"The Whole Truth Club"

This week we're going to stare into the abyss. "Don't you do that quite a lot?" you ask. And my unambiguous answer is: no. I don't, actually. I may write about various Western stories of shaky quality, but believe me, most of those are Barks-quality masterpieces compared to the real detritus. It's not like I was even planning this; I just thought, Huey Dewey and Louie Junior Woodchucks (complete with weird lack of punctuation) was a weirdly long-running publication (1966-1984), and I realized I didn't think I'd ever actually read any of it aside from the Barks stuff, so...let's give it a look. I wasn't expecting great things, but I ALSO wasn't expecting it to get under my skin to the extent that it did. And unfortunately for him, the author can't hide behind anonymity, because this is very obviously Vic Lockman. I don't think he hated children, but I DO think he had a pretty dang low opinion of them, is all I'll say. Obviously, that's not all I'll say. Whom am I kidding?

This is from 1978, so not a fantastic time for Disney comics stateside anyway, but...you know, I'm going to stop this preliminary throat-clearing and just GET to it, k? We'll have more reference to this later.

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"Two-Way Luck"

 I have to get my biggest--and, really, only serious--critique of this story out of the way first, which is man, that title.  Totally generic-sounding and not providing even the vaguest hint of the story's content?  Blah!  Still, it feels ungrateful to complain too much.  I'm sure we all just think of it as "the giant emerald story" anyway--or how about "Green with Envy;" would that work?.  It's a back-up  (to "All at Sea"), the sort of thing that you expect to be a little more disposable than the main one, even coming from Barks.  But man, it isn't.  I mean okay maybe it's a little silly in some ways (a Disney comic?  Get the heck outta here, ya nut!), but the artistry is also highly apparent.  So.

I do, however, always get caught up on the "emerald contest" thing.  I mean, I don't think I did when I was small, but NOW I do.  So, in this world, can we assume that nobody really knows what the biggest jewels are, or who has them?  Because if we did, it doesn't seem like this contest would really mean much.  But Scrooge DOES appear to believe it's in some way established that his is the biggest in the world--an apprehension he could only be under if there were some kind of organization that makes these determinations.  And, I mean, he has to be cajoled into entering, and he wouldn't do it at all if his nephews weren't here, so you gotta figure there are a bunch of people with big emeralds not entering them, from ignorance or apathy, so what is being accomplished here?  Tell me!

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"Let Donald Do It"

This might be the first story I've written about with an imperative title.  Well...probably.  You could also read that title in the same sense as "let there be light"--a subjunctive usage.   Donald; the creator of the universe--who can tell the difference?  Regardless, its sole claim to fame, if you can call it that (spoiler: you can't) is that it was a backup story for Barks' "How Green Was My Lettuce."  

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"The Skiing/Clock Bandit"

Happy New Year! Let's hope 2026 is less horrible! I feel like that's probably gonna require rolling a natural twenty, but it's worth a shot.

Inducks calls this "The Skiing Bandit," but they also claim that the Australian publication was titled "The Clock Bandit."  I can't verify this one way or the other, but either one is fine.  So anyway, here's a New Year story. Absolutely, that's what this is. Is there any evidence of this? Well, there's snow. And it was published in January. That's all the evidence you will get, and, I think, all you need. Some Dick Moores for y'all! Try to imagine ANY other context in which that phrase could get people excited. And yes, I know: you're not excited. That's why I'm writing this and you're not.

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