"The Phantom of Notre Duck"

 Here's this.  Perhaps you have heard of it.  It's a fairly atypical Barks story, so let's get to it.

Now, you might say, this is actually kind of typical for this era of Barks, innit?  The one that also gave us "Queen of the Wild Dog Pack," "The Loony Lunar Gold Rush," "Intergalactic Postman," et al.  And you're not wrong.  There's all kinds of goofy wordplay here, eg, of which "a swingin' swingin' door" is merely the tip of the iceburg.  And generally, it's certainly goofy enough.  But also...look, it's kind of weird that I'm writing this like this, as though I'm trying to keep things quiet until I can do my big reveal.  I doubt anyone reading this hasn't also read it.  But we'll get into stuff as it comes up, kay?  Seems fair.

I do love Scrooge's insane 3-D abacus, I'll tell you that much.  

(And even if you haven't read it, come on--I have a high opinion of you.  I think you can infer anything I skip over just fine.  It's all good.)

"Savage duck."  "Mad duck."  Cool, cool.  Although "if you smell money, you're off limits?"  I mean, I get what it means, presumably, but surely something like "you're trespassing" would be better?  Seeing Scrooge cheerily talking about "hex proofing" certainly demonstrates...something or other.  And as for "I'm not rife for strife over your fife" goes, all I can say is, don't knock my smock or I'll clean your clock.

Now, yes, it's true, like many stories of this era, Barks' art is...well, it's fine, one can't complain, but it IS a bit toned down from where we were at his peak.  However!  GodDAMN look at that cathedral!  Imagine anyone else drawing something like that!  My goodness!  And I am extremely here for the baroque European architecture with which Duckburg seems inexplicably rife.  The obvious point of comparison with this story is to "The Old Castle's Secret," but that one featured an edifice that, in theory, was rooted in an actual real past, whereas this is all simulacra.  I know I used to go on a lot about postmodernity in Disney comics, and if that is a thing that interests you, you may enjoy this as an example of that.

Yeah.  Okay.  Seems like a solid legend.  I see no possible reason to question it.  Does the water come from the river Styx, ya think?

So there's definitely a reason I haven't written about this story 'til now.  Not that there needs to be a reason; there are plenty of stories I haven't written about for no reason.  The overwhelming majority of them, in fact!  But there is a reason, which is, man, what can you SAY about something like this?  It's not just that it's so intentionally flakey that analysis feels superfluous, although it is that.  But more, it's the fact that--as you know--Barks more or less punted on giving this story a plot: it's just this whole long chase sequence, and while it's fun, what is there to say about it, really?  Other than WHEEE!  This is also probably why I haven't written about "The Old Castle's Secret," in spite of it being such an important story for Scrooge's character.  So I'll go over this, but I'm definitely going to skip over a bunch.

But I'm not skipping over this, because I do like this: here we have this weird cathedral in Duckburg, and INSIDE said cathedral, we have a mini-cathedral, made of money.  The layers here!  Well, okay, maybe "layers" is pushing it.  Still: fun and funky.  And even a little mysterious, even if that mystery never really leads goes anywhere.

I just wish Scrooge's dang speech balloon didn't get in the way of the image.  It deserves to be enjoyed.

Well, I mean, technically, you'd still have rich relatives, which would be your brothers, since you'd all inherit.  But anyway...

A sequence like this really demonstrates the general flippancy of this whole affair--that is a terrifying situation for Donald, or would be, except come on, man, there's no more danger here to him than there is to Darkwing Duck from a giant bomb exploding in his face.  In older Barks stories, there might be actual peril.  But this story, all told, seems more like a Saturday morning cartoon.  I don't mean that to be pejorative, but things sure have changed.

Of course they got straight A's in archery!  They're Junior Woodchucks!  What else would you expect?  Have a little faith, man.

The phrase "put that in your pipe and smoke it" was old when Barks was writing, so it's not like it's out-of-place here--but man, somehow, to me, it feels more contemporary, and seeing HDL use it therefore jars.  Which doesn't mean I don't like it!

What's also a little jarring is when it switches to the phantom's perspective.  Not that there's not precedent for Barks writing from the perspective of the antagonist, but you don't expect that for a mysterious guy like this.  Gottfredson never did that with the Phantom Blot, unless I'm wrong and he did, in which case, man, what are we even doing?

Yeah, so I'm down with the wordplay for sure, but I can't help but note that two of the wordplay words here are just "felon."  Not the most impressive thing.

You lover of Scottish ballads!  Man, sick burn.  I do enjoy this baroque James-Bond-ish villainy.

Whoa!  The Official Hound!  Might as well just stick him in here, I suppose.  Barks only created him in 1958, but he was in quite a few stories for a while.  It's too bad he never teamed up with Bolivar.

What I really like about this--I mean, aside from HDL's determined vine-swinging, which kind of goes without saying--is the way those bell onomatopoeias do indeed scan to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean."  Bong Bongle Dong Ding Dong Bing Bongle! My bonnie lies over the sea!  Did you know that song is allegedly about Charles Edward Stuart, aka "Bonnie Prince Charlie?"  Jacobites were flippin' weird.

Those narration boxes may put you in mind of the ones used in Pluto stories.  It's too bad these never go into second-person, as a tribute.

ANYWAY.  To make a medium-sized story a bit shorter: we've got the phantom.  Good for us.

And here's the backstory, such as it is.  I like it fine; it's good-natured enough.  No surprise that a villain of this vintage would turn out to be more or less non-villainous.

But I dunno, man, I've always found this reveal sort of baffling.  Like...okay, he's this guy.  And he looks more or less like Scrooge.  Well?  What's the punchline?  Are we meant to be comparing him to Scrooge in some way?  I just kind of doubt that much thought went into it.

I mean, there is this official punchline, but it's pretty limp, innit?  Is that worthy of a conspiratorial wink?  And of HDL's resulting hilarity?  I feel that it is not.

Look, I've made the point multiple times that endings were not Barks' strong suit, so I don't hold this against him, but man, low standards or not...blah.

Not that I want to end on a blah note.  I didn't really like this the first time I read it, just because it was not lining up with my expectations, but now I think it's a pretty chill, mellow time, appreciated for what it is.  But I am, not gonna like to you, a bit dissatisfied with this blog entry, probably because it really does resist analysis.  And it's Barks, so there's not really anything egregiously bad that you can make fun of.  So what are you left with?  Well, enjoy it in good health the best you can.