"A Big Bust"

 Boy oh boy.  What do you do when your country is cranking up its theme song yet louder and louder?  Well, if you're me, you retreat into your happy place, which it turns out is Dick Moores stories.  That's a bit of a twist, for sure.  Interestingly, or not, this appeared in Donald Duck 33, along with "The Skiing/Clock Bandit" and "The Money Bird," meaning that I've now covered that entire issue!  What an achievement!  It's not just about completionism, however, because I think there really are some interesting things to be said about it.

I suppose they were probably just grocery shopping, but that wagon filled with indistinct things for no reason is still kind of funny.  Also: "the statues and paintings of all the great men."  You know, I hope my affection for Moores is not perceived as condescending, but this observation may not help my case: I find that charmingly naive.  Obviously Moores had zero intention to be at all political here, but people who aren't too self-reflective about these things JUST CAN'T HELP IT, so here we get his endorsement of great man--definitely always "man"--theory.  In the ol' Hall of Fame Museum.  I think before I go there I'll stop at the ATM machine to get some cash. 

Which do you prefer, Great Scientists or World's Richest Men?  And good lord, man, I know you're not doing this consciously, but your gender biases are REALLY coming through here.

My assumption would be that you have to be dead to be in the museum.  But if not, then there's probably some reason we're leaving Scrooge out.  Take a hint, my man!

Do they take donations of artwork from just anyone?  Maybe.  But I just wanted to stick this here because "imagine letting someone chisel ME" is a pretty good line.  And again, obviously not intended on Moores' part, but it DOES serve as evidence that Scrooge knows his doings aren't all on the up and up.

Yes indeed, the famous French artist, "Too Loose Laveck."  That's certainly a bizarre one.  His name is an English phonetic spelling of French?  Okay.  I do wonder how this was handled in the French publication of the story.

Okay, here's where it starts to get interesting.  You know the thing you sometimes see in Barks stories where characters monologue at themselves while their ideas/mental states evolve?  Famously the scene in "Luck of the North" where Donald starts out smug about cheating Gladstone and then slowly is filled with remorse?  Well, this is nothing like that.  Obviously.  But for whatever reason, it still kind of makes me think of it.  It's probably partially down to the dopey facial expressions, but I find Scrooge fleshing out this idea quite funny.  Also, I like how he addresses himself by first and last name, in case he forgets.

Donald buys a paper from Lampwick from Pinocchio, and said paper is worthy of comment.  Even in Barks, the answer to the question "how much of a public figure is Scrooge meant to be?" varies by story, so you can do whatever works for your story, it's fine.  But "statue or painting of this man" tries to split the difference in a weird kind of way.  He's able to get a headline, complete with picture, on the front page, and yet he only gets the descriptor "this man," which you'd expect to see on missing persons notices.  So who knows?  A more likely headline--though not on the first page--would be something like "Local Businessman Announces Contest," but sure, this is yellow journalism, and Scrooge owns the paper anyway.  Still, even taking that into account "Free Trip to Paris" is pretty shameless.  Try to have a LITTLE pride, even if it's marginally less profitable.

Also, as for the "rules"--the way this thing plays out, it's VERY hard for me to imagine that there'ss anything worthy of the name in the contest.  But you may judge.

Now, look--Moores didn't HAVE to draw Donald imagining himself painting in France.  Most people wouldn't've.  But he did, and it makes the panel SO much more dynamic.  Dude's underrated as an artist.  Yes, his characters are childish-looking, but gosh, there's just something about him.  Of course, it's possible that I'm partially reacting to the coloring, which somehow really pops.  But in that case, I'd expect to react similarly to other artists, so I dunno.

Alas, we must get rid of Duckburg's ancient Greek ruins to build tennis courts.  That's just how it goes.  Of course, this is all presented as being very silly, but it's notable that nobody ever thinks to doubt Donald's artistic skills.  Sure, he can just chisel a statue out of granite for Scrooge!  Why not?  That's such an unexceptional thing that we're not even going to draw attention to it.

Seriously, "the best statue or painting of this man."  That's just the same text as the newpaper, but somehow, seeing that "this man" locution repeated just draw attention to how it looks weird and slightly alien.

Note also Gladstone's fantasy of sexy human French ladies cooing over him.  Again, not necessary, but good instinct on Moores' part.  He was giving it his all.

Again, maybe more a colorist thing than a Moores thing, but I really like all the red and blue in the chiseling panels.  But I really just want to draw attention to how inexplicably hilarious that bottom part is.  Are we to understand that Donald's hatred for his uncle is so great that even seeing an image of him fills him with an uncontrollable urge to attack his head, which he just casually mentions to no particular reaction?  Izzat it?  There is no story reason for it to be so small other than for that joke.  And don't think I don't appreciate it.

Really?  Just two?  And to think, it was all over The Daily Blurt.  I guess print journalism was dying even in the fifties.  Or, I guess it's also kind of probable that no one else entered because, in spite of being pro-Scrooge propaganda, the publicity made you seem kind of off-puttingly nuts.  Which...fair.  Still, if you're Moores, you probably you'd want to include SOME rationale in your story for this dismal level of turnout.  Doesn't have to be a good one; but at least nod at it.

Scrooge is nothing if not Fair and Balanced.™  And once again--those thought balloons Donald and Gladstone are having--I know I keep harping on them, but they are SO GOOD!  I seriously love them.  I also enjoy that Gladstone is fantasizing about what appear to be the same two women as before.  He's got a type, I guess.

The inevitable happens, and it's impressive that Donald can whack that bust so hard that it just 
explodes.  And since I guess I forgot to show it earlier, here's the painting:

I dunno; it's kind of exactly what you would've expected, based on the bust.  A bit of an anti-climax.  Oh well.

See, I think that in the "rules" section of the newspaper article, it HAS to have specified all the details about this trip, very much including confirmation of exactly what Paris we were talking about here.  I mean, clearly it didn't, but that may be another reason no one else entered the contest.  Also, I am really unconvinced that Gladstone would even accept this "prize."  Assuming for the sake of argument that Duckburg is Burbank, that's...one thousand four hundred seventy-three miles.  To a place you have no interest in going.  On a vehicle that is not actually going to get you there.  I see few upsides here.  Is the idea that he's legally required to go there, having entered the contest?  That's silly, but I think it does mesh with the internal logic of the story.

( Paris, TX's wikipedia page includes an entire section about how racist it is, so that's not great. But ALSO, it has a miniature Eiffel Tower replica in a cowboy hat, so, you know, swings and roundabouts.)

Still, this is a strong ending--or WOULD be, except that it gets even better.

The specific properties of Gladstone's luck have been portrayed in many different ways, but rarely as nutsily as this.  Clearly, Gladstone's REAL good luck here comes from his uncle's batshit train of logic, by which he should presumably constantly be giving him money to buy into any hypothetical windfalls.

(Also, this is neither here nor there, but I just noticed that Moores draws Scrooge's hat more like a stereotypical pilgrim hat--see how it slants, which a top hat would not do.  I have no point; just noting.)

Rarely have Gladstone victories been more amusing.  But I gave you that money to go to Texas!  Yes, well, I won a contest to go to France, so I'm not sure either of us is really following the letter of the law here.

Also, Scrooge apparently cycling off to Texas lends credence to the idea that this is something that, for some reason, has to be done.

So there we are.  Note that the whole inciting incident of the story--Scrooge wanting to be in the famous people museum--is completely forgotten about as soon as it's no longer useful.  Considering that Scrooge got the portrait under false pretenses, I'm not at all convinced that the said museum is going to accept it anyway (even if that's how they EVER work).  If they did, at least he'd have that, but I kinda sorta think that he may have given that money to Gladstone with absolutely no return.  Which IS pretty funny, but I'll point out for the umpteenth time that a guy with business sense this lousy would never have gotten where he is today.

Let's enjoy the one-pager that closes out this issue:

This is quite fun.  We saw this kind of childish portrayal of HDL in "Dirty Work at the Crossroads;" it may be kind of outside the norm, but for what it is, Moores does it well.  But man, if the choice is between an alligator and two lame humans, then yeah, OBVIOUSLY everyone's going to want to be the alligator.  Get it together, Donald.