"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.

You know, The Chemistry Lab.  You've got a chemistry class; I want a piece of your mind.  How would you people feel about an entry where I comment on stories exclusively in the form of song lyrics?  I mean, one of these disposable ones, for sure; not anything where I'd potentially have anything interesting to say.  Could be fun.

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.