG, man!

Dangit, not your first dollar!  Is Lockman even vaguely aware of the (admittedly loose) Uncle Scrooge continuity?  Whatever; it's fine.  Do what you want.  As I think I've noted previously, a lot of these lesser stories don't even feel as though they're about the same characters we know and love.  Fanfiction, except that I don't think they were really fans.  Huh.

However, I do enjoy seeing it bonk Gyro in the head.  Scrooge sticking "whereby" in there, being all fancy like it's nothing...I seem to recall these thinking cap birds in some other Lockman thing, so there you go.  Some might argue that saying Gyro gets his ideas from magic birds is even MORE blasphemous than attributing Scrooge's wealth to a magic hourglass.  I suppose the idea could be that Gyro's still the smartest, but his genius needs some sort of catalyst.  None of the others could do what he does, even WITH the cap.  But what will happen when Emil Eagle tries it on?  And how will Moby and Dimwitty react?  Oops, I got caught up in my Lockman fanfiction again.  What was my point?  There is no way to know.

Sounds like a ransom demand to me.  Also, Gyro glues them together the what in the form of a what?  Of course, Barks had Gyro invent a wishing well and tangle with a witch doctor, so one can't complain TOO hard, I guess, but as inventions go, supernatural or not, this is pretty underwhelming.

I mean, you tell me.  Are you whelmed?  Does your whelmedness overflow its banks and engulf the nearby city, which had been built impractically low on the flood plain, a problem now exacerbated by climate change.  What?

Also, you feel silly?  Well, you look like an asshole!  Grrr.

Mmm.  Scrooge may live to regret this, in a King-Midas-esque way.  A classic Lockmanian "Wak-Wak-Wak."

Anyway, that's all for now.  Does this story deserve to be reprinted?  No!  But only marginally less-so Paul Murry stories we could name.  Grumble grumble.