"The Paper Route Panic"

 Okay!  A li'l NBW for you today.  I remember this one fairly fondly from when I was small, and someone else seems to as well, as "The Paper Route Panic" has the distinction of one of vanishingly few NBW stories to be reprinted in modern times, by Boom in 2010, in their Donald Duck Classics: Quack Up hardcover.

*Non-Barks Western.  Stick it in your head!

So we open with the big thing, which is: HDL's favorite musical act is a novelty cowboy singer!  Why the heck not?  You just wouldn't see something this idiosyncratic in most stories, I think.  That IS one advantage these NBW Western writers had: they didn't (I have to think) see themselves as really part of a "tradition" per se, so they went ahead and did stuff like this.

So is that guy the...editor?  Are they in charge of paper deliveries?  What is happening here?  I enjoy his indulgent attitude, though.

I always get hung up on this "one hundred records" thing.  First: is this some kind of official rule that that's what you need?  I suppose we can say, okay, they're kids; they just decided that, for whatever reason.  But second: what does "one hundred records" MEAN?  Presumably not one hundred full albums; that seems a bit unrealistic.  So are we talking about...singles?  For reference, the Beatles released twenty-two singles over the course of their active career; one of my favorite bands, Sparks, has been together for knocking on sixty years, and they've released...seventy-nine.  And this guy has a full hundred varmint-themed country singles (plus b-sides!)?  I don't mean to doubt anyone here, but I doubt everyone here.

I suppose it could be a mixture of albums, EPs, singles, and I don't know what all, but I dunno--but hey, maybe I'm not giving him enough credit!  Maybe he's just a whirlwind of industry!  How doth the busy little bee, and all.

NO ONE is excused!  Look, I know it seems so obvious where this is going that there's almost no point in saying it, but on the other hand, it seems so obvious that you think, no, maybe there'll be some trickery and it'll go somewhere else.  Well...if you think that, I'm sorry, but I don't think you're all that familiar with Western Comics.  But what the hey.

"The Horntoad Stomp," the hit song that's tearing up the charts.  When I read this as a kid, I always thought, based on this and the fact that (spoiler!) his new song is to be based on caterpillar footprints, that ALL his songs had to be based on animal sounds, despite there really being no evidence of that.  And you know what?  I STILL believe it!  Take that!

It's neither here nor there, since this is completely minor and incidental, but: nice camp.  Looks fun.

Fortunately, this bus is apparently more like a taxi, so you can just get let off wherever.  Nice.

Well, we sure did expect this to happen.  So...great.  "Great fluffy balls of cat fur!" isn't bad.

The one thing I think this story gets kinda wrong is, I think, making Donald seem worse than he's meant to.  You didn't care enough about this thing that's super-important to the kids to even remember it?  Jeez.  Or, okay, fine, maybe you think this forgetfulness is forgivable, but then when he realizes, he doesn't abjectly apologize; he thinks it's a laugh?  That's just terrible, and I'm not convinced Gregory grasps how terrible.

Fortunately, at least Scrooge provides a needed dose of sanity.  Ordinarily, he would seem like the antagonist in a situation like this, but here "well, I must be going!" seems like the ideal response.

Is the idea that the loudspeaker is on all time, so you can hear them clonking about twenty-four hours a day?  That seems undesirable.  Also, vinegar just, uh, kills ants.  I do not know whether it would have that effect if it touched just their feet, but...

Still and all, it's a fun idea, and it's fun how Gregory worked a fatal flaw into the plan.

Scrooge serving as Donald's conscience here?  Surprising, yet cathartic.  And it starts you, or me, down a train of thought: why isn't Scrooge helping the kids, which he easily could?  I mean, obviously we know the answer to that, but under the circumstances, it seems kind of pointed.  And yet, would it really be a good idea?  Donald is their guardian.  You don't want to get into some kind of awful 'competition' for their affection.  I mean, say what you want about Ducktales, but practically speaking, it WOULD make a lot more sense for Scrooge to be the one playing the caretaker role.  Yes, but that "practically speaking" is doing a lot of work; you can't just ignore the bond between Donald and the boys.  But...blah.  I think the best system, really, would be for Scrooge to discreetly slip Donald some cash every month to help with their rearing.  And...actually, come to think of it, while I don't know that I have much in the way of "head-canon"--I find the varieties of these comics a little too mutable for that--that's probably what that thing (which I totally made up) is for me.  Anyway.

Anyway, at least Donald sort of redeems himself by immediately deciding that he's going to fix his mistake, as impossible as that might seem.  And now we're getting to the actual meat of the story; up to now it's really just been prologue.

First: the tale of Donald obliviously inflicting havoc on Drearybog Lane.  I like that name.  Might be in the Shacktown district.

This stuff is just funny.  It's obvious that Gregory is trying to create a slapstick setpiece here, and so he does.  I hope the dog finds a good home.

It's also obvious that the whole sequence was just building to this.  It may seem a bit overly calculated--you can sort of see the seams--but "overly calculated" means it was CALCULATED!  He actually thought about it!  That is far from guaranteed in stories like this.  It does have to at least be acknowledged, though, that none of this actually accomplishes anything.  They might as well not have bothered.  Well, that's usual in stories like this; no penalty.

And now, we get to the Paisley Mantee part.  I also dig that name.  He should collaborate with Shoeless Pashley.  

I like the character; I enjoy his gloomy pronouncements on his career.  Why is he so sure at first that he's going to be mobbed?  Probably just one of those power-of-positive-thinking things.  Is it the case that he used to be massively popular, but not anymore?  Maybe, but I don't think that wholly explains why the kids would be the only ones there.  He has, remember, at least one hundred records.  He would not have been able to release anything like that many if they weren't at least somewhat financially successful.  And HDL earlier characterized "The Horntoad Stomp" as "his latest hit;" latest COULD just mean "most recent, even if that's a long time ago," but it seems unlikely.  So long story short: I do not know.  But if someone wants to write a Paisley Mantee sequel, I will be ALL OVER that.

I enjoy how annoyed the Duckburg Music Mart proprietor (?) is at HDL's enthusing.

I guess this makes it fairly clear that the "hundred records" thing is a self-imposed requirement.

They used reel-to-reel tape to record these songs?  Is that a thing people did?  I genuinely do not know.  Do they even HAVE a turntable for playing vinyl?  You'd think they'd have to, but also, if they didn't even have any record to play, maybe not?  It is a mystery.

But what is quite funny is the idea of Donald recording bug noises over them.  Also: that "ant feetsteps?" is very Gregory--you'll recall the ducks, in "Christmas in Duckburg," puzzling over the plurals of 'moose' and 'goose.'

A typical "the bad thing [Donald overwriting the tapes] turns out to be a good thing [a rad-ass new song involving caterpillars]" ending.  Solid.

I hate to cavil, but why is it just an "honorary" fan club, as opposed to a full-blown one?  Come on.

I do enjoy that Donald has a new career as songwriter for the hottest bug-themed cowboy troubadour around.  I also enjoy Scrooge's bafflement.  I dunno.  It's just a kind of fun, feel-good story, and while it ain't Barks, it's probably about as close as NBW stories get, qualitywise.  If all NBW stuff was this good, they'd've been pretty very good indeed.

And okay, I guess as long as I'm saying stuff about this story, which I'll almost certainly never do again, I might as well mention one somewhat weird thing: in the Boom reprint, it has this weirdly garish, hypersaturated coloring job.  I don't have scans of it, and I can't be bothered to set up the scanner, so please accept a phone picture:

In principle, I don't have any problem with reprints using color schemes that would've been impossible when they first ran.  But this, jeez, man, I dunno, I think it's pretty ugly.  And odd, also, given that the book features two Barks stories which feature much more restrained coloring (and the colors for all of them are credited to Magic Eye Studio).  Assuming it was meant to look like this, which I don't think we can take for granted, is the idea that you wanted to give Gregory and Strobl a distinct "feel" as compared to the Barks?  That's a sort of interesting idea, in theory, but the execution seems a little off.

Though on a side note, one thing I do appreciate about the book is the back cover copy that says it "includes work by such Disney greats like [sic] Carl Barks, Daan Jippes, Bob Gregory, Tony Strobl, and Cesar Ferioli Pelaez."  Yes!  Gregory and Strobl finally acknowledged as Disney greats!  Where's the Masters collection?