"Dinner Date"
Yeah, okay, now for some low-effort late seventies dross. I mean...it's okay if I do this occasionally, right? I'm intentionally not making it a habit so everyone doesn't grab torches and pitchforks and storm Stately Duck Comics Revue Manor, but I dunno. Well, we're doing it, is the point. Here's some more Daisy and Donald.
We start like this, with Daisy jealous of the other girls because her boyfriend isn't getting a reservation at Dorsia. This is some Bob Gregory art, with all that that entails. I do kind of like the designs of Daisy' coworkers. It's interesting how there are two ducks and one human (not dognose), and yet they all kinda blend together.
I've gotta say...this makes it look like Daisy is doing pretty well, Boyfriendwise. Those others are always grasping after status by going to fancy restaurants, whereas Donald is just chilling feeding pigeons in the park. The choice is obvious--to me, at any rate. Certainly not to the characters here.
Here's my question: if a man offers a woman some birdseed, is it generally considered that he's trying to hit on her?
Note how Donald here appears to have been cut-and-pasted from a "running" image and plopped partway up the shelves. That is a little thing we like to call "quality."
Also, Gyro and his partner: good lord, how sinister do they look there on the bottom right? Granted, this is mainly down to artistic incompetence on Gregory's part; I don't think they're actually meant to be like that. But they sure do look it. The interesting thing here is that, while that DOES appear to be Gyro there, more or less, he's never identified as such and his behavior is non-Gyro-like enough that he seems like some sort of bizzaro-world evil version. Inducks labels him "Gyro Geaerloose (lookalike)," which seems fair, but I don't think it's really a binary like that. He's Schrodinger's Gyro: both the character himself and not. Gregory needed a scientist character, and hey, Gyro is a scientist! He doesn't totally fit, but that's neither here nor there. To the extent that you expect to see him a story like this, hey it's him! And to the extent that you don't, oh, he's just a "lookalike."
This is easily-identifiable as a Lockman joint, and I must say, "this shampoo will give body to head problems" is not a bad line, in the context of a goofy story like this. And have I mentioned lately that Lockman was a John Bircher? Fun facts are fun!
Okay, so this isn't much of anything, but MAYBE you get a kick out of seeing him with his head like that? Conceivably? Well, probably not, but you're definitely supposed to. The fact that you can just gloss over allegedly amusing things like this without even registering that they're meant to be amusing certainly shows...something.
And now, we shall solve the problem by lobotomizing him. Getting all One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest here. Good lord.
...I just enjoy the line "I smell like a waffle!" That's all right.
Fortunately, it really sends the chix. Do they find the scent of maple syrup arousing, or does it present differently to them? A real imponderable. This seems to be more or less what Nemorino would've been expecting in L'elisir d'amore.
Granted, Daisy's indignant "how dare Donald be irresistible to girls!" is representative of the kind of regressive gender politics you'll find in stories like this, but at the same time...I dunno; I guess my standards must be hopelessly degraded at this point. But I still find it kind of amusing.
This is all so childish that it's easy to gloss over how horny it is as well. It's one of the main things that strikes one.
But here's a serious question: do you think Lockman would have expected anyone in the audience to not immediately know what was going to happen next? I mean, maybe a very small child who's wholly unfamiliar with these conventions might be, but even then, I dunno.
What a shocking turn of events. Get lost, Shorty!
ALTHOUGH...in spite of everything, I don't totally hate this ending. So you know The Philadelphia Story? Maybe the best romantic comedy ever; you should see it if you haven't. And in it, Jimmy Stewart's character proposes to Katharine Hepburn's, even though she's designated to be Cary Grant's love interest, and he, Stewart, is meant to be with Ruth Hussey. So he gets rejected by Hepburn, and only then agrees to be with Hussey, and you might think that would be quite insulting--that he considers here somehow second-best, but that's not how it plays out: instead it's more like, you fucking idiot (affectionately), this is who you're meant to be with, and you didn't realize that just because you're an endearing doofus. It's all good.
Am I comparing this to that? Well...sorta-kinda. Apparently. Everyone's forgiven. And unlike those other flibbertigibbets, Daisy apparently doesn't find his scent problematic. That's true love! Well, maybe. But the point is, this kinda works for me. I don't even mind Gregory's art too much. Hooray.
Yeah, okay, you know I can't leave it at that; gotta finish the book. Well, sort of: we're not covering the second story, on account of it's just a reprint of "The Beauty Business." That's a unique story in Barks' canon for several reasons: it's a very obvious "fuck you" to his editors for asking him to sex up Daisy, something that he never ever did otherwise; and also it's a well-done, successful story that I find quite unpleasant to read and rarely if ever feel the urge to revisit. So anyway.
Instead, on to "The Shutterbug Duck!" This is a bit of a breath of fresh air because we've got some Strobl art here. Maybe not his all-time best, but still head and shoulders better than Gregory or Wright. Good old Tony Strobl: even as a fan, I'll concede that he wasn't the all-time greatest Disney artist (though certainly more than good enough to be considered a "Disney Master"), but he was a goddamned professional. He earned the hell out of his paychecks. So: onf of those three minute-type cameras. That's some odd phrasing, but what can one do?
AAAH! Why does Lockman like this little fucker so much? And also, why is Daisy's beak briefly and suddenly green? Because the colorist had green ink available from drawing Jiminy and switching back to orange would've taken .5 extra seconds? Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Tired sitcom stuff for sure. You really feel like any normal adult communication whatosever could obviate these problems, but THEN where would we be?
Shucks no, Cindy Lou! Am I reading a Li'l Abner comic now? Anyway, you can figure how this is going to go; thanks to the cricket's interference, Donald's plan is ruined. And apparently it would've worked fine otherwise, because wimminfolk are hopeless with electronics, don't you know?
Both Cindy Lou and her dad (who only appears in that one panel, but still) are really good character designs, I think. Strobl!
I'll just present this whole page here, because although this isn't a wonderful story, there's a seed of a kind of amusing screwball thing, I feel.
I mean, Donald getting caught in the background of the picture like that--as happens not infrequently, I feel that with a little thought and another few drafts, a story like this could be really solid. But no doubt the very idea of rewriting would've seemed laughable to Lockman (and all the rest of his NBW* cohort).
*Non-Barks Western! Remember it, because I'm going to stop glossing it.
But, well, okay. How convenient. Is this going to be another one of those "everything comes out okay in spite of everyone's dumbness?" things.
So you MIGHT think, but I guess you probably wouldn't, given how obvious it is that another shoe's about to drop here.
Yeah okay fine. The thing is: on the one hand, yeah, trying to trick Daisy like that WAS a dick move. On the other hand, if it hadn't conveniently been an old friend, she DEFINITELY would've leapt to conclusions and flown into a rage. I feel like no one comes out of this looking particularly good.
Anyway, that's about that. We'll definitely have something better next time.
Labels: Bob Gregory, Tony Strobl, Vic Lockman
posted by GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. at
10:32 AM
17 Comments:
"The Philadelphia Story" is great, but I actualy tad prefer it musical remake "High Society".
Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra AND Louis Armsrong? AAAA <3 Well, Did You Evah!
Oh, the gender stereotypes of this era of stories are so painful! It's true that, given how Daisy generally behaved in such stories, it's unfair of her to clobber Donald at the end of "Dinner Date," because as you say she *would* have been unthinkingly jealous. On the scientists' sinister appearance: Gyro-not-Gyro could hardly say anything more sinister than "Come quietly!" Also, I will echo your surprise at the appearance of a non-dog-nosed human colleague in Daisy's workplace.
Then in "Shutterbug Duck" Donald *does* have a job, though its nature is apparently unspecified. I am struck by the fact that Donald specifically entertains and rejects the notion of mature communication! I note that if Donald's conscience took the form of an annoying cricket, then Jiminy's interference with Donald's planned distraction of Daisy could be seen as the cricket's revenge on Donald for not following his advice in the first place.
Bob Gregory was a good writer (not great, but definitely good) who should never have picked up a pencil... except maybe to compile a grocery list!
And while he did do some art prior to this, he really didn't do much until the Disney Studio Program poached Tony Strobl and Jack Bradbury. The good Western artists were eventually kicked to the curb once Disney found that Jamie Diaz and his stable could do it cheaper, so Strobl told me in the eighties. A REAL shame because Western was loyal to their freelancers until the bitter end. Witness Gregory, Lockman,and Kay Wright doing so much of their stuff in the final half decade or so.
What makes you say that Vic Lockman wrote both these stories? There's none of his trademark alliteration or any of his other tropes. If any online source says this, perhaps they haven't studied Lockman as deeply as I have. My educated guess is that Gregory wrote both stories himself... and, thankfully, only did art for the "post-Disney-poaching" later one.
Doing this on my phone displayed me as Anonymous. It's really Joe Torcivia! After all, who else would know - or care - this much about Vic Lockman!
The art looks like the artist can't wait to get away from the drawing board. Every chair, wall, window, car, tree, street and staging has the same dead, minimum-effort rubber-stamp ambience. A park bench looks just like a chair but wider (never mind what real park benches look like). Donald fits on the first one, but then the border cuts right through the girls' shoes and the lower frame becomes a mess of identically angled legs and shadows. The seats sort of indicate it's two benches, but the back looks like it's a single ultra-wide bench. This is such gray hackwork, sorry... But at least Strobl's art sometimes looks like he doesn't hate every minute he spent drawing it.
Possible result of harsh dead-lines. Less - how can I make this interesing and challange myself, and more "Ok, I made all that's needed to get the idea across, let's move to the next panel"
The anonymous commenter above nicely (pardon the pun) “illustrates” my point about Bob Gregory – the artist!
Much too simple in execution. Artistically incompetent would be a better description. Very limited. Has only a few character poses. Just look at how many times his repeats the “character’s body facing one way, but the head turned more-or-less backward in the opposite direction” – each time in the very same way! Just check out Geo's scanned-illustrations for examples: first (Daisy), fifth (Daisy), eleventh (Donald), twelfth (Daisy), and fourteenth (Donald and Daisy)!
Kay Wright was worse as an artist – his character designs were terrible, and his backgrounds flat and uninteresting – but even *his* staging was better than Gregory’s! Kay Wright was just a bad artist overall, while Gregory was a bad artist but also dull, repetitive, and uninspired! Thus, Kay Wright, the worst artist ever to work for Western, comes out ever so slightly AHEAD of Bob Gregory!
But BOTH should never have been drawing stories for Western in the first place! Especially in view of the material being done in Europe at the time – to which we Americans have had great exposure to in the post-Western years! The vast difference between the continents makes me want to cry!
As to Strobl’s art “looking like he didn’t hate every minute he spent drawing it”, Mr. Strobl had GREAT PRIDE in his work. He gave me a private tour of the studio he maintained in his house, and was absolutely delighted by my reactions to the collected works he kept in that studio.
If there *is* a “weakness” to Strobl’s art it would be because, after the early 1950s, he only penciled and was inked by others of varying degrees of competence. John Liggera might have been the best, and Steve Steere might have been the worst. “The Shutterbug Duck” looks like Steere. Inkers are REALLY hard to pin down, but the differences between Liggera and Steere are actually noticeable!
If you look at Strobl’s early 1950s art on Bugs Bunny, when he inked (and sometimes even lettered) himself, it’s among the best (sans Barks, of course) that Western published at the time! And Western’s standard at that time were VERY high!
Tony Strobl and Phil De Lara (but De Lara is another story for another time) are the true unsung heroes of Western Publishing, and both should be far more celebrated than they are!
Pan: But I don't think the ideas come across that well. The staging is weak, confusing and poorly planned. The splash panel looks rather like someone's home (not an office). It's a "cosmetics" company and the furnishings are the opposite of stylish - no curtains, rugs or even a single picture on the wall (although I'll grant there's possibly a hint of relevance in the character design). Daisy opens a file cabinet shown at such an angle it could be a bedroom dresser (a couple of folders could have been shown easily). In frame 2, 3 out of 4 people are cut off at the neck and badly positioned (left sheet of paper collides with collar etc). They're holding these papers and seem to be reading from them - why? In frame 3, the girl is clearly looking at her sheet - what makes it so important? Etc.
Character positioning is bad throughout (tangents and interfering silhouettes abound). It often looks like Bob will start to draw his characters with no idea of what the final layout will look like. If characters' legs etc. are cut off or bump into a frame border in the finished art, that's just too bad.
(Time for my Bromo-Seltzer)
Yes, 1950s Strobl had bounce and vitality. I kind of like the antiseptic perfection of Steve Steere, it's impressive technically. But the few Strobl pencils online (very tight indeed) indicate he needed an inker that added warmth.
"It's interesting how there are two ducks"
One of them doesn't seem to be a duck. That's not a duck bill. She looks like a Gyro Gearloose species of bird.
"Here's my question: if a man offers a woman some birdseed, is it generally considered that he's trying to hit on her?"
They're all ducks hence birds, so...
Oh, I this still not very good art. I'm just saying what was propably the reason in such rushed quality. Even Uderzo (one of european comic book master of Asterix fame) had a time when he had to do five pages a week for three difrent projects and in result you can find some art (mostly pre-Asterix) where he halfassed the backgrounds... So no one is perfect.
Everyone in the comics industry will have rushed or tight deadlines, from the great Jack Kirby to little old me, and I'd like to belive that we all give it our very best efforts under the circumstances. David Gerstein and I certainly do.
But Bob Gregory's stuff looked like this ALL the time! Each and every assignment he had could not have had a tight deadline, so he does not get the benefit of *any* doubt!
He was just an inferior artist who should have remained strictly as a writer!
Even in view of Disney’s poaching of Western's better artists, why couldn't they find replacements better than Gregory and Kay Wright?! There must have been SOMEONE out there!
You don't think "give body to head problems" is typically Lockmanian? That was my impression. As for the other one, I know I didn't mention it (probably should have), but I know he liked those weird crossover things, like shoving Jiminy Cricket in there. I just kind of assumed.
Not particularly. No alliteration, no "EEKs"... and, with all those woman and girl characters, you *know* he'd throw in a few "Eek"s!, and maybe a "Yay for you" or two when Donald came clean in "Shutterbug ".
I'll give you the odd choice of Jiminy but, although he did a lot of it, he was far from the only one.
It was Bob Ogle who repeatedly teamed Madam Mim up with the Beagle Boys and did all those crossovers in the Phantom Blot title, for instance. Don R.Christensen did Warner Brothers crossovers in those titles and specials.
And, oddly, Vic Lockman's only story for the Phantom Blot title (#7) had NO crossover characters, unless you count Donald- who was in the title from the very beginning.
Yes, I suspect this isn't "that story where Bob pulled an all-nighter to save Del Connell when six ads were cancelled the day before printing". - Barks (who was a very fast artist) lost a bit of art interest in 1963/64, and in individual drawings the finish often looks rushed and careless, even on covers, as if he did very little pencilling. But, the staging and storytelling is mostly impeccable, the images read instantly, he knows exactly what to show and what to omit, and the characters are full of life and appeal even when the rendering isn't what it could be.
Well, Donald is offering birdseed to a fellow fowl!
"Dinner Date" is the type of story that would have worked well in animation.
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