"Operation Galleon Grab"

Somewhat belatedly, I acquired a copy of the Disney Masters book of this title, and then I read this story.  Maybe sometimes it's interesting to have an entry about something that I haven't lived with for a long time and maybe don't have super-settled thoughts about.  Perhaps.  It's a rather shambolic story, as Italian stories so often are, so--enjoy it for what it is.  Our writer here, Osvaldo Pavese, isn't notable for much beyond prolificity, but!  This IS currently his top-rated story on inducks, so you can bring whatever excitement you think is warranted by that little fact to this blogpost.  

(Also, it's his Duck Comics Revue debut.  An amazing honor for any creator!)

We open like this, with this guy interrupting HDL's fun.  And I'll tell you why I like it so much: okay, we all know that "everyone is fooled by super-obvious disguises" is the rule in Disney comics.  Just how it is.  But even so, the fact that the absolute FIRST THING you will do when you pick this up is think "oh yeah, that's a Beagle Boy"--that's funny.  Really stretching the concept to its limits.

As with most Italian stories, it's kind of postmodern in a silly way, but the model ship is still kind of cool, and you can say, at any rate, that it LOOKS good--imagine how much worse it would look as rendered by your typical Western artist.

Why is it "not fair?"  The dinner Donald's making is definitely costing more than eighty-five cents!  Justice for Donald!  I know there's no point getting het up about this, and it's not like it means anything in the context of the story.  Still, I can get a bit defensive, you know.

But you could use THIS as an image for some sort of anniversary celebration for Scrooge.  Not bad, not bad.  The depiction of the character in this story is more or less gooder than not.

And you look at something like this and you think WOW!  They're behaving like...normal people.  It's a nice gift, and it will be put on display, and that's all!  I can only describe this as "normal as heck."  Extremely pleasant.  Well...that's what I WOULD say, but if you've ever read a duck comic before, you recognized as soon as the wooden ship appeared that it would be instrumental in some kind of treasure hunt, which perhaps takes the dew off the lily a little bit.

WHOA HOLY CRUD HOW COULD I POSSIBLY HAVE PREDICTED?

The map does look kind of cool, though.  That, I will grant.  It is a little lame that they didn't use a different font for it, though.  That's something I would've done in a fan translation, and while I flatter myself that my scripts are pretty good, those are extremely crude on a technical level.  So what's YER excuse?  I mean, I guess if you wanted to push the point, you would say that, oh, the Spanish version looked different; this is just the translation.  Like, we're just seeing the supertitles.  I don't think that's much of an excuse, however.  Ah well.

Wow, they get a share, how generous.  In a normal story, you'd assume he was planning on cheating them out of their share somehow, or maybe they'll get a share but then they immediately have to pay it back for some bullshit reason or other.  Not here, though!  This story deals with it by, uh, never mentioning it again.  I don't know whether that's an improvement.

I'm not going to try to follow all this story's rambly twists and turns; we'd be here all night and it would get boring.  But it DOES have Cavazzano's art going for it, which is quite pleasant and for my money adds a lot of value to the story.  Dig those ships.  This would also be a good juncture to note that it's ably localized by Joe Torcivia.  Presumably "Bard of Burbank" refers to our favorite duckman.

But anyway, WHO IS IT?!?  WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?!?

OMG.  Look out for this guy.

Truth is, although I know there's a storied Italian tradition of Scrooge-vs-Rockerduck stories, I'm really not very familiar with them.  Relatively few have ever been published in English; I've read all the ones that have, along with a few, randomly, in French, but I still don't know that I really know their ins and outs very well.  Scrooge's rival, likes to spend money, typically more feckless then bad per se, though as always with these things, it varies.  That an accurate summation?  Well, that's not really here or there are far as this story's concerned, as he doesn't play much role and isn't characterized too much.

Why am I including this page?  Hard to say.  Probably partly because I just felt bad about skipping so much stuff, and also because it looks kind of cool--a real treasure hunt, of sorts--and also because there is a turtle.  Dang right there is.

...hum.

Yeah, I don't know.  You WOULD think that the comic was making an intentional allusion to the meme, if not for the fact that it was published in 1973.  Is the meme an intentional Pavese reference?  Um...sure.  Let's just say that.

Oh, chill out, is what I would say to them.  Sure, it's understandable that familial allegiance would lead them to support Scrooge, but in this story, at least, there REALLY is no moral distinction between Scrooge and Rockerduck.  Scrooge may dislike Rockerduck because he's a spendthrift, but that is not a problem I have.  My preferences are not the same as Scrooge's!  To me, it just makes him seem more fun, if anything.

Again: Oh. Em. Gee.

"By gar" is a real phrase, but if you're like me, you only know it from the Barks/Gregory story "Christmas in Duckburg," where the Beagles are using it to trick the ducks into think they're French-Canadian, which is quite an odd thing to do, as I don't think there's anything notably French-Canadian about it.  But anyway.  Here it is again.  An intentional reference to that story?  Probably-maybe.

To no one's surprise (given how the story opened): Beagle Boys!  And they're just having some lighthearted fun, which I must say, I find charming as heck.  Yes, obviously, it won't last.  Just let me have it, okay?

I've gotta say, HDL do not appear to have much of a theory of mind regarding the Beagles.  They wouldn't take a vacation with a motive, would they?  Okay, here's their motive: to relax and have fun.  Sheesh.  Career criminals they may be, but that doesn't mean that everything they ever do is related to criming.  And also, they rented the place with stolen money?  You are not going to be able to understand them if this your only metric.  I mean, okay, yes, obviously in story terms you CAN, but that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't even try.  "It's a Disney comic, and this is what happens in Disney comics" may be more true than edifying.

I mean, fercryinoutloud, look: one of the Beagles is reading Mickey Mouse comic.  Why?  Because he ENJOYS it, that's why!  Not for any crime-related reason!  Also, "sleeping cobras," ppht.  Calm down, Gertrude.

Well, anyway, things do take a turn for the surreal, as it turns out that even something as innocuous as their dang pool is indeed made for criming.

...yes.  It turns out this swimming pool is designed in such a way as to release sharks.  Was it like that when they rented it?  I mean, on the one hand, there's not much point in commenting on this: you're not supposed to think about it; it's just silliness, and you have to accept it for what it is.  And I sorta-kinda DO appreciate it on that level.  It's a bit funny.  On another level, though (and also the other hand), I also find it kinda risibly dumb.  Just because your work gives you the latitude to constantly be silly doesn't mean it can't get a little tedious at times!

Again, nice art, especially on the bottom.  Really makes you wish that this story did more with the geography.

So...yeah.  Now it gets real.

I still like the art, but I have to say: the fact that Cavazzano does not make the ducks very visually distinguishable while they're wearing diving suits DOES hurt the story's legibility somewhat.  Sure, you can figure out what's going on if you try, but is this or is it not a visual medium?

That line in the bottom right there is incredibly odd.  As if this is legally-binding gladiatorial combat.  What do you mean "eventual winner?"  Whoever gets the treasure is the winner!  Just take it, and it WILL NOT MATTER which of them comes out on top in their little WHOP BOB contest!  Crikey.

...so then Rockerduck ties them up, and...

...and ya know what?  That's enough of that nonsense.  This is the sort of story where you really only sort of parse it out as you read it--no doubt you COULD do a better job of it, but it doesn't feel necessary.  Might as well try to convey that a bit in blog form.  Look: Rockerduck tied up Donald and Scrooge.  Now he's releasing them.  That's all you need to know.

I do have one thing to say about this, though.  There are a few instances of this in the story--Rockerduck referring to something expensive he has.  And, because I know what kind of character Rockerduck's generally supposed to be, I understand the purpose of these.  But I've gotta tell ya, folks: if this were my first Rockerduck story and I had no idea who he was, I'm pretty sure they'd just come off as inexplicable non-sequiturs.  Was there something like this in the Italian, or was it added in localization?  If the latter, fine, I guess, but I think the fundamental issue here is that Rockerduck (I keep having to write "Rockerduck," argh) isn't really characterized in this story.  Try as you might, you can't paper over that with a line of dialogue or two.

(I don't know about that "and divine" part.  That is such an odd phrasing.  What are we doing here?)

Okay, you knew this was coming, so you might as well have a look at it.  What one would LIKE to see at this point is Scrooge and Rockerduck putting aside their differences to defeat the Beagles.  Alas, I'm afraid that's a bit more narratively ambitious than the story wants to be.

Instead, we get this.  "Mines of King Solomon" animal control kind of stuff.  Okay, sure, fine. 

And ya gotta love this visual, if nothing else.

Pretty funny ending, too, as they scrounge for tiny amounts of money, "Christmas for Shacktown"-style.  Yes, it's notable that Scrooge has Donald whereas Rockerduck just has "[his] elite diver."  If you want, I guess you can see this as contrasting their characters--one having family to help him, the other not.  But I dunno; considering that Scrooge is really just slave-driving Donald, that may be less edifying than one would hope.  I can see why you wouldn't want to give the diver a name at this point, since it would be distracting for a new name to just suddenly pop up, but still.  Even if you don't like him, you probably still want to yell at him by name.

I mean yeah, Scrooge really just kind of sucks at this point.  Donald's not required to help you!  He could just scoop up his nephews and walk away and it would be an existential moment for you!  So show him a little respect, dadgummit.

I've GOTTA love how much fun HDL are having at the end, though!  As you may recall, a few years ago I did a series on Dell Beach Parties, and I always enjoyed it when things got festive and vacationy.  This recalls those, in a good way.