Duck Comics Revue

"That Missing Candelabra"

2012-01-29T23:06:00.003-05:00

Right now you're probably not wondering, hey--what happened to those "Disney Literature Classics" you were all het up about? What's going on here? Where am I? Who am I? But that's too bad, 'cause I'm gonna tell you anyway.

I wanted to read them all before commenting, and I just recently got through the last of them. For the most part, they're about what you'd expect: a spectrum ranging from "pretty good" to "total dogshit," with plenty of weirdness throughout. Here's what you might not expect: two of them--"War and Peace" and even more so the Les Misérables adaptation under consideration here--are among the best Disney comics I've ever read. No lie.

These stories are both written and drawn by Giovan Battista Carpi. If you're an American reader, you may wonder, th'fuck's that? Like most vintage Italian creators, he's almost unknown in the US, but he's responsible for the art (though not the writing) on two Boom-localized stories, "Moldfinger" and "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold…Again!" From those, you probably wouldn't think twice about him--the art is adequate at best. I certainly didn't.

Now, obviously I've only read a small amount of his stuff, so my generalizations could well be faulty. But here's how it looks to me: the two above-mentioned stories (1962 and 1966, respectively): not-so-great-art. His two art-only stories included in the Literature Classics series--"Around the World in Eight Days" (1961) and "Donald Hamlet" (1960): likewise. His two art-and-writing stories--"War and Peace" (1986) and "That Missing Candelabra" (1989): spectacular artwork. So we can assume that either his art improved dramatically over the course twenty years, or else he was just way more invested in stories that he had full control over. Or both. Regardless, I am simply bowled over. How many other obscure-but-great stories are there lurking in the recesses? Lots, I'll bet.

First, a terrible confession: I've never read Les Misérables, nor seen the musical. Worry not, however: I have read the little summary included in the front of the book--so I think I'm something of an expert on the subject. From what I can tell, the comic is comparatively faithful to the original, in Disney-comic terms, of course: no one dies, all the good guys get happy endings, and there's a treasure hunt grafted on. But really, the question of textual fidelity itself isn't of interest to me; the only real issue is, to what extent does the story successfully meld the elements of an older story and those of a duck comic to create a fun and interesting final product? With things like this--and certainly not just Disney-comics-wise--there's a tendency towards laziness, as in, okay, let's take some really basic elements of this story, riff lazily on them, paste in our characters, and call it a day. It doesn't have to be like that, of course, but doing it well requires actual effort, so screw that. But if you're willing to do your work diligently . . .

A note on the translation: there is actually a lot of variation in terms of script quality among the volumes in the series. None of them appear to have been written by anyone with any familiarity with the characters as they generally appear in English, but some of them appear to at least have been written by someone with an interest in making them seem at least somewhat natural, whereas others look to have been translated by non-native English-speakers and published with absolutely no editing. Fortunately, both of these Carpi stories have scripts that, while by no means perfect, tend to be more the first than the second. That still leaves the somewhat perplexing question of the present story's title, however. The original Italian title is "Il mistero dei candelabri"--"The Mystery of the Candelabra," just as it sounds. The English version is obvious quite a departure, and why they went that route, I couldn't tell you. I do kind of prefer it--the original version is a little generic, and the English version actually does sound rather more cool and mysterious, especially because of the use of "that"--though it really ought to be "those," since there are two of them. I don't have any answers here, people. I'm just reporting the controversy.

I think I'm going to use a whole bunch of images here in an effort to show you why I like this story; how about that? Since it isn't widely available in English, I suppose I should also say: SPOILERS!

So here's most of the cast. As you can see, Javert is played by this crazy crow. I learn from inducks that the regular version of the character, created by Carpi for an earlier story, is named Yanez. He doesn't actually play a huge role in this story, but he's certainly imposing-looking enough.

After a disposable framing sequence in which Scrooge starts telling this story to HDL, we get right into the action. I hope that big ol' image of the inn is enough to provide some idea of the caliber of the art here.

After some business at the inn, Valduck (it feels really weird calling him that, I'll tell you) ends up adopting Cosette here. Another thing I like about these stories: they're very humanistic. Yeah, there's some degree of Scrooge getting mad and yelling, as well there should be, but they lack the sensibility of someone like Guido Martina, whom you could rely upon to depict him as a pure, non-stop asshole.

See what I mean? This, for anyone as unfamiliar with the story as I was before I became an expert, is a flashback to where Valduck, having broken out of prison, tries to steal these candlesticks but when caught is given them, giving him faith in human nature and stuff. Obviously, there's an extent to which this is simply a function of the story being told, but as I noted above, there are plenty of examples of writers not letting the story stop them from doing their own somewhat unpleasant thing.

Obviously, a major deviation from the original is this treasure-hunt business, but it's quite seamless the way it's integrated with the whole, and it feels very much in the spirit of classic Barks (and Rosa) jaunts. It's quite an excellent melding of the source material and the duckiverse, if you ask me.

(Is it just me, or does Trudy look more human here than she usually does? You wouldn't necessarily know from this that she's meant to be a cat-thing like Pete.)

I'm not gonna lie: a large part of this entry is going to consist of me pointing at panels and going "see? Look how effective/sophisticated that layout is!" But that's because that's a big part of the story's appeal. Carpi is absolutely in love with doing these big splash panels, and for my money, he's just fucking brilliant at it.

Here's another cool part: ducking into the sewers to flee from Javert, Valduck and Cosette encounter this familiar gang of thieves. Later on, they're going to take on a more traditional baddie role, but here we get to see them help our heroes escape from the law. How fun is that? It's just the sort of thing a story like this lets you do.

Cosette grows up. Once again: too cool. I'm not going to say--for how could I, the bottom of this page being right there?--that Carpi is wholly immune to some degree of fairly mild sexism, but certainly nothing compared to a lot of creators we could name.

Seriously--just try telling me your head doesn't want to just explode from the awesomeness of this panel. It's just so dynamic--you can practically hear the accordion music as the smokestacks shake along to it. My extensive sociological knowledge suggests to me that being a nineteenth-century chimney-sweep wasn't quite this jolly in real life, but damned if Carpi doesn't half-convince me that I'm wrong about that.

…and their interactions with Donald are just lovely. Not that I'm not plenty keen on knock-down drag-out Donald-vs.-nephews fights, but sometimes you just want to see something like this--which, of course, goes back to what I said earlier about the humanistic nature of the story.

Of course, there's a romance between Donald and Cosette, but it's pretty much the weakest part of the story--there's very little effort to really develop it. They meet; they're in love, dammit; and that's about it--though there are some rather sweet images of them together. There's a similar situation in Carpi's "War and Peace."

But the villains continue to villainize! Kneel before Grandpa Beagle! Hell yes!

Long story short, they kidnap Cosette and demand the candlesticks in exchange for her return. As you can see, Carpi is also keen on full-page panels, and just see how great this is, with Scrooge frantically riding to retrieve them while menaced by angry trees, with the Thenardiers gloating down below.

…speaking of full-page panels. Not being an expert on Paris geography, I couldn't tell you how accurate this is, but it's obvious that a huge amount of work went into it, and boy was it ever worth it. An' if this impresses you, you should see some of the splash panels in "War and Peace."

(If it doesn't impress you, then I'm sorry to tell you that YOU CAN'T BE IN MY SECRET CLUB.)

They use the candlesticks to find a secret message, but when the Thenardiers refuse to return Cosette until the treasure is in their hands, Gavroche (or a Gavroche sibling? It's hard to say) absconds with it. As you can see, in addition to everything else, there's some pretty sweet action here too.

I'll just stick this one here too, 'cause why the hell not? This is probably the first English-language treatment of this story, so we might as well be thorough.

"Urchins' Guidebook" just fills me with joy. That is all.

Next, the sewers. This story just crams in every cool aspect of Disney comics and essentially none of the uncool ones.

BEHOLD!

…an' it's just fuckin' action to the end, as the Thenardiers try to steal the treasure while the sewer's being flooded to root out the Beagles.

Trudy thwomping her husband as they come out is a great image…

…as is Donald and Cosette snuggling. That ghost of a nephew on the bottom is slightly alarming-looking, though.

As for Valduck and Javert…

…um, right. I suppose it's a matter of taste as to whether you find this funny or just think it's a huge cop-out, but really, I don't think the story played entirely fair with us in this regard. It's true that Javert never literally said "man, I've gotta get that Valduck to punish him for his crimes," but there was plenty of "Grrr--I'll find you, Valduck!" Oh well--I suppose it probably would've been extremely difficult to do much else while remaining within the Disney-comic idiom.

Et…finis! Okay, as I said, "mildly sexist"--certainly I think the image of a miffed Donald being forced to look after his jelly-wanting offspring while Cosette's out playing suffragette probably qualifies.

In spite of which, as I think I've made clear, I love this story to pieces. Action, adventure, romance, treasure-hunting, great art--I'm at a loss as to what more you could possibly want. I'd highly recommend it for US publication (I mean, if there were a US publisher), but obviously there are certain logistical problems with printing a hundred-page-plus story. I think we can probably agree that Boom's strategy of awkwardly chopping up stories to fit US-comic-book length limits was extremely suboptimal. Still, if we could ever be so fortunate as to see a return of the digests of the type that Gemstone published…why not?

Seriously, people, I don't think I emphasized enough how much completely worthless garbage this Literature Classics series contains--but it was all worth it to discover the flowers of Carpi's talent. I'm-a gonna read some of his other material in French, and if it's any good, you'll learn about it here.

Addendum: "What happens to the Super Gavroche Brothers?" Elaine wonders in comments. I really have no satisfactory explanation for why I left this part out, as it's rather ambiguous and interesting. Huey wonders the same thing:

This is one of those things where it works as long as you don't ask too many questions. The art is nice for sure, but it's difficult to get around the fact that an anti-monarchist rebellion isn't all accordion-playing and happily hopping around roofs. Thanks to my expertise, I know that Gavroche dies in the source material; obviously, it was very much desired that such things be avoided in the Disney version, but this is really dancing on the edge, I think. I like it, even if it isn't wholly satisfactory.

"Scrooge's Second Childhood"

2012-01-14T01:04:00.015-05:00

A thing of note is the fact that post-Western US Disney comics saw a far greater variety of reprinted "classic" Western mouse stories than they did duck stories. Think about it: as far as mouse material goes, you not only had Gottfredson, but you also had lots and lots of Paul Murry, as well as more Bill Wright and Dick Moores than you might expect. Whereas when you look at the duck material, it was virtually all Barks, with a very few Tony Strobl stories thrown in, and even fewer from other artists. I think this reflects the fact that there's much more of a critical consensus about duck comics: everyone agrees that Barks is the best, and there's a lot of Barks to reprint, so that's that. Whereas when it comes to mouse material...well, things are much more fragmented. Pretty much everyone agrees that Gottfredson is number one,* but of course, Gottfredson wasn't writing comic-book stories, even if his earlier work was oft reprinted in that form. Since original stories came to replace the Gottfredson reprints, and since more kids were surely reading comic books than the comics page, there's a lot of nostalgic fondness for Murry (in my opinion, sporadically-merited at best, but that's an argument for another time), but Murry still didn't have the hegemony that Barks did in his realm, so even tertiary artists get their moments in the sun.

*there were occasional indications on letters pages that some people prefer Murry to Gottfredson, but that viewpoint is so thoroughly alien to my sensibilities that I can only pass over it in silence.

But is the obscureness of old non-Barks stories deserved? Not to any greater degree degree than it is for non-Gottfredson mouse stories. There's a lot of irredeemable trash, sure, but you can find some decent stuff if you look hard enough, and I remain keenly disappointed that Strobl and company have largely disappeared from critical consciousness.

So let's try to remedy that a bit, shall we? I'm skeptical of the idea that me pointing out problematic aspects of stories could result in their censorship, but if it's true, it's only bloody well fair that me saying nice thing about stories should facilitate their reprinting. This is a 1956 story that I read when I was small and reacquainted myself with recently, and hey, it's not half bad, in spite of the fact that Moores is not among my favorite duck artists. He generally fairs a bit better with mice, I find, but as you'll see, his ducks are kind of childish-looking, with their overly rounded heads and, for the nephews in particular, with their eyeballs right in the middle of their eyes in somewhat disturbing fashion (though it isn't too bad in this particular tale).

So here's the setup. I get the impression that in these old stories, the characters were less well-formed, leading to them being assigned these weird character idiosyncrasies for the sake of a single plotline. Not that there isn't wide variation in the way they're depicted to this day, but it's hard to imagine a contemporary writer hinging a story around the idea that Scrooge only eats quail.

…also, Scrooge is a petty thief. Of course, even Barks depicted him as dishonest on occasion too, but seriously? Poaching quail to save two cents? That seems wrong, somehow. Scrooge is the guy that people should be poaching from, and getting exiled to Australia as a result.

The idea is that Scrooge panics and decides to pretend he's chasing butterflies so Grandma doesn't suspect him. I'm pretty sure that in the real world, "second childhood" denotes senility, but this story takes a rather more literal interpretation. I enjoy Donald and HDL's amusement at this, which is perfectly warranted--it's Scrooge's own stupid fault, after all.

Naturally, the "cure" is an ocean voyage. Man, it would've been super-easy to be a doctor back in the day: no need to actually know anything about medicine; you just mandate that people go on trips to foreign climes for every damn thing. Stress? Forest lodge. Tuberculosis? Swiss Alps. Leprosy? Lourdes. Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome? Space. Yes, those were simpler times. Death-ier, also. But I digress.

This is definitely a more amusing way to do exposition than most, with Scrooge's nephews needling him like this. Wasn't that nice? Wasn't that nice? I also like that the penny-wise-pound-foolish idiocy of this whole thing is explicitly pointed out.

We interrupt this story to bring you narcotized children selling you toy guns.

We now return to our regular programming.

Question is: what "other relatives" could Scrooge have taken along? Gladstone? That would've been a barrel o' laughs. Gus? Actually, another thing about these old stories is that writers were more willing to make up random one-shot relatives out of the blue. So probably some of them.

This is what happens when Scrooge learns--quelle horreur!--that the ship has no quail. And this is another of those things: the idea, weirdly prevalent in old Scrooge comics, that if you have enough money you can just buy any ol' factory, amusement park, or luxury liner no matter what, right there on the spot. I don't think I've ever seen this idea in any other media. Is it just an incomplete understanding of how stocks work? Or is it a quasi-mystical notion that The Rich Are Different Than You And Me, and therefore can just do any ol' magical shit? Is there one single source that this comes from? I am genuinely interested in this.

Donald and HDL come up with the swell idea of slaughtering seagulls to quench Scrooge's ravenous quail-hunger. And eating seagulls makes you think you can fly, because shut up, that's why.

Anyway, Scrooge gets wind of this, throws a tantrum, and gets them let off the ship. Always scheming. I like that his cunning plan to score a free lifeboat goes nowhere.

He wanted to leave the ship because, in one of those really dopey coincidences, he'd seen that there was this tiny quail island nearby. If you're like me, you wonder: how the hell did quail get here? If we're assuming they're the same species as the ones back in Calisota, they can't be native; someone must have introduced them, for whatever reason. And then, they realized they hated quail and cannibalized one another, which is why they're nowhere in evidence. Gruesome stuff, and a scenario that's sure to repeat if Scrooge goes through with his bizarre idea of abandoning his entire empire and just spending the rest of his life on this island.

...well, maybe you're not buying that, but the story does turn into the weirdest Twilight Zone episode ever. Not that the ducks are ever presented as vegetarians or anything, but this story does seem to emphasize the slaughter of animals more than most. That picture of Scrooge with his teeth showing is a bit disturbing. Go on--kill a quail with your bare hand and gnaw on its uncooked carcass! You know you want to.

...but alas, no; instead, they decide to take to the sea again. Sure it's ridiculous, but the idea of them passing up rescue ships because of a lack of quail is pretty funny. You'd think that the people on the ships would determine that they were delirious from thirst and/or hunger and forcibly take them aboard anyway.

I like the fact that Donald and HDL come out on top here, especially since they do it without any conniving whatsoever--it's all down to Scrooge's nuttiness. Makes them very likeable, in an easygoing sort of way. For some reason, I also find the idea of Scrooge lugging away this lifeboat quite amusing.

…and that's about how that ends.

So, this story. Silly for sure, but still fun. Does it deserve to be reprinted? In an absolute sense, I guess it's up in the air, but Gladstone reprinted old mouse stories that are way, way worse than this, so relatively speaking, absolutely. Yeah, I guess it seems a little unsophisticated compared to the best of the European comics we've gotten, but still. Certainly if we ever see a new publisher, I'd love to see them put out stuff like this on occasion. Disney comics do have a storied history in the US; sure it's checkered to say the least, but I feel like large parts of it are being unjustly neglected. Hey, potential-publisher-people, hire ME! I'll totally go through dozens and dozens of old comics and give you suggestions for reprints! Dirt cheap, too! Have your people call my people. We'll work something out.

"The Secret of Atlantis"

2012-01-04T23:12:00.016-05:00

Kind of somber for the first post of 2012, but I must note with sadness the passing, yesterday, of Victor Arriagada Ríos (Vicar), at the age of seventy-seven. In the past, I've joked that, in fact, Vicar drew every duck comic ever, and if you should ever note any counter-examples, they're just figments of your imagination. You know what I mean if you've paid attention to Disney comics from Disney's publishing tenure on: the man's work was absolutely everywhere; I'd be willing to bet a modest sum of money that, Barks aside, no artist was published as often in the post-Western era. On the Disney Comics Forum, I wondered aloud whether he was in fact the most prolific Disney artist ever; administrator cacou crunched the numbers and determined that no, in terms of total number of panels, he's "only" number six--though if you're talking about total number of stories, he's second only to Tony Strobl. An impressive legacy for sure.

So what do I think of his work? Well, I would describe it as "workmanlike" in a positive sense. His art was rarely what I'd call exciting (though he certainly had his moments), but it was unfailingly solid, competent, and professional. There's something to be said for that. You (or *I,* at least) would never pick up a comic book thinking "oh boy! A new Vicar story!" but if the scriptwriter did a good job, you could be confident that the art wouldn't let it down, even if it wouldn't propel the finished story to new artistic heights.

Anyway, I think it is necessary for me to commemorate his work by spotlighting one of his stories, since that's what I pretty much do on this blog. I'll admit, his stories often don't tend to stand out very much in my mind, but here's a pretty good one, written by an obscure fellow named Lars Enoksen. Note that this was part of Disney's "Time Tetrad," an idea that Bob Foster came up with in which four unrelated stories in four different books were declared to be part of a single storyline, inasmuch as they all involved time travel. Okay…the concept may be a li'l threadbare, but it still shows an unusual degree of narrative ambition, so good for ol' Bob.

Hey! Didn't Barks already let us in on the secret of Atlantis? Well, I guess it's just such an evergreen idea that nobody can resist taking a shot at it. Really, I just stuck this panel here to point out the nice art, which really creates a good sense of place.

Here's the plan, Stan. The historical stuff here is pretty well-done…

…see? Lots of good specifics. One general problem I have with a lot of Disney comics is that they just refuse to take history and exotic locales seriously--that is, they're completely ridiculous and cartoonish with goofy names, never for one minute letting you forget that this is just a comic with no real-world significance. Ducktales is habitually guilty of this, and the comics' track record isn't much better. Not, I should add, that this is always a bad thing--but is it not the case that lots of classic Barks stories--"The Seven Cities of Cibola," "Back to Long Ago," "The Mines of King Solomon," "The Fabulous Philosopher's Stone," and so on--gain a lot of their affect by creating the sense that this isn't just some cheesy made-up universe; that real anthropology/archeology is going on here. That's certainly what Don Rosa noticed and imitated, often to very good effect, in his own works. But it's something we see too rarely, as writers--I have to imagine--have this "aw, whatever, it's just kids' stuff" mindset.

My only point is, this is a story that does better than most in that regard, which is what I like about it.

Long story short, Donald and HDL accidentally activate the time machine and end up back here. Once again, I'm mainly just showing this panel to highlight Vicar's art.

"Funny ideas about street improvements" is right. I can only imagine what a terrible paving material gold would be.

This guy looks a lot like Scrooge does in "King Scrooge the First." Why he looks like Scrooge at all...on that, the history books are silent. "Ancient Persia" and "Dangerous Disguise" had their unexplained Donald Doppelgängers too, of course, but those stories were obviously very tonally different than this is. I guess it's just because Scrooge is automatically associated by many with tyranny, so in he goes.

And in the dungeon, the mighty Exposition Alchemist explains the situation. Yeah, good luck defending the place with gold spears.

This is special, water-soluble gold, is the problem. As you can see, there's a kind of apocalyptic, doom-y aspect to this story. I have to note that the sea air would probably then destroy all of it long before the actual sea got the chance.

They're all going to be burned, but then, thankfully, the wave hits. Some funny dialogue from Donald, courtesy of Byron Erickson; note that no more is seen of the Exposition Alchemist. Regardless of what's going to happen, though, HDL seem awfully chirpy for people surrounded by flames.

ROPES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! Guess we've got to escape somehow, though. I feel like for maximum effect, we really need a more focused panel of the wave hitting, but this is all right.

…and we see that Atlantis is doomed. Pretty grim, in spite of the desultory effort to indicate that, oh no, they're all going to escape! I think we can conclude that this is true of only a small number of them at best. Due to the king's greed, the kingdom was lost and thousands of his subjects died. Jeez. Alas, I can think of soon-to-be-contemporary parallels to this...

[Citation Needed] as far as these "legends" go. But it is a somewhat clever explanation for why the divers came up empty-handed.

Unfortunately, there's this absolutely horrible ending, where, through the most contrived circumstances possible--Donald tries to fix a broken pipe with a blowtorch, sets off the sprinklers, and hurls salted peanuts into the fray--the spears are destroyed. C'mon, Enoksen! That's not change we can believe in!

Other than that, though, the story's all right, and Vicar's art certainly contributes to that. I never really thought much about him over the years--he was so easy to take for granted; just this reliable, rock-steady presence. But his overall contribution to the field was certainly a positive one.

Rest in peace, Vicar. You will be missed by many.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: Towards an Epilogue-ish Thing

2011-12-28T21:35:00.000-05:00

Man, I keep trying to write a definitive epilogue, and it keeps not quite working. Let's consider this a work in progress, shall we? For now, a few thoughts on an important and, I think, oft-missed aspect of Rosa's work.

In comments, Elaine said something that sort of clarified my thoughts on the subject of this whole series. She wrote:

My godson, a huge Scrooge fan (thanks to me!), has always believed that the boys' parents had to undertake a diplomatic mission to an alien race in outer space (for which they were for some reason uniquely qualified), but when I suggested that to Rosa, he rejected it as being too much a "silly superhero" plot!

My immediate reaction to this was, really? The guy who wrote a story (and a very good story, I might add) called "Attack of the Hideous Space Varmints" is dismissing plot ideas on the basis that they're too "silly?" And The guy who wrote a sequel to Barks' "Super Snooper" is dismissing plot ideas on the basis that they're too superhero-y? Where's the logic here?

But on reflection, it's actually pretty simple: space varmints may be okay for a regular story, but when we're talking about these serious, canonical family matters--then, we have to get serious. No such silliness will be permitted.

There are these two impulses in Rosa's work, which are rarely in harmony: on the one hand, the impulse to just write regular, fun duck stories; on the other, the impulse to ruthlessly quantify the duckiverse in a consistent, coherent way. That's why it's often difficult to imagine that his modern-day Scrooge is the same character that had all those L&T adventures. Occasionally, as in "Last Sled to Dawson," he manages to more or less bring these two tendencies into balance, but usually, a story's basically one or the other. Granted, it's hard, when you think about it, to conceive of all Barks stories taking place in the same world either, but that's not a self-conscious thing: Barks was never trying to create a single, unified setting, so he needs make no excuses.

This is why I find it somewhat difficult to really place the L&T in the context of Rosa's other works. I've carped a lot in this series about the contradiction between Scrooge-the-Jerk and Scrooge-the-Paragon, but it's not so surprising if you consider his corpus in these terms: he's trying to include both aspects of his work in the same stories, with sometimes-confounding results.

This isn't exactly by way of criticism; Rosa's work would be a lot less interesting (if it could even exist at all) without its internal tension. I do think, however, that the history-type stories often do suffer from all this weight they're trying to shoulder--they sometimes seem to sort of forget that they're supposed to be Disney comics, you might say. Don't get me wrong; the L&T is impressive as hell, and I love "A Letter from Home" as how indeed can one not. But in general, my favorite stories tend to be those that are more classically-oriented, with maybe just a nod or two in the direction of the family stuff. Stories like "Last Sled to Dawson," "Return to Xanadu," and like that. I'm not trying to claim that this bifurcation is something that Rosa was likely consciously struggling with; I think it was just a natural result of what he was trying to do. It would certainly have been fascinating to see how he dealt with it in future efforts.

On another note...

2011-12-28T02:27:00.000-05:00

...I would draw your attention to the fact that, thanks to my tireless efforts (okay okay, it was a few hours of work max--but it's absolutely true that I didn't get tired!), all of the books in the UK Literature Classics series are now fully inducks'd--in case you wanted to see exactly what all it includes. To answer Joe's earlier question, no, that one Murry/Lockman King Arthur thing is the only Western-produced story in the whole series. There's also the one Disney Studio Program Goofy story; aside from that, it's all Italian stuff.

I also added cover scans--with the exceptions of the first and fifth volumes, you're lookin' at my personal copies there. I must say, for all the criticism you can level at these stories--and not wholly due to translation issues, either--most of the covers are just gorgeous--I'd buy a few of them as framed prints, absolutely.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Twelve: "The Richest Duck in the World"

2011-12-25T14:55:00.014-05:00

Hey everyone, Merry Christmas. Hard for me to believe that this is it, given how submerged in this stuff I've been for the last month or so, but it it is. Last installment of the series. This can't help but come across as a little anti-climactic given the last one, but it's mostly a fitting ending. If inducks is to be believed, an alternate title for this is "The Recluse of McDuck Manor;" per Rosa's expanded commentary, this was Byron Erickson's idea, but Rosa preferred the title that we have before us now. No ambiguity here: sorry, Byron, but Rosa was right and you were wrong. That's a terrible name for the last installment in the series. "The Richest Duck in the World" creates an obvious sense of the series' final culmination, whereas that other title just makes it seem like one more segment like all the rest. And in any case, doesn't it violate the dictum that each title is meant to be a "positive" reference to Scrooge?

We open with this Citizen Kane tribute, which seems appropriate, given the context. A poignant reminder of a lost past--though it would be hard to deny that those glasses look sort of odd perched there like that in the last panel.

There's also some newsreel footage, including this. I'm not totally sure what "foreclosed on the chicken coop" means, but Grandma's gotta be pretty rich, if she sold all that land to him. Sure, he would've tried to pay as little as possible, but why would she have sold at all if she were getting a bad deal? I don't get the impression that she's meant to be any sort of pushover.

The idea is that this takes place after the main action of "Night on Bear Mountain" but before Scrooge meets up with them (there's no indication in that story that they'd never met him before, but nothing that proves they had, either). This is clever; it's a slightly bumpy insertion--the depiction of Scrooge here clashes with how delighted he is to be meeting up with them in the Barks story--but it's certainly less of a contradiction than his Fond Memories of chasing Foola Zoola and company off their land, and I don't have a problem with that, so not with this either.

One thing I really don't like, though, is this running thing where Donald is constantly deprecating Scrooge's awesomeness. I realize that it's there play up the contrast between conception and reality--and because Rosa just likes portraying Donald as a buffoon--but it feels very forced. Why is he so convinced of all this, exactly?

Oh man, there's an obscure reference. Is that the only Barks story that, outside the two CBL's, has never been reprinted in the US?

Anyway, this. An extremely momentous meeting, no doubt. Very well-done.

And some fourth-wall-smashing, 'cause why not? Apparently, the original version of the story was only sixteen pages, but Rosa got the go-ahead to add three pages' worth of additional stuff after the fact, including this. Mmm…a li'l self-aggrandizing maybe, but still cute.

Here, we see Rosa trying to make sense of the idea that Scrooge has "sentimental" money that just sits there. He can't quite do it, of course; no surprise, since it's a nonsensical idea. But he does his best, dammit. Oh, and hey, Beagle Boys in Santa suits. That's how you know it's a Christmas story.

See what I mean about Donald? This is just perverse. This dialogue doesn't feel remotely natural; he's like a guy in an infomercial expressing incredulity that a product this amazing could really be yours for the low, low price of $39.95. I would almost think he was trying to goad Scrooge into challenging him, if not for the fact that he was the same way with the kids before even meeting the guy. And in any case, it makes no sense: Hortense is his mother, as you ought to recall, if only because the story explicitly notes it. And we're really supposed to believe that he would never have learned anything from her about his famous uncle? I suppose if we want to bend over really, really far backwards to try to rationalize this, we could posit that she was so pissed off at him that she instituted a policy of omertà on the subject that she never, ever deviated from and he was somehow never able to find anything out from anyone else. But really, now…

So in any case, he sorts out the Beagle Boys (the cop chasing the drummer in the background is in service to a pretty good "Twelve Days of Christmas" gag), and then it is necessary to convince him to return to his old self. It's not badly done, even if it's suddenness isn't exactly psychologically realistic.

Yay! Now on to the feast!

…and it's actually pretty near impossible to imagine this scene of bonhomie in a Rosa story. To be fair, it's difficult to imagine it in a later Barks story too, but Rosa? Fergeddaboutit (okay, come to think of it, I guess the ending of "The Duck Who Never Was" is pretty close).

…man, do we have to get another dig in at Donald at the very last? Yes, we do. I like this regardless, but it's definitely suffused with melancholy--all these memories, gone gone gone. I think Rosa would probably agree that given this conception, there's a somewhat unhappy subtext underlying Scrooge's later exploits.

And…we're done. I hope you've liked reading it as much as I've liked writing it. While I've leveled plenty of criticisms Rosa's way over the course of this project, I hope my deep affection for his work is also apparent. Let me say this: I like a lot of different duck comics by a lot of different people. However, of Rosa, it must be said: there has never been anyone else whose work in the form has been even remotely similar to his. I don't think you can say that for anyone else. Sure, we can whine complain kvetch bitch about this and that (that's what this blog's more or less for, after all), but a duckiverse that did not include his work would be much, much poorer. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Rosa.

(And hey, if you ever decide that you're sick and tired of not being exploited by publishers and wanna get back in the game, I have some great sequel ideas, yours free of charge. You have only to ask.)

Some final thoughts probably tomorrow, though I can't guarantee it. In the next few days, at any rate.

<-Chapter Eleven Epilogue->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Eleven: "The Empire-Builder from Calisota"

2011-12-24T13:27:00.022-05:00

Okay, here we go! Scrooge's downfall! Ready?!? Yeah, I know--you were born ready.

Here's the story in a single panel, more or less--richer and richer and meaner and ornerier. As you've seen, I have struggled in the past with the depiction of Scrooge, how "mean" he's supposed to be, and how this is meant to compare the present-day version of the character. This story is not devoid of such confusion also, but it's finally absolutely clear that, to a very large extent, he's meant to be seen as a big ol' jerk.

Somewhat awkwardly shoehorned in, we get a brief rehashing of the events referred to in "Mystery of the Ghost Town Railroad," and the only appearance in the series of the elusive Katie Mallard. I must say, I'm disappointed that Rosa didn't give more space to the character and her relationship with Scrooge. Given that he's nothing but glad to see her in "Ghost Town Railroad," in spite of the way she's making him pay for broken furniture, it must have been a pretty good one, after all. It seems like such an obvious and enlightening thing to do--but nothin' doing. She's no less prominent in her single Barks story than Goldie is in hers--though of course, Barks would include Goldie in paintings and things, retrospectively increasing her stature. But Katie isn't as glamorous and is unlikely to have been romantically involved with Scrooge, so forget about her, I guess. Too bad.

She does appear in a few more panels in the sketch version of the story:

So apparently, this is where they first meet each other, before they have any kind of relationship--which really just makes me more curious about how things went after this rocky start.

The sketches are definitely worth looking at, as they feature substantial alterations of the story. For instance, we get a second Glomgold appearance:

Oh ho ho, fifty years indeed. You've gotta figure, though: if that's the case, Flinty must've been making money at a way faster rate than Scrooge.

This also provides some evidence that Scrooge must have been aware of Glomgold before "The Second-Richest Duck"--even if the guy never actually surpassed him, he's obviously hyper-aware of anyone who might present any sort of threat to his status.

I know I've been belaboring the point, and I know that every time I do it I've been noting how often I've been doing it, but still: him being a jerk to Miss Quackfaster (making her debut) is meant to show he's becoming meaner, but really, how is that different from this?

Just sayin'...

Anyway, the idea is that the sisters insist on tagging along with him to Africa, where he really lets loose with the dickishness. It's not at all clear at what point this devotion to "playing it square" is meant to have eroded away, or to what extent it was ever anything more than a meaningless bromide used to justify bad behavior. But it's clear enough where we stand now. This section coming up is meant to represent his definitive ethical failure.

I cannot praise the portrayal of Foola Zoola here highly enough. It's just so bracing--how many have you seen a "native" in a Disney comic who is A) violently hostile towards the protagonist; B) quite rightfully so; and C) isn't some kind of racist caricature? I'm going to go ahead and say "zero." It just suddenly opens the world up and provides an important perspective that we've never seen before or since. This part isn't in the sketch version; it just goes straight from him scamming the other tribe out of their mine to him getting the thugs to fuck shit up. Also, in that version his sisters aren't along to witness all this. The finished version is a huge improvement in that regard.

I tell you, probably the one Rosa story I most regret that we never got to see is a sequel to "Voodoo Hoodoo" in which Scrooge has to deal with his old rival again and come to some sort of understanding. I realize that might have been a politically tricky thing to pull off, but wow could it ever have been great.

And Scrooge's response--wow that's potent. These are special circumstances, of course, but it's definitely the case that this is the worst thing any Disney protagonist has ever done. It's just an amazing depiction of his corruption, and I very strongly applaud Rosa for it.

And then, of course, he has to deal with a zombie. I should explain for anyone just tuning in that the idea is that Rosa has--pretty brilliantly, actually--repurposed this guy--who was just meant as an antagonist with no moral content in "Voodoo Hoodoo"--as the physical representation of Scrooge's moral failure--which, of course, leaves open the question of why he's so fucking jolly about it in Barks' present.

But what can you do? I still think this was the best possible way to pick up this plot thread.

Mind you, this "one foul deed" business is a bit much. Of course, definitions of "foul deed" may vary (though if you have to quibble about it...), but you may have noted that right before the Foola Zoola stuff, he stole another tribe's diamond mine. Is that not foul? Or is that just meant to go together with the other thing, like how multiple items of the same kind of produce count as a single thing for the "fifteen items or less" lane?

This story covers a LOT of ground--twenty-seven years, in fact. Lotta pastiche stuff like this, with Barks references aplenty. It absolutely succeeds at creating a sense of epic scale. That bag in the bottom left is meant to be marked "nutmeg," in reference to "A Spicy Tale," and is in the printing in the Gemstone book, but it got screwed up in the initial Gladstone version that this scan comes from.

Then there's the part where he gets pushed off a cliff and learns he can swim in money. The sketch version also features this extremely regrettable bit:

For fuck's sake, Don--"camel jockeys?" Really? And amazingly, that's the least of the problems here. And you had been doing so well with these things up to this point…thankfully, common decency prevailed in the published version.

Anyway, after a lot of this (and even more in the sketches) he finally returns to Duckburg. Great use of silhouette there--he looks every inch the heartless robber baron that he is.

Even here, though, things are a little weird. The people with signs look like a lazy right-wing editorial cartoonist's mindless idea of OWS protesters--and yet, we're apparently still meant to think of Scrooge as a jerk for blowing them off. Disorienting, is what it is.

And this is about it--his sisters are still willing to forgive him, but he just won't stop being like this. There's not really one climactic moment that severs the relationship--it's just him doing what he does at this point. I feel like something definitive might not have been a bad idea.

But young Donald DOES kick his ass, which is certainly a welcome sight.

Aw man--subtle it ain't, but fuck subtlety; this is some really strong stuff here.

This is great, too--he has to quite explicitly choose between money and family, and well, he makes his choice.

And there you go. Really, really amazing stuff. I know that's not a particularly cogent comment, but when Rosa's good, he's really damn good. And the tragedy remains: sure, he reconnects with his nephews, but Hortense and Matilda are gone baby gone (well, at least until "The Old Castle's Other Secret," in the case of the latter).

I'm done. I'm drained. I'm thinking that this may be the best chapter in the series. But, of course, you'd have to be some kind of fucking chump to not tune in tomorrow, Christmas Day, for the grand finale of this enterprise, "The Richest Duck in the World." Forget your loved ones! Forget your festivities! You need to be reading about cartoon waterfowl, dammit!

<-Chapter Ten B Chapter Twelve->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Ten B: "The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut"

2011-12-23T12:24:00.020-05:00

Man, until I reread this story for this project, I'd forgotten how doggone good it is. There's just a lot to like here: Scrooge's sisters are shown off to to their best effect in the series, so is Teddy Roosevelt, there are some really funny sequences, and also some good action. What more do you want, dammit? I have my quibbles as always, but in general, this one's a classic.

It opens, as these bonus chapters generally do, with a framing sequence where he is inspired to recount the story. On the one hand, I like that hearing these things is such sheer torture for Donald; on the other hand, it has to be admitted that his relationship with his uncle is pretty one-note in Rosa. There are occasional grace notes, sure, but for the most part, it really is this mixture of gloomy, resigned acceptance and out-and-out hostility. I think it could be much better balanced, is all I'm saying.

Anyway, this is a story--like "Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark"--that doesn't take any real inspiration from Barks. But it's much better than that previous story. I really, really like the sisters' blasé, sarcastic attitude towards Scrooge's casual…well, maybe "racism" isn't quite the right word; let's say "entitled, colonialist mindset." I also like the fact that Rosa tries to add to the L&T with these bonus stories by illustrating his hero's changing mindset--right on the cusp of alienating everyone, as he does in the next chapter. Although--yeah yeah, I'm repeating myself; it just seems inevitable sometimes--he really doesn't seem especially removed here from his present-day self.

Man, bits like this are just frustrating. Because obviously, what we all want is more Hortense. We want to know what happened to her, and we want to see her interact with her brother and son and grandchildren in the present-day. But we cannot, by pernicious editorial fiat. So we just get bits like this, which sort of circle around the issue, emphasizing that this is, in fact, Donald's mother, and he must have some idea of what she's up to these days…but beyond that, we have a big ol' blank.

(Gemstone's reprinting of "Return to Xanadu" includes the sketched version of a cut page that was very subtly trying to set something up that would deal with the issue--alas, what might have been--and I know it always sounds slightly facetious when I say that, but man oh man oh MAN would I--and you too, I'll wager--kill to have seen that.)

We also have the women continuing their cowboy fixation. I like the differences between their expressions here: Matilda all romantic; Hortense more looking for Mr. Right-Now (Quackmore again forgotten about).

So yeah, here's the plot and stuff. His sisters are right; he really is being a prick here. Though the real attraction of these panels is the business in the background. A classic Rosa touch.

It would be cool if TR had been instrumental in implementing women's suffrage, so we could credit Hortense for that. 'Twas not to be, sadly. Let me mention here that one question Rosa never addresses is that of the ducks' citizenship status. Scrooge definitely becomes an American citizen at some point, since in at least one Barks story we see him running for public office. I suppose the sisters probably do too, since they live in the states for thirty-odd years, and Hortense marries an American…wait a second: why did I think it was important to address this question, again? I dunno; I'm just always interested in the ins and outs of Rosa's ducks' lives, I guess.

So here's how everything starts: rather baroquely. I like the way Rosa quite flagrantly shows character consuming alcohol, which is surely in violation of some rule. "IT'S NOT WINE IT'S JUST GRAPE JUICE." Well never mind then.

Hey, don't tell me they don't know what men are for. Although it should also be noted that this bears a remarkable resemblance to a trick pulled by HDL in "The Cattle King," the last story that Barks wrote and drew.*

*allegedly--"The Doom Diamond" was published later, but written earlier per inducks, if you wanna trust those shady characters.

I feel like I'm sorta letting down the team when I present a panel for no reason other than to say "see? It tries to be funny, and it succeeds." What a cogent observation, right? But things like this are part of why I like the story, so there you have it. You also get to see the sisters showing some personality, which is always good.

I seem to recall a certain Barks classic involving steam-shovel-related mayhem. This isn't quite on that level, but it's still excessive goodness.

And…there's this bit involving the leader of the indigenous people. I must admit: I do not know enough about Panamanian history (read: anything about Panamanian history) to really have an informed opinion about this, or the business with the general planning a coup or really anything. I have the feeling if I did I might have problems of one sort of another, but I don't so I don't, really. I do find it a little dubious that TR--who for the most part is portrayed as being a contrast to Scrooge in this story--is nonetheless fine with this sort of subterfuge.

More damn cowboys…but really, I'm just presenting this because goddamn is that middle image ever adorable. No getting around it.

Meet my friend, Wye N. Deed.

You know what, Scrooge? I am calling you out here. Sure, you're willing to work hard, put some elbow grease into it, but only when it looks picturesque/romantic. So sure, you're willing to spend your time chasing after gold, but when it comes to unglamorous stuff, like hauling barrels up hills or polishing coins, you're perfectly willing to delegate to relatives for embarrassingly low wages. 'Cause that wouldn't accrue you any glory. Yeah...I've got you figured out, boyo.

As I said, I like the continuation of character concerns that arose in previous chapters, although this is a non-sequitur--Scrooge hasn't said or done anything here that would indicate an aversion to outdoor life.

No you can't, because Mayan script didn't even start to be deciphered until the thirties. Bam. Small detail, sure, but given the way Rosa always makes such a point of his madly thorough research...

So yeah, they find all this treasure. I do not believe that the real TR was quite such a multiculturalist, but I do like the way he stands in contrast to Scrooge's jerkishness--though again, I must note that it's hard to see this as indicative of any moral downfall, given that he behaves more or less the same way in Barks and modern-day Rosa, even if it's sometimes subverted and his rate of success is not all that high in any case.

Cool, innovative panel layout, also. How do you not dig that? I DEMAND more such creativity in my Disney comics, dammit!

…anyway, the punchline is that he's allowed to request anything from TR, but he passes out from the strong native liquor, so the sisters choose instead. That's reasonably funny…

…but man, it fucking irks me to see him win out like this. I mean, he was such an asshole throughout the story, and now we're supposed to be glad that he succeeds in retrospect by sheer dumb, perilously-close-to-Gladstone-territory luck? Or are we not supposed to? In either case, bleh. One salient fact worth noting is that this points out (which rarely happens in this series) the fact that "money," per se, isn't actually paramount for him--otherwise, he wouldn't keep all these legendary treasures he digs up. This denouement appears to change nothing whatsoever except that now he keeps the bear on a pedestal. It's a purely psychological thing (though maybe that went without saying).

Also, note that you can--albeit not in this scan--read the date on the paper: August 21, 1953. Does that have some specific significance? And is this the only time we can date Rosa's present-day that exactly?

Well, in any case, you definitely won't want to miss tomorrow's entry, 'cause it's the epic--epic, I say!--penultimate installment in the series, "The Empire-Builder from Calisota."

<-Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Ten: "The Invader of Fort Duckburg"

2011-12-22T11:51:00.013-05:00

Rosa judges this as "perhaps the most enjoyable chapter in the series." It's certainly enjoyable, but also, I can't help feeling, a little insubstantial. How much I will have to say about it is open to question. Let us see. There's a LOT of Barksian stuff here, but I'm certainly not going to make an effort to catalogue it all--that's what Rosa's commentary is for.

...and it's enjoyable in large part because we get to see lots of rarely-seen supporting characters doing their thing. In addition to Scrooge's sisters, we have Daphne, Gladstone's future mother (the story makes note of her surprising luck); Quackmore, Donald's and Della's future father; and Eider, who might or might not be here were he not actually mentioned in Barks' "Farragut the Falcon," but whom the family tree establishes as marrying ~~Lulubelle Loon~~ MEHITABEL MUDHEN and becoming Abner's and Fethry's father. I may have warmed to Fethry a bit in recent months, but you have to admit: it's pretty jarring to imagine him in Rosa-world. At the very least, he would no doubt be very different than any other depiction of the character.

Fun Fact: I had been under the impression that "Elvira Coot" was a name that Rosa just made up, but then I read the commentary for the first time in a while and learned that this is not so, or at least only partially--so I had to investigate the source material. I must warn you that the next image--which is from a terrible non-Barks story in WDC121--features one of those horrible mice from Cinderella. More sensitive audience members may wish to leave the room.

Well, okay, it's almost "Elvira." And she isn't a Coot, of course. But close enough, I reckon. Who knew? I mean, aside from people who were paying attention?

Yes, and naturally, it's love at first sight, sort of, for these two. It's cute, although reducing Donald to the sum of two bad-tempered people is a bit on the reductive side.

Also, Junior Woodchucks, including Gyro's future father. And…yup. The running gag of Scrooge repeatedly using mangled variations on their name is funny.

And bam, Theodore Roosevelt is back--a fun and unexpected recurrence, especially since this time he has more to do than just dispense bromides to Scrooge.

I'm quite certain I belabored the point about Scrooge's character inconsistencies sufficiently last time, but I have to at least briefly note this bit: what about being a Rugged Individualist and Making It Square implies paying your sisters slave wages to do your work for you?

And those sisters…I like them, but there's no denying it: their personalities are very limited. Matilda really doesn't develop much of any individuality 'til much later in "The Old Castle's Other Secret," whereas for Hortense it's basically just "prone to fits of rage." Buuut...well, they are also subject to, for want of a better word, extreme horniness* when confronted with these mythical "cowboys" they're after. Hey, fair enough; it's hard to imagine that they ran into too many eligible young men back in Scotland, given their situation (though come to think of it, I dunno; if they're willing to go for disguised Beagle Boys, they can't be that discriminate…). Also, note that Hortense's infatuation with Quackmore does not seem to inhibit her at all in this regard. It's actually rather easy to see why she wouldn't be playing a part in her son's later life: as much as they might dig each other in a visceral way, it's hard to imagine their marriage working out in the long term, for many reasons, some of which might even be printable in a Disney comic.

*Some might argue that "boy-craziness" would've been a better word, in that it would have kept this entry PG-rated and avoided so strongly conjuring unwanted images of duck/dog-face miscegenation. But I think history will show that "PG-rated" is not how we roll here at Duck Comics Revue LLC. Or at least, I hope it's not. If you think this blog is too PG please let me know, and I'll try to say "fuck" more often.

Oh yeah, there's some kinda big battle, complete with Hortense chasing off the "cow-people" with a broom, a nice echo of "The New Laird of Castle McDuck." She's all grown up now!

Anyway, little bit of this, little bit of that, and ultimately the bin is established. I really like the shot of the barrels at the bottom there (a Barks-inspired thing, natch)--it really demonstrates the magnitude of the money-grubbing to come and presages its general epicness.

Who the heck? Just some random walk-ons, apparently, but it always feels like duck characters this distinct should have substantial roles of some sort. And yeah, I know this dead horse has just about had it, but note that, in spite of the implication that Scrooge is gonna be the force that builds this town and that that's a good thing, it's really not gonna be a very nice place to live, if everyone's pulling in Scrooge-wages.

And that's that. Another quite nice splash panel to end things on. Rosa's good at those, as you may at some point have noticed.

Can you believe it, people? Tomorrow it's "Sharpie of the Culebra Cut," the last of the bonus chapters. Hard to fathom, but this project is very close to completion. Excelsior!

<-Chapter Nine Chapter Ten B->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Nine: "The Billionaire of Dismal Downs"

2011-12-21T12:22:00.013-05:00

Interesting installment here--first, because it's the lone part of the series that isn't really an adventure story (well…"Of Ducks Dimes and Destinies" too, I suppose, but that's still more action-oriented than this). And second, because it really showcases the contradictions and incoherencies that pop up in Rosa's conception of Scrooge. For instance, the beginning starts off with a letter to his family detailing what went down after he struck it rich:

Scrooge Mcduck, Friend of the Working Man? It's really difficult to know what to make of this. Are we supposed to not think that him taking fifty percent of the profits is excessive? It seems excessive to me. But the guy first sure seems happy enough with the deal, so maybe it's not supposed to be. And he's clearly meant to be enforcing this "value of hard work" thing with the second guy--but really, who's fooling whom? This is the same Scrooge who employs his nephew on dangerous jobs for thirty cents an hour and generally--especially in Rosa's conception--treats him quite poorly. We may have to ask ourselves what "making it square" is actually supposed to mean. We may also suggest that Rosa's sorta trying to have it both ways: on the one hand, integrity! Value of hard work! Et cetera!; on the other, jokes about extreme stinginess! These two things coexist in his work, but they really don't mesh well.

Also, not to get all Marxist on your asses (oh, whom am I kidding?), but the fact is, Scrooge, the present-day version, is very definitely--because if he weren't, there would be no way he could compete with the rest of the business world, let alone come out on top of them all--an employer and facilitator of alienated labor: the idea being, basically, that industrial capitalism requires that work be broken down and ruthlessly rationalized; whereas before, a worker would be involved in all stages of production and thus have a sense of the meaning of his or her work, that is no longer possible, and he or she becomes alienated from the process; disconnected from any actual sense of value (see also: Taylorism). You may not be a raving pinko like me, and thus you may argue about the effects of this and the extent to which they're pernicious, but you really can't argue that Frederick Winslow Taylor didn't have a huge influence on business, and that assembly lines of the sort pioneered by Henry Ford didn't substantially alter the relationship of laborers to their work. The point being, this is all pretty much the exact opposite of the sort of thing Scrooge is encouraging--this sort of rugged-individualist, all-on-your-own thing--in the above panels, but it's exactly what his empire is going to consist of. It would be difficult to argue that the very fact of this empire doesn't by necessity make him far more of a bastard than the guy looking to get rich on the backs of broke prospectors. That's the logical conclusion of Rosa's writing here, at any rate.

A counterpoint you could make is that this isn't really the right way to think about it: sure, in the real world Scrooge would have to be a right bastard to get by, but this is fantasy, and as such, in some symbolic way, the character is beyond that--he is a platonic ideal that couldn't exist in the real world, and that unresolved and unresolvable tension is what makes him such a great character. Which is fair enough, and I'd probably agree with you in a lot of contexts, but here Rosa is really trying to ground the character in this here "real world," with, naturally, limited success--as fascinating as it is to watch him make the effort. This is one aspect of his L&T sensibility that is simply incompatible with the character.

Or, to move away from the world of abstractions, take this bit. Just look at that ungrateful rabble, blasting him with vegetables for no reason other than their petty jealousy! Jerks!

...but oh no wait Scrooge is a jerk. At least, it seems to me that we're meant to take Fergus's criticism here seriously. So they hate him 'cause he's rich but no they don't; they hate him because he's an asshole. Once again, we see substantial tension between Scrooge the Exemplar of Gold Old-Fashioned Hard Work whom people hate because they suck and Scrooge the jerk whom people hate because he sucks.

Well, never mind that. This is an appropriately somber moment. Also--who knows if you can see it--we get exact dates for Downy--1840-1897. The fact that she was comparatively young adds a welcome touch of realism to the saga. Note that Jake also apparently died sometime between the framing sequence in "Dreamtime Duck" and this.

The bulk of the story consists of these here Highland Games. This is Scottie McTerrier from "The Old Castle's Secret," depicted here as a hobbit. Given that (spoiler!) it turns out that he's dead at the time of that later story, he too died pretty young.

So we get this series of gags where Scrooge completes the events in inappropriate ways and thereby loses. There's certainly something to the idea that his inability to play by the local rules is indicative of his larger embrace of multinational capitalism…

…though the story muddies the waters a bit by including this one, where Scrooge fails through no fault of his own.

And this! I would hate to think that my mind is insufficiently dirty, but I'm comin' up blank on the right conclusion here. If you can help, please do. Also note that the limerick appears to be about a would-be rape, surely a first and last for Disney comics, for which we can all be grateful. Observant observers will note that he's also reciting this at the end of "Quest for Kalevala" (almost--in that later version it's "sourdough" rather than "gold miner," probably a better choice of words).

So he decides to leave--and his reasoning there is certainly impeccable. That's exactly who he is. That little parenthetical aside really adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the scene.

Regrettably, although Scrooge's sisters are of course present, we don't actually see a lot of their personalities here. If all you read was this story, you wouldn't even know that Hortense was supposed to be the bad-tempered one. This is a pretty funny bit, however.

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fear no more.

I think this is handled excellently (the fact that it's apparently based on a movie I haven't seen is neither here nor there). Very moving--I just hope that Fergus isn't damned to play eternal golf with his forebears. That would be a terrible fate indeed.

Tomorrow, the inexorable march of progress continues with "The Invader of Fort Duckburg."

<-Chapter Eight C Chapter Ten->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Eight C: "Hearts of the Yukon"

2011-12-20T11:50:00.013-05:00

So according to Rosa's commentary, this story was "commissioned by Gladstone Comics as part of Canada's centennial celebration of the Yukon Gold Rush." Am I to infer from this that the Canadian government actually contacted Gladstone and asked "hey, can you do a comic for us?" Because I'm already quite fond of Canada, but if that's an actual thing that they did, man, it would really push them over the top in my esteem.

Keep in mind that this was written well before "Prisoner of White Agony Creek" was even conceived of, so it was Rosa's golden opportunity to actually get Goldie involved in a story--although we all know from the start that she can't actually meet Scrooge again in any substantial way, which causes certain problems that I will get to (also, note the title, which lets someone other than Scrooge in for the first time--a nice, appropriate touch).

I merely stick this bit in because it's a funny bit of misdirection. I also like Scrooge's indifference towards the guy.

…no, this "Steele" fellow is actually a Mountie--apparently to help Canada celebrate, it was mandated that Rosa include these guys in some way, so it's less arbitrary than some of his stuff in this vein. Of course this is a real person, as is the other subsidiary Mountie, and what the hell, let's throw Jack London in there too, 'cause that's just how we roll. There's a somewhat strained running gag where he, Steele, is trying to think up a good motto for the outfit, and he keeps coming up with maladroit alternative versions of "we always get our man."

Also, Casey is back. As you can see, he's a blonde this time (not Rosa's fault, obviously). Kind of an odd character--he keeps just appearing with no explanation, here, in "King of the Klondike," and earlier in "Last Sled to Dawson." But for whatever reason, I like the guy, and I sure wouldn't have minded seeing him play a central role in a Rosa story.

The idea is that Goldie pressed charges against Scrooge in order to get him to come back. "Mutual pressing" certainly isn't as risqué as some moments in "Prisoner," but it's still pretty well up there.

I like this because you can actually see Scrooge suffering, which, as I noted, you couldn't very much in "Klondike."

And I also like his weird hallucinations. There's a tendency for dreams in fiction to always be super-meaningful, eliding the fact that, however much so they may seem, they also generally feature some weird-ass shit for no apparent reason (here, Scrooge is about to be picked up by a Santa-ish guy in a sleigh, so it's not totally left-field, but still pretty much so).

Anyway, blah blah, he ultimately gets to the town and there's a fire (apparently, historically it burned down on a regular basis). This is clearly where Rosa's real interest lies. Notice Goldie's long shadow--much like the shadow she'll cast on Scrooge's future life! Ho! Symbolism for the win!

But seriously...I think this works pretty well.

But see here's the problem I have with this story: it's this essentially tragic narrative, where Scrooge and Goldie are desperate to get back together but we know damn well from the start they're never going to--and yet, it's interwoven with all this goofy slapstick stuff, which isn't just tonally jarring, but tends to devalue the emotional impact. I mean, seriously? He loses out on his chance to meet up with her because he's clonked on the head with a piece of ice from a hose? That's not the stuff of legend.

Sigh…but then there's the ending. I can't say I find Scrooge's behavior all that sensical here, but clearly that was how it had to be, and I don't feel as though the impact is much dulled.

Fuck! Fuck, I say! In all seriousness: fuck fuck fuck! I can try to be all cool and cynical and above-it-all and everything, but it's hopeless: whatever problems I may have with the story, or with this conception in general, this last bit just kills me every time. Well done, Mr. Rosa. Damn you.

But--and I know I'm not saying anything here that isn't obvious--this raises an unanswerable question: if they have this passion, and it somehow stays alive for sixty-odd years, dude, why don't they just get together in the present-day, fercrissake? Rosa keeps hinting that this is foremost in Scrooge's mind (in, eg, "Attack of the Hideous Space Varmints" and "Quest for Kalevala"), but then nothing ever comes of it. Of course, this is because nothing can come of it--Rosa can't make such a radical change to the duckiverse, and besides, it would make Scrooge into a different and surely less-interesting character. But trying to have it both ways--keeping them apart in spite of this constant yearning--kinda just makes them seem like crazy people. You say "pride;" I say, okay, pride, but even if they weren't wholly reconciled after "Back to the Klondike," they certainly were after "Last Sled to Dawson." Come on, now. All of this strikes me as a none-too-subtle indication that Rosa's trying to force something here that was never meant to be. Not that I don't like it, as I think I've pretty clearly indicated, but…well, I suppose when you're as ambitious as Rosa, these things happen. His imagination was never really as beholden to Barks as he wants us to think it is.

A good idea that would solve a LOT, though not all, of these problems would be a Love in the Time of Cholera-ish thing: tired of waiting around, Goldie marries someone else while Scrooge is off doing his money-making thing--someone who dies at some point during the thirties or forties while Scrooge is off being emotionally dead. I know Rosa would never go for something like that, but if you ask me, it would be both more mature and more romantic; ie, it acknowledges that that's how life works, and, if they're able to rekindle this long-distance non-relationship afterwards, shows how deep their connection goes. It has to be a happy marriage, mind you. Otherwise, it would be kind of manipulative and anti-feminist (ie, Scrooge "saving" Goldie from her own poor decision).

(Yeah, I know I'm basically fan-fictioning it up here, but let me ask you: is that really so different from what Rosa does? Really?)

(And as irrelevant as this is to Rosa (and me, honestly), I know that Romano Scarpa gave Goldie a granddaughter. She has rarely appeared in the US and never in a substantial role, so I don't know whether or not it's coyly hinted that she's might be Scrooge's granddaughter or who her parents are supposed to be or what, but it at least indicates that someone else agrees that Goldie's been doing more than just torch-carrying for fifty-odd years.)

In any case, enough of this emotionally draining stuff. Tomorrow the tone shifts substantially as we return to Scotland for "The Billionaire of Dismal Downs." Holy shit, you guys and gals, you're going to get a lot of babbling from me about Scrooge's economic philosophy. Oh, you better believe it'll be a blast.

<-Chapter Eight B Chapter Nine->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Eight B: "The Prisoner of White Agony Creek"

2011-12-19T12:16:00.021-05:00

So now we come to the last (sob) story that Rosa ever wrote. And it certainly provides a fitting cap to his career. It is excessive, in ways both good and bad, but in either case quintessentially Rosian. Note also that the title, for once, doesn't refer to Scrooge himself. That's how devoted Rosa is to this romance!

I feel as though there may be a certain anti-climactic aspect to this entry after all this talk about whether talking about this story will alarm the powers that be. It's a li'l transgressive, sure--but it ain't that earth-shattering. Crikey.

We open with this framing sequence. I've noted before Rosa's didactic tendencies, but it's something you really notice with his nephews serving as this kind of Greek chorus speculating about his deepest values.

I really dig this part. Often, there's not that much distance between the worldviews of Donald and the kids, but here you see it very distinctly: their innocent question and his reaction to it clearly show that he understands things that they do not. Not that Donald always needs to be portrayed this way, but it's neat to see it here.

The story picks up as Scrooge is dragging Goldie off to work on his claim. That part of "Back to the Klondike," briefly glossed over, has always seemed to me to have surprisingly sadomasochistic undertones, which idea Rosa does nothing to dispel. At least he's able to provide a believable reason why she would be willing to go along with this, and it's easy to believe that Scrooge--especially given his lack of experience in these matters--would be entirely convinced that he's shanghaiing her solely to help him dig for gold.

There is of course a later scene in this story--you know the one--that gets all the press, but this is the bit I always get hung up on: I am simply amazed (and delighted!) that Rosa was somehow able to slip a joke like this into a Disney comic. It's things like this that make you wonder if he didn't plan this story as a last hurrah, and took a "fuck it--I'm just gonna see what I can get away with" attitude.

There's all kinds of stuff like this, where the two of them feel ambivalence about one another. It's not exactly subtle, but damned if it isn't effective. And as for the above, really now, you cannot tell me that Rosa didn't relish the opportunity to draw Goldie in a negligee.

Look, I'm not even going to try to pretend: I love the shit out of this Scrooge/Goldie stuff (even if it does get a bit Harlequin-y), to the extent that any sort of rational analysis just goes by the wayside. I understand why some people don't care for it, but fuck 'em, man. I mean, yes, I also enjoy plenty of Disney comics that have a somewhat lighter touch, but while I'm reading this, I just devolve into a gibbering fanboy who simply cannot conceive of anything more awesome…

…but that only applies to part of the story. I am somewhat less enthused about the switch to three-and-a-half duckless pages of seemingly randomly-chosen historical figures being set up as Scrooge's antagonists. It's not that these people couldn't theoretically have been here; it's more "okay, but why? What purpose does this serve?" The judge there at least has this weird running joke where he wants to hang people on the slightest pretext (although, per wikipedia, in spite of his posthumous reputation, "he is known to have sentenced only two men to hang, one of whom escaped"); the other two don't really do much of anything to distinguish themselves, though Masterson may well be Arpin Lusene's father:

(I was gonna say "grandfather" until I remembered that Rosa's "present-day" stories all take place mid-century-ish.)

I mean, at least the historical figures in "Vigilante of Pizen Bluff," as part of an Old-West Show, had some excuse for being where they were. These guys are just completely unmoored from anything. It's quite postmodern, really: just random bits of history floating in the ether with neither rhyme nor reason.

Oh, that wasn't enough for you, eh? Well, then how about we also toss in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 'cause why the hell not? This is excess to the point of comedy. Can you imagine Barks taking this long to set up one-shot villains like this? Mon dieu.

Anyway, back at the claim, things continue much in the vein that they were before, and I still think it's great. It appears that Scrooge has a certain level of self-awareness about the malign influence that money has on him. It's almost--almost--enough to make me think that his frequent unpleasantness in modern-day Rosa stories is meant to make us dislike him.

The other thing about these guys is that, given their elaborate introduction, you would expect them to be at least somewhat formidable--but no, Scrooge dispatches them with ease. So were they really worth all that build-up?

He only gets konk!'ed thanks to the ambivalent Goldie's distraction. No getting around it: anthropomorphic ducks kissing passionately are really weird-looking, whether here or in "Donald's Crime."

The lack of critical acuity that I'm bringing to this is not enough for me not to note that, for anyone who is reading critically, the idea that Scrooge spends his evenings staring at a lock of his non-love-interest's hair is a li'l on the creepy side.

Yeah okay okay--and then there's this. I feel like no panels I've ever included in an entry were more preordained than these are. So…yup. What can I say? I seem to recall Rosa saying (probably on the essentially-defunct Disney Comics Mailing List) that the original idea was to have the snow melting off the roof in the rightmost panel, but that was apparently a bridge too far for the censors--though it's hard to say why, really, if they were willing to let him get away with the "between the legs" bit. I don't know whether he knew that this was going to be his last hurrah when he wrote it, but regardless, it seems appropriate that he should go out by pushing the thematic limits of the form absolutely as far as they would go. I strongly suspect that nobody else would've been allowed to get away with a story like this, but I'm glad that Rosa was. You could undoubtedly make a psychoanalytic argument that this segment is--from the perspective of Scrooge's development--the natural final culmination of the character's development.

I do enjoy the judge's speech there. Although…depending on what exactly Scrooge and Goldie were doing in there…in certain states…and given that he's talking about the law in Texas…oh, never mind.

...but of course, that's not gonna last, for reasons that are obviously necessitated by the nature of the comics themselves, though the reasons aren't very heavily clued within the story itself.

…and thus, Rosa's career ends, with the word "no." It's the reverse Ulysses!

There's a pretty obvious problem with all this Scrooge/Goldie stuff, that I'll get into next time. But for now, that is that. Tomorrow, the final installment of this Klondike trilogy, "Hearts of the Yukon."

<-Chapter Eight Chapter Eight C->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Eight: "King of the Klondike"

2011-12-18T11:57:00.001-05:00

Well, here we are--money is about to be made. Some of the previous entries, entertaining though they are, could really be said to be basically just making time--but this one, obviously, is pivotal.

...though for such an important story, it starts off somewhat wobblily, with this bit where Scrooge meets Wyatt Earp ('cause why not?) who gets offended when some other dude wants to pick a fight with Scrooge instead of him. Yeah, there needs to be a way for Scrooge to be broke so he's forced to borrow money from Soapy Slick (from Barks' "North of the Yukon," o'course), but this feels needlessly baroque.

Of course, Rosa makes sure to stick Goldie in here somewhere. It's interesting to see her dressed casually and not elaborately coifed (she gets somewhat disheveled in the next installment, but she never quite looks like this again). Obviously, she can't play much of a role here, inasmuch as the story, naturally, climaxes (spoiler alert!) with Scrooge finding the goose-egg nugget, and the stuff in "Back to the Klondike" takes place after that. Nonetheless, it feels like a real lacuna in the text (that was later filled, obviously, and then some) to not have her more involved. I guess the assumption would be that what Barks depicts is what happens and that's about that, but if this is supposed to be in any sense a stand-alone text, that's an important part of the story to be missing--"what's the POINT of this important-looking character who shows up and serves no meaningful purpose?" the initiate might wonder. The other bonus installments of the story may be just that, but VIIIb and VIIIc really do feel essential.

This here's Casey Coot, Grandma Duck's brother and Scrooge's sister's future uncle-in-law. Apparently, there was a previous version of the story in which his family appeared and played an important role. I suppose it's probably true that this would've taken away from the main action, but I still sure woulda loved to see it.

So here's my problem with the story: the idea is that Scrooge has to get down and dirty and work himself half to death to make his fortune. But...the story doesn't really do much to depict this. Instead, we get a lot of him casually and seemingly effortlessly engaging in superheroics like the above. The effort isn't as apparent as, I feel, it should be. If he's some invincible demigod, it's not that impressive when he does larger-than-life things.

I'm impressed, however, by the extent to which Rosa is willing to depict him quashing his nobler instincts like this. It really lends credence to the idea that his path is far from unambiguously a positive one.

At any rate, he eventually gets captured by Soapy and these other thugs, and I am just endlessly taken aback by the sheer emotional brutality on display here. If there's anything else remotely comparable to this in Disney comics, I'd sure like you to tell me what it is. I suppose you could argue about whether this is tonally appropriate, but it works for me--you wouldn't want to see something like it every day, but at this point in the story, it feels earned.

Now, as for the next part, Rosa spends a lot of time in his commentary laboriously explaining the whole riverboat-destruction sequence, trying to make it clear that Scrooge isn't meant to be turning into some sorta Rob-Liefield-esque freak. I do think he muddied the waters a little bit by including this image,

which, there's no getting around it, is pretty damned ridiculous-looking.

However, as far as the actual action here,

I think it's quite clear what's going on: that it's an effort to add some mythology to the story; it's not one hundred percent clear what's happening because the line between reality and legend is blurred by time and retelling. Still, I can understand the confusion, and here's why: we've talked in comments about one objection to this whole series--possibly the objection that we all sort of vaguely remember Barks himself maybe having--being that it attempts to nail down the character of Scrooge; make his story "realistic" in a way that was never intended. We can argue all night about whether this is a wrongheaded move or not, but it's certainly what the story's doing. And now, to suddenly decide, after all this time, oh no, we're going to have some mythologizing after all...well, it's a little bit jarring, is all. A perhaps overly abrupt paradigm shift.

Still, I personally have no problem with this sequence. I do think it works in spite of everything. I've complained in the past about Scrooge being too over-the-top awesome in these stories, but jeez, people, his nemesis just chained him up, stole his claim, and mockingly broke the news of his mother's death--if that's not grounds for some truly epic breakage, i don't know what is.

I do, however, think that this would have somewhat greater impact if we'd seen a little more of Downy--obviously, Scrooge's family members are peripheral characters, but even given that limitation, Fergus gets way more page-time/personality than she does. Also, the fact that Scrooge apparently instantly gets over this to the extent that he doesn't even consider the possibility of packing up and going home is a little odd. You'd think there'd at least be a panel or two of him agonizing over what to do.

…and here we go. This is more or less where the Scrooge that we know and love/hate is born. A suitably dramatic conclusion. And…a pretty good installment, in spite of my complaining.

But we ain't done with the Yukon yet, not by a long shot. Tomorrow, the series gets a li'l bit racy in "Prisoner of White Agony Creek." Won't somebody think of the children?!? God, I hope not.

<-Chapter Seven Chapter Eight B->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Seven: "Dreaktime Duck of the Never-Never"

2011-12-17T12:19:00.011-05:00

Barks did three Australian stories, in three different decades. "Adventure Down Under" (1947) is okay, but it's pretty badly tainted by its portrayal of savage, murderous aborigines; "Riches, Riches Everywhere!" (1955) is one of his weakest adventures, a not-very-atmospheric thing that furthermore wholeheartedly endorses the notion that Scrooge's fortune is luck-based; "Queen of the Wild Dog Pack" (1966) is clearly the best, goofy-as-hell but in a fun way. Point is, though, none of these exactly provide much in the way of a jumping-off point for Rosa--hence, this whole thing is inspired by a throwaway comment in "The Loony Lunar Gold Rush"--same as "Transvaal," actually; it's a sure bet that Barks never imagined he was providing such inspiration while he was working on that story.

At any rate, this is one of my favorite installments. I like that it's notably low-key by the series' standards. It feels kinda restful. Apart from the guys in the above panel, and Fergus and Jake in the framing sequence, the only people in the story are Scrooge, the Aboriginal wiseman, and the somewhat ill-defined bandit who serves as an ad hoc villain.

As you can see, it also features a character riding in a kangaroo's pouch (as mandated by law for comics and cartoons set in Australia).

"Wait wait wait," you're probably saying, assuming your thought patterns are exactly the same as mine, and why wouldn't they be? "'Aboriginal wiseman?' Are we in magical negro territory here, or what?" It's certainly a fraught question, but one that can't be ignored. However--keeping in mind that I am just some goofy white guy with no real expertise on the subject--I think that Rosa more or less dodges that bullet. More or less.

It's not enough to just say "oh look--a black guy providing wisdom to a white guy. Case closed!" There's got to be more to it than that, and here in particular you would have do demonstrate that there's something particular about ol' Jabiru Kapirigi here that makes him quantitatively different than the other figures--Fergus, Pothole, Quackly, Theodore Roosevelt, Howard Rockerduck--that have served as semi-mentors to Scrooge. So let's ask ourselves the following questions:

1. Is he "childlike"/mentally challenged in some way?

No--the most you can say is that he's somewhat naïve when the bad guy screw them over,

but I wouldn't call that dispositive.

2. Does he go out of his way/sacrifice himself/engage in self-abnegating behavior in order to help Scrooge?

Not at all--he basically just lets Scrooge tag along with him as he's doing his thing. You could argue that he does accept Scrooge awfully damn quickly, but really now, Rosa was only working with fifteen pages here, thankstocertaineditorswecouldname. The learning that Scrooge does he more or less does on his own--ie, that he shouldn't be a jerk and steal stuff for his own enrichment.

3. Does his entire culture appear to exist primarily for the edification of some random white dude?

Hmm. Hmm, I say. This is the only area where, it seems to me, thinks get slightly dubious.

Really, now…not that this isn't kind of cute/clever in itself, but I can't help finding it a not-terribly-felicitous idea. Obviously, no malice was intended, but it's not a choice I personally would have made, is all I'm saying.

In the end, though, this is an instance--extremely uncommon in Disney comics--where an actual effort is made to respect indigenous cultures, and the representative thereof is presented, more or less, as a fully autonomous individual. So…it doesn't feel appropriate to spend too much time complaining.

So! What else? Well, Scrooge escapes and nabs the bad guy, obviously. You get the impression that he decides not to steal the opal more by said bad guy's negative example than anything else.

The animals all panic and go crazy because of a coming flash flood. This is the last we see of this guy, chopping off that aspect of the story very abruptly (once again, I blame limited page count). You've gotta figure he dies, though--I mean, even if the camel gets away, I fail to see how he's not going to fall off, and in that case, surviving the flood all tied up like that seems unlikely.

And, there is a wombat. FUCK YES. I love those guys. For the record, I would have been able to tell what it was even if Scrooge didn't identify it by name.

This, part also--extremely well-done. It's the sort of thing I was envisioning him going through in my alternative, way-better Transvaal story.

So this is how he figures out he has to go north. I'm…not totally sure I understand this, and it seems a little contrived, but what the hey. An' that's that.

And yes, for fuck's sake, I find this ending cute, in spite of my reservations. There it is.

Pop quiz, hotshots: what is shit about to get? If you answered "real," then congraturation! A winner is you! Tomorrow, it's "King of the Klondike!"

<-Chapter Six B Chapter Eight->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Six B: "The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff"

2011-12-16T12:16:00.010-05:00

An' now, a brief jaunt back to America for more cowboy hijinx. You just can't have enough of 'em, right? Well, maybe. You'll recall "Pizen Bluff" as a place that appeared in several Barks stories.

We open, somewhat confusingly, with Scrooge meeting this guy and getting this map. It's an effort to drag in more Barks stuff, but, in spite of being recalled at the very end, it has nothing to do with the rest of the narrative, and it feels distinctly odd. Of course, Rosa would later expand on this in "The Dutchman's Secret" (published in Gemstone's very first issue of Uncle Scrooge--boy, those were the days).

No, the main narrative involves Scrooge getting mixed up with these wild-west-show people. It's no lie: I love the shit out of this image. It's so crazy and simulacra-y, what with the guys dressed as Beagle Boys, the guy dressed as Scrooge as he appeared in "Master of the Mississippi," and Pothole on a mobile steamship-cart.

In fact, the whole idea of things being all surface comes through strongly in this story. It's hard to say to what extent we're supposed to buy this justification, but of course, the white people in question are only going to get a very empty idea of only the most basic signifiers of Apache culture from this here show.

Note that this whole "coconuts in the south seas" thing appears to refer to a chapter that never ended up getting written. What might have been.

One thing that I have to say I find a bit insufferable is when Rosa has Scrooge do absurdly superhuman feats like the above and then act all ostentatiously jaded about it afterwards. I suppose it's pointless to complain about the feats themselves at this point--not after the way he dealt with those animals in the last chapter--but this in particular does feel a bit much. He learned to shoot like that…how?

On another note, there's this running thing--I hesitate to call it a "joke"--where Geronimo there mistakes Pothole's profanity for various Native American languages. This strikes me as tasteless to say the least.

Okay, the idea is that the Dalton Gang has stolen some money, and everyone has to go and get it back. "Everyone" including, in addition to Scrooge and Pothole, Geronimo, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and PT Barnum. Yup…Rosa, for reasons best known to him, at some point developed this mania for cramming as many historical figures as possible into these stories. The "based on actual history!" stuff comes from Barks himself, kind of, but stocking the stories with real people appears to be his own innovation. Why does he do this? Well, there's an extent to which the question answers it self: because just he likes the idea of it. And he can. But I think there's also some of this: sometimes, stories need auxiliary characters. And Rosa, you may have noticed, is generally quite averse to creating his own, except as mandated by actual Barks things (ie, creating relatives to make the genealogy work). That's maybe too bad, given that his most notable original character, Arpin Lusene, turned out so well. But there you have it.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this tendency of his. A few historical personages here and there, okay, but when he gets carried away, it can become very distracting. Sure, you think, I suppose they could have all been there. But…why? It starts to feel like some sorta hallucinatory educational pamphlet. It also starts to feel decidedly overstuffed. Too many people here for the story to support, dangit. Oakley in particular is completely superfluous. She barely says or does anything of any note. I suppose the idea was to make the whole posse a bit less of a sausage fest, but it doesn't really work.

I like this a helluva lot. It's such a specific Barks reference--and yet, one that isn't going to be distracting or confusing to people who aren't up on the Barksian oeuvre.

I also like--nay, love--this part. The first time I read it, I truly thought: what the…? Hey, Rosa is not above depicting Scrooge--in reality--in terms very much like this, so it's not quite as implausible as it might seem. But here, it's just plain funny.

And...yes, as I believe I may have noted somewhere, Rosa can be a bit didactic when the spirit moves him. But hey, don't worry, guys--it's not like you were really anything other than flimsy cardboard representations of "wild west" archetypes anyway.

I was glad to see Pothole back in this story, but he really doesn't do much of note. He was a lot cooler and more capable in "Master of the Mississippi." However, this is clever and funny, in particular Scrooge and company's bafflement at the concept. In his commentary, Rosa claims that he was planning to do a sequel that would elaborate on this idea; I'm not entirely certain whether or not this is a joke, since it seems like it would necessitate a very odd focus for a Disney comic, but hell's bells, man, I would love to have been able to read such a thing--sounds like a hoot.

Certainly not an all-time classic story, and it does demonstrate some of Rosa's tendencies towards excess (and not in a good way), but it's still an amusing li'l lagniappe. Next up, Foster's: Australian for "Dreamtime Duck of the Never-Never."

<-Chapter Six Chapter Seven->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Six: "The Terror of the Transvaal"

2011-12-15T13:18:00.012-05:00

Man…this story had never been my favorite part of the saga, but upon rereading it for this project, I realized that I really kind of hate it. I know I was critical of a few previous entries, but really, neither "Buckaroo" nor "Cowboy Captain" is anything worse than average, and both have elements that elevate them to some extent. Whereas this one is just terrible, for reasons that will become apparent very shortly. And yes, I feel bad about having to say this, especially given that Rosa himself is almost certainly reading this. Sorry, Don--I guess all I can say is that, on balance, this is the only installment in the series that I actively dislike. As the song sez: seventeen out of eighteen ain't bad. And at least, at a mere twelve pages, it's also the shortest ("the food is terrible, and the portions are so small!").

Let's get the following--and this isn't my reason for hating it, just to be clear--out of the way first: for a story set in Africa, it sure does feature no black people whatsoever. There are a few background characters whose ethnicity isn't totally clear, but as far as foreground characters, or anyone who says anything…nothin'. Yes, you could make the same claim about Barks' "Second-Richest Duck," but that story doesn't feature anyone in Africa apart from the ducks.

Of course, this absence is perfectly logical, because given the context of the comic, there would be no way--without committing really blatant, grotesque revisionist history--to depict actual Africans as being anything other than brutally exploited by the European colonists. That's probably not gonna fly in a Disney comic, and even if somehow it did, it would result in a significantly darker story than Rosa wants to tell.

Still, I can't help noticing it. I am well aware that all of these stories take place in front of cultural backdrops in which gross exploitations of all kinds were taking place, but in most of them, Rosa can ignore this without it seeming pointed--indeed, any efforts to depict such things would seem really bizarrely out-of-place. Whereas in the story currently under review, the exploitation is front and center, and it directly implicates the kind of work Scrooge is doing and the people involved in it with whom he interacts. Hence, the answer--which, really, was probably the only one possible--was to just leave out the colonized people altogether. It's not a perfect solution, of course--their very absence can't help but draw attention to itself for anyone even vaguely aware of colonial history--but there it is.

I actually think this works out fairly well, though; whatever the intention was, the result is a story that serves as a kind of metaphor for the complete irrelevance, under European rule, of the people who had actually lived there for thousands of years. What does capital care about them, except as a resource to be used? I'm not saying it's a perfect solution--you could easily argue that their absence just downplays the atrocities committed against them*--but I really do not think you could possibly expect anything more from a Disney comic.

*Different part of Africa, obviously, but I note that this story takes place in 1887, just as King Leopold's nightmarish rule over the Belgian Congo was ramping up. That's an extreme case, but it's only different in degree from African colonialism as a whole.

Anyway, as I said, none of this is really related to my reasons for disliking the story; I just thought it needed addressing. Moving on…

…an' it's not because it misspells "Kalahari" either, although it totally does...

No, as you damn well know, my problems stem from the treatment of Glomgold. As the above indicates, Rosa never does anything to make the character anything but wholly contemptible. "The original Glomgold story has always been one of my very favorite Scrooge adventures," he writes in his commentary. "If you love the Scrooge character, what could be more exciting than the story in which he meets his evil twin?" ARGH. To quote the great philosopher Freddy Mercury, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. Not that he doesn't have plenty of company, but really, now: how can a smart guy like Rosa get this so wrong?

Glomgold is NOT A VILLAIN in "The Second-Richest Duck," or if he is Scrooge is too, as Barks goes out of his way to make them more or less exact equivalents of each other. Granted, he has an evil-sounding name, but when ya think about it, so does Scrooge: Dickens meant for "Scrooge" to connote cold-hearted graspingness, and the duck version is almost certainly Scottish specifically because of the stereotype of Scots as misers.

He IS a villain in "The Money Champ," but an ambiguous one. There's certainly no indication that he was known for the kind of weaseliness that he displays here. And "So Far and No Safari" hardly counts.

Blah blah, so the idea is that he falls in with Scrooge and then betrays him. But forget about that for a moment. Allow me to throw out this entire script and present a much better alternative:

Scrooge and Flintheart meet up. They're both looking for gold. And they don't become near-instantaneous enemies. Quite the opposite--they recognize each other as kindred spirits. Flinty might be slightly more hard-edged, but it's not a conclusive, damning thing. The only real difference is that Scrooge has a family, and Flintheart doesn't--the latter mentions his mother when he's feeling guilty in "The Money Champ;" the idea here would be that she had already died, and he had no one else (this to emphasize the notion that the only real difference between them is that Scrooge has a family, which has a somewhat humanizing effect). I know I said that including actual Africans is a questionable idea, but I don't know how else we could do this, given that none of the Europeans have any legitimate claim to the land. So let's go all out and bring in Foola Zoola's tribe here--I believe FZ is supposed to be about Scrooge's age. Given that we're talking about uncolonized territory here, I think we'll be all right. So they get permission to prospect on the tribe's land--being assured that there's nothing to find there. And, indeed, there isn't, gold-wise--but they stumble onto the treasure of an ancient kingdom that existed on the land (this is a good chance to show that they're both preternaturally talented as far as finding treasure is concerned). Awesome, they think. But…goddamnit, temptation notwithstanding, Scrooge is unable to get over the fact that they have no right to this treasure. Come on, says Flintheart; the tribespeople never, ever would have found it; what difference does it make if we profit from it? Maybe not, says Scrooge, but there's reputed to be a great treasure hidden in my ancestral castle ("Old Castle's Secret" reference!), and how would I like it if some goddamn Whiskervilles got to it first (again, emphasizing the importance of family)? So he insists on showing the tribe where the treasure is, much to Flintheart's chagrin, and the two of them part with a bit of animosity, but also a grudging respect for each other. In addition to everything else, this would accentuate Scrooge's moral downfall when, in "The Empire-Builder from Calisota," he screws FZ and company over. It would also be resonant in that it would more clearly show how, when he drives his family off, he's basically exactly the same as Flintheart.

The only possible difficulty here is the notion that Scrooge shouldn't know Glomgold's name until Barks' "Second-Richest Duck." I think there's nothing wrong with fudging that a little, though: you can't absolutely prove from "The Second-Richest Duck" that Scrooge didn't know Glomgold in a previous time--he doesn't act like he's ever heard of him before, true, but really, given his extreme money-consciousness (in "The Empire-Builder from Calisota," we see him measuring his progress against other billionaires), how plausible is it that he would never have heard of Glomgold until finding a paper in the park? And if we posit that he had, it's not that much of a leap to assume he might've met him before. Or whatever--if you're not buying that, you could surely find a reason to have him be operating under an assumed name. Point is, this is something that can be managed. And it's not as though Scrooge's not learning his name doesn't feel a little forced as it is.

And it would be worth managing, because WOULDN'T THAT STORY BE COMPLETELY FUCKING AWESOME?!? YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT IT WOULD BE!!! Granted, it would need more than the twelve pages that the current version is allotted, but my lord--I'm depressing myself just by thinking about how great this thing could be, but emphatically isn't. Argh.

Anyway, so Scrooge is ANGRY, and I can't help but find these "HULK SMASH" moments a bit risible, whatever causes them.

I do sorta like the way he deals with the local wildlife (see? One positive comment, no matter what)--though in retrospect, given "Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark," he wouldn't actually be wholly unfamiliar with exotic megafauna.

And...he basically completely humiliates Flintheart. And here we see the story failing even on its own terms. In his commentary, Rosa writes that he "see[s] Flintheart as a match for Scrooge in every way: they both started from nothing and made their fortunes by being "sharper than the sharpies and smarter than the smarties." But that is nowhere in evidence in this story. Flintheart is a completely pathetic, ineffectual character. Stealing Scrooge's stuff in the night doesn't exactly demonstrate great sharpness, smartness, and/or toughness. Okay, so maybe you think my character-based stuff is all so much fanboy wankery, and you just want him to be a foil for Scrooge--but doesn't Scrooge deserve a more competent opponent than this? Come on, now. Though to be fair, this may be another casualty of the limited page count: with more space to work with, perhaps Rosa could've made him more formidable.

Sigh…and that's about that. In my ongoing effort to be positive (what, you didn't notice?) I'll say that I like the baboon curiously regarding Scrooge's futile efforts--though, if you wanna be a stickler, it must be noted that this is NOT how it went down in Barks:

Well, I suppose we can just hand-wave this away as a Tall Tale. In fact, Rosa does exactly that much later, in "Invader of Fort Duckburg." It goes to show, though: given that you really can't craft Barks' stories into a coherent narrative without fudging a fair few details, calling this whole thing "faithful to Barks" is pushing it a little. Or a lot. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but there it is. We'll certainly see more of this later.

And that's all. I don't want to think about this story anymore. Gah. Onward to "The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff."

<-Chapter Five Chapter Six B->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Five: "The New Laird of Castle McDuck"

2011-12-14T12:05:00.012-05:00

Well, here we are, back in Scotland! A chance to see a little more of Scrooge's family, which is always fun.

This story has one bit that I consider a bit problematic, but generally, it has a really nice atmosphere to it, as evinced by the above.

And hey, Hortense chasing Whiskervilles with a broom! What more can you ask, really? Granted, the whole little-girl/hellion business is a bit of a broad comic type, but I still like it, especially the way she's not even looking at the guy as she's whapping him in the third panel there.

Long story short, the clan needs cash to keep the castle, which Scrooge has from the last chapter. But this Whiskerville jerk provokes him into a fight. The choreography here is a bit stiff, like they're robots going at it--seriously, what's the deal with Scrooge in that middle panel? Well, maybe it's meant to be funny.

At any rate, even if the question of Rosa's ability to depict natural-looking sword fights is up in the air, this climax is badass, absolutely. Pretty much exactly what you'd want from a story like this.

But then...well, there's the part where he falls into the water and temporarily dies, and we're treated to a surprisingly long segment with his ancestors playing golf and sniping at each other in the clouds (as far as the theology of Rosa's comics goes, it's this and Finnish mythology. Make a note of it). This is something of a momentum-killer to put it mildly; I could definitely do with less of it, and good LORD, what a hellish afterlife this would be.

(An' also: how come there are no female McDucks here? I know I know--because Barks didn't create any. But it's still extremely noticeable.)

On the bright side, here's "Matey" McDuck from Barks' "Back to Long Ago." Rosa has named him "Malcolm;" this place claims that, due to chronological discrepancies, they're two different characters, but that strikes me as a pretty dumb bit of over-explaining for an obvious slight slip-up on Rosa's part. Really now, how plausible is it that Rosa didn't include an actual Barks character in his family tree, but DID include his heretofore unknown identical twin? Not very, I'm gonna say! Of course, either way, the mystery of how he could possibly have served in the British navy with Donald's ancestor remains.

Granted, I DO like the fact that all of Scrooge's ancestors seem to have been killed in unpleasant ways…

But man, even if we HAVE to have this bit, this allegedly-comical denouement really doesn't work for me. Should Scrooge die here? It's a serious theological question that requires OH HOLY SHIT HE'S GONNA LOVE MONEY?!? SAY NO MORE! It feels as though Rosa was having a bit of difficulty finding a graceful way out of this situation, and…well, came up with this. In any case, it seems to me that any Barksian evidence that Scrooge's ancestors were all as stingy as he is requires some extremely tenuous inference.

Anyway, he comes back and pwns the Whiskervilles, and I'll grant that this is a pretty good climax to the whole thing. Yeah yeah, that "last of the Clan McDuck" business relies on patriarchal assumptions, but whadaya expect from a bunch of crazy, dead Scottish ducks? Although the question of how they KNOW he's not going to have children--given their apparent unfamiliarity with his life-book--is an open one.

And here's the ending. You don't, or I didn't, exactly register the fact that it was raining throughout the entire story 'til you see the sun come out. In his commentary, Rosa declares that this rainbow looks, in retrospect, "too stupid." I think he's doing himself a disservice. Yeah, when you point it out like that, I can see how it's not exactly "realistic," but it remains one of my favorite images in the series, and I just love the "always another rainbow" reference. It has a lot of emotional resonance for me.

(Another thing Rosa does in the commentary is expend a LOT of space telling an incredibly pointless story about how he vaguely remembered seeing a movie that seemed relevant to this installment, but he couldn't find it on video anywhere, and he searched and searched, and finally he found a copy, and it provided no inspiration for the story. Riveting!)

At any rate, tomorrow it's off to, sigh, Africa in "The Terror of the Transvaal." If you know my opinions about the common portrayal of a certain Barksian character, you can probably guess wherefore that "sigh." Nonetheless: imagine how dumb you'd feel if you forgot to check it out. Doesn't even bear thinking about.

<-Chapter Four Chapter Six->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Four: "Raider of the Copper Hill"

2011-12-13T12:11:00.010-05:00

(This is one of the five parts of the series that doesn't start with "the." "Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies" and "Hearts of the Yukon" are obvious, but I don't understand the others.)

I indicated that this entry is better than the last several, and that's certainly true, but it still has a few issues that shouldn't be overlooked. So let's get going.

It begins with Scrooge ending his involvement with cattle farming and feeling morose about his bum luck. The image of him listlessly stabbing at his peas is very well-observed.

Also, the following panels, in which he and his companion (Marcus Daly) don't understand the idea of electric lights, is quite funny.

At any rate, turns out you need copper wiring for this electricity thing, so prices are up and Scrooge moves in. And hey, here's ol' Howard Rockerduck, whom you remember from Chapter Zero. Doing something with his son John D. was no doubt necessary, given his prominence in European comics (and he is, after all, Barksian, if only technically). But I generally find he's a pretty infelicitous character, and Rosa clearly agrees. It would still have been interesting to see him use the guy in a present-day story, though.

Man, looks like Howard might've been better off if he'd been able to seal the deal with Magica. I'm always a bit nonplussed by the pro-corporal-punishment bit here. Don't get me wrong; I'm all in favor on general principle of Rockerduck getting whacked with a horsewhip. I just don't think it would have any positive effect on his behavior.

So then there's this thing, based on some historical thing, apparently, where having unearthed a small vein means that Scrooge should own the whole mine, and then there's a mad stampede by a whole bunch of other people to get there on time...

…leading to, uh, this. Nice level of detail and all, but seriously? It's pretty ridiculous-looking, and I don't know about the idea of painting Scrooge as some sort of mad berserker (though part of that's down to the red eyes, which may or may not have been Rosa's decision). Rosa justifies having Scrooge do over-the-top superhero stuff in the eighth chapter by casting it as a matter of the history having been mythologized, which works okay, but there's nothing like that here, and…gah. I mean I don't know; I suppose it's not so different than what Barks himself depicted in the flashback scene in "Back to the Klondike," but still…maybe it's something about the more "realistic" art style, but this just isn't a highlight of the series for me. It looks quite unpleasant.

So look: I'm all in favor of the idea that Scrooge's relationships with other people are poisoned by wealth. I think that's a good thing to bring up, and it certainly jives well with Scrooge's present-day character. But man…as you can see from these before-and-after images, it's really driven home here with sledgehammer subtlety, and in a way that doesn't necessarily make a huge amount of sense. I can't help thinking a lighter touch was called for.

I'm not totally sure what in that previous panel is meant to represent "respect." In general, I do like this interaction, though. It's true: this basically is what the present-day Scrooge is like. There are definitely dark undercurrents to the story.

Well you might have wondered: what happened to those qualms about "easy money" that he expressed in "Master of the Mississippi?" What happened to "earning it square?" Well, that's why he ultimately loses this mini-fortune, but this is maladroitly done. In the commentary, Rosa says that having him obtain the mine like this "was the perfect situation to place the young and callow Scrooge into, and then teach him that he won't be able to retain success until he earns it wholly of his own hard work." But how would this possibly teach him anything of the kind? He doesn't lose out because of something inherent in the way he had won; he loses because of an event inserted by arbitrary authorial fiat. This could've used a bit of rethinking.

And see? Rockerduck does get whipped, and it doesn't help. Or maybe it's getting whipped that prevents him from ever becoming less of a jerk, and this whole thing is secretly an anti-corporal-punishment argument. I have my doubts, though.

Anyway, now it's back to Scotland, and that's where we'll pick this up tomorrow, in "The New Laird of Castle McDuck."

<-Chapter Three B Chapter Five->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Three B: "The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark"

2011-12-12T12:22:00.010-05:00

This is one of two entries in the series--the other being "Sharpie of the Culebra Cut"--that really have no Barksian basis. As Rosa explains it, he wanted Scrooge to be in Java when Krakatoa erupted in 1883. Hence, his justification: "The greatest sport in Java, both in 1883 and today, is the annual bull race on Madoera Island. And Scrooge is working on the world's biggest cattle ranch at the time!" Well, whatever gets you through the night, I guess. Not that I think there's any need for specific Barksian justification; it just feels a little odd, given how maniacal most of the series is about being based around details from Unca Carl. In theory, I'd say it's actually a good thing for Rosa to strike out on his own like this.

So it's not for any philosophical reason that I say--with a heavy heart, of course--that this, for me, is one of the least successful entries in the series. There's some nice art, of course, but the plot is pretty muddled and uninvolving, with little real sense of adventure.

We open with a joke about Scrooge's ass. I'm not going to say that this presages what is to come, exactly, but…well, if nothing else, I certainly seem to be insinuating as much.

There's this business with these rival sultans who both want to use Scrooge's bull to win this here race. One of them is evil and one of them is, I guess, good, or at least not-evil. It's hard to tell, which is indicative of the problem. It's just pretty difficult to really care about any of this. It never really gets fleshed out in any interesting way. One is left feeling indifferent, somehow.

Here's a bit I like, though, where Scrooge is lost in the jungle. Kinda reminds me of "Swamp of No Return." I feel as though I should try to say something positive even about entries I'm not too fond of.

As another for-instance, the Cutty Sark's strange-looking, phlegmatic captain is pretty entertaining. There's also this perplexing running non-joke about how he can't find his camera.

Ratchet Gearloose also makes a repeat appearance. Here's a bit that really rubs me the wrong way: yeah, this is meant as a joke, of course, but seriously: I just can't help thinking of the untold human misery and environmental devastation that could have been avoided had they gone the "free geo-thermal energy" root. Damn you, Scrooge! Furthermore, Rosa (here and a few other places in the story) seems to have forgotten where this takes place in the chronology of the series: Scrooge is not supposed to be this greedy/dickish at this point.

If we're struggling to find things that contribute in some way to the story as a whole, we could note that this is also where he discovers his affinity for top hats.

[image]

And then…Krakatoa erupts. It's quite interesting, really; this idea that here we have an event so intense that it can't really be depicted in comic form. According to wikipedia, this eruption killed forty thousand or more people, making it implicitly one of the grimmer things in Disney comics.

And that's about all I have to say about this. As I've made abundantly clear, it just doesn't excite me all that much. I feel sort of bad having written predominantly negative entries about two installments in a row, but never fear: tomorrow is "Raider of the Copper Hill," which should reverse the trend nicely. Unless my goddamn memory is playing tricks on me again. But regardless, don't you fucking dare miss it.

<-Chapter Three Chapter Four->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Three: "The Buckaroo of the Badlands"

2011-12-11T11:06:00.009-05:00

We follow up one of the better entries in the series with one of the weaker (Rosa himself acknowledges that it's a bit subpar). It could have been worse; from the sketches include in the Gemstone book and Rosa's own account, it's clear that his initial conception would have been substantially worse. So kudos to Erickson for rejecting that--but the question remains: could it have been better had Rosa had more space to work with? I'm going to answer in the affirmative.

I should confess, I suppose, that part of this is down to my own biases; Old-West mythology doesn't really do much for me. But hey: I've enjoyed some western novels, like Warlock, and, in duck terms, "Sheriff of Bullet Valley" is certainly a classic. So let's not be heaping too much calumny upon my head, okay? A li'l calumny is okay, though.

Part of the problem was the stuff Rosa had to fit in. In this case, the insane, Nordic powers that be mandated that he make reference to "Lost in the Andes," resulting in this weirdly superfluous sequence. "What's the point of having Scrooge meet [this guy]?" Rosa rhetorically wonders. What indeed. On a broader level, you could ask that about a lot of the Barks references, but in those cases, well…it's Scrooge's story, which provides some justification. This is just odd.

Also eating up space is this bit with Frank and Jesse James. Yes, it comes from a Barks reference, but still…it really just feels like another narrative dead-end. At any rate, the expression on Frank (the one with the bandanna)'s face in the left panel is funny.

Anyway, Scrooge falls in with these guys, and for whatever idiosyncratic reason, I cannot TELL you how creeped out I am by those horseshoe imprints on his chest. It looks like he's been attacked by lampreys or something. Shudder.

…and then there's this rather distasteful bit where he loses his clothes as he's riding the bronco. And what's with this "luck" business? Save it for The Life and Times of Gladstone Gander, Rosa!

Of course this is also the episode where--in the course of looking for a bull that the McVipers stole--he meets Theodore Roosevelt (only identified at the very end of the story, and only as "TR"). I will have more to say in the future about Rosa's use of historical figures--which, in later stories, you could fairly describe as "rampant." This one works out okay, arbitrary as it is. Does Rosa idealize the man to an excessive degree? Absolutely. Is this dialogue here on the didactic side? Just a li'l bit! But nothing too awful.

The real problem is that there's so little space that the main action of the story just feels rushed. It's not all that original/interesting/exciting, and it doesn't really get the space it needs to develop those characteristics.

Still, at least there's this spectacle. It's all very obviously self-consciously set up to result in this wacky tableau, and as such it feels somewhat on the forced side--but in spite of that, I think it works; it's still a lot of fun, and surely the highlight of the story.

"Sure, but only until the next chapter starts!" Yeah…a bit of a sloppy transition.

Pretty good parting advice from TR, sort of hinting at the notion that Scrooge is essentially a tragic character. It's certainly an ambiguous situation, and one that Rosa--rightly, I think--isn't willing to fully commit to, but it definitely adds richness to the series.

Tomorrow, it's "The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark!" Bee there orr be a rectangular thyng! Man, who can get THAT reference without googling it?

<-Chapter Two Chapter Three B->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Two: "The Master of the Mississippi"

2011-12-10T11:38:00.018-05:00

According to Rosa's essay, it was mandated that most of the installments in the series not be longer than fifteen pages. To his credit, none of them feel notably compacted in spite of this limitation; he managed to work well within these limitations. The question must be asked, however: why? I mean, I suppose you could, if you were so inclined, make an a priori argument that letting them go on for too long would lead to a lot of self-indulgent noodling around (as though the series isn't self-indulgent by design).

However, when you look at the entries that did exceed that length, the shocking truth is revealed: "you" were very foolish to think that, and you should probably be beaten about the head and shoulders. By and large, the longer entries are among the best in the series, and this one in particular--which, at twenty-eight pages, is the longest of all save "Prisoner of White Agony Creek"--can make a pretty plausible claim to be the best. It doesn't have the emotional impact of some, but purely as an adventure story, it's hard to beat. It's easy to see how Rosa could have cut it down had this been necessary, but I am thankful that it was not, and it makes me think somewhat wistfully about what might have been had he been given greater leeway throughout the entire series. The fact that this and the almost-as-long eleventh chapter are probably my favorites may say something in this regard.

(Or maybe some of the shorter stories wouldn't have benefited from being longer--there's definitely some superfluous material scattered throughout the series. But I must question the ability of some random editor to infallibly determine which would work and which would not.)

Why is the story great? Well, because it has lots of great action and exploration and a real sense of place, as the above indicates--Louisville is effectively presented as a bustling city. Also, Ratchet Gearloose, a character created by Barks hisself. And he gets off a funny line in that second panel there. How can you lose?

Just LOOK at all that background detail. It's ridiculous! In a good way. Yes, Rosa's obsessive detailing can be visually exhausting at times, but at its best, there is nothing in Disney comics that is more fun to look at. Pothole is a great character, too, and his future influence on Scrooge is very well-done, from windiness (his constant tall-tale-y evocations of the extreme muddiness of the Mississippi) to stinginess (paying employees thirty cents a day--obviously, market forces wouldn't quite allow Scrooge himself to be that stingy in the future). He's just fun to read; Rosa, happily, seems to have felt the same way, resulting in his reappearance in one of the extra chapters.

Also, the introduction of THE TERRIBLE BEAGLE BOYS! Ol' Blackheart looks quite striking in the shadow there in the first panel, though really now, the coyness about refusing to show them without their masks seems kind of meaningless to me. How do they look maskless??? I'm gonna say exactly how they do masked, only with slightly more skin exposed (I suppose it works on the same principle as the black-bar-over-the-eyes-to-protect-anonymity thing). The Mardi Gras masks are an effort to explain something that really didn't need explaining; it strikes me as a little distracting, though not too terrible.

...so yeah, river hijinx ensue as Pothole, Scrooge, and Ratchet search for this lost ship. This set of panels always cracks me up. Something about the slow, methodical authoritativeness of the way the ship falls.

As I said earlier: a real sense of place and time in this story. Is "Old Man Erickson" a reference to Byron Erickson, who was--I think--Rosa's editor at the time? Of course, "Erickson" isn't exactly a rare name...and he's not exactly "old" now and was even less so when this story was published...oh, forget it. It was a dumb idea to start with.

Some of Rosa's treasure-hunting can feel forced, but this one (a real thing, natch) is well-done, in part because so unexpected and so unusual for a duck-comics treasure hunt. Just plain nice!

This isn't terribly deft, however. As I've alluded to before, Rosa's treatment of Scrooge is contradictory: on the one hand, he's far more of a jerk than he ever was in Barks; on the other, Rosa idealizes the whole integrilicious, value-of-hard-work stuff more than Barks ever did. And that leads to this--even though the idea that the character would feel ambivalent about finding this treasure is just absurd. By all means: point me to a place in Barks where he passes up treasure because it came too easy! You can't do it, my friends! He may occasionally grouse about other people having profited too easily, but that's not at all the same thing.

As you can see, we're dealing with the earlier, meaner Beagle Boys here. An appropriate mirror of Barks' own development of the characters, though I tend to doubt it was intentional.

Gotta love Pothole's attitude. In terms of attitude towards money, he seems more akin to Donald than to Scrooge (cf the opening of "The Second-Richest Duck").

The story skips forward a few years (to after the events of Barks' "Fantastic River Race"); if any part of it could be seen as superfluous, it would definitely be this one--but there's some fun action, and it does establish the Beagles as perennial foes, so I'll take it.

Also: boom. Never forget.

And so it ends. The idea of Pothole settling down to write dime novels is a good one. A bit I always like this from Rosa's text on this story: "Barks' story has Scrooge say he was the "cannon on the Wabash Cannonball"…but I can't figure out what that's supposed to mean. But it sounds good!" Of course, what it actually means is that Barks was writing one of his last Scrooge adventures, and being characteristically goofy. But that's all right--this is a completely non-obtrusive way to stick in a Barks thing, 'cause why not? Why not indeed?

Great stuff! Tune in tomorrow for "Buckaroo of the Badlands!"

<-Chapter One Chapter Three->

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter One: "The Last of the Clan McDuck"

2011-12-09T12:36:00.011-05:00

Part One! This consists of Young Scrooge getting a work ethic, driving those pesky Whiskervilles off the ol' McDuck estate, and getting motivated to go to America. That's a lot to fit in fifteen pages, but to Rosa's credit, it feels neither rushed nor over-stuffed. It's not really a favorite of mine--and, though it's obviously not its fault, parts of it can't help feeling redundant after the "zeroeth" chapter--but it sets up greater things to come!

…and, of course, there are Barks references a-plenty. Not infrequently, you hear from people who don't seem to be particular fans of Disney comics in general, but who nonetheless sing the praises of the L&T. Hey, I'm glad they like it, but I'm also slightly bemused. The whole series is a big ol' love-letter to Barks, and if you don't know Barks' work, what do you make of, f'rinstance, this Horseradish-Story bit? Presumably you would recognize that it had to be a reference to something, but if you don't already know and love that something, what do you care? Something like this, I would think, would just seem like a kind of pointless narrative dead-end. I guess the storytelling just makes up for whatever such problems might arise.

In the sketches that an extremely helpful anonymous person linked to in comments, you'll see that the story was substantially different in its original conception: Scrooge doesn't even appear until the last panel of page seven(!), the first part of the story being devoted to a lengthy history of the McDucks, some Barks-inspired, some less so. Now granted, given a fifteen-page story, this is a bit much, given how much truncation it necessitates of the main plot, but it's still pretty cool stuff, and I don't think it would have been inappropriate, in a longer story, to start with this--to give the reader a better idea of where Scrooge comes from. I'm certainly going to complain more in future entries more about the stupid, arbitrary page limits that were imposed upon Rosa, so why not start here?

They're certainly not unique to the L&T, but the little Mad-ish side-jokes are always fun in Rosa's work. This is not the only bird-versus-worm confrontation he's depicted, either.

OMG! Continuity error! For the second installment in the series, Rosa would decide, not unreasonably, that "Pothole" was a strange name for a Scottish duck, and so determined that it was just a nickname that Angus had acquired in America. The first chapter does not recognize this. Odd--you'd think this would've been the easiest thing in the world to fix for Gemstone's edition. Unless, as usual, there's something I'm missing.

…yeah, the number-one-dime thing. This is depicted extremely similarly to the way it is in the zeroeth chapter. It's hard not to imagine that if Fergus hadn't taught him this Valuable Lesson about how people are untrustworthy, he might not be such a fucking asshole all the time. I call him that with love in my heart, but you know it's true.

Going to such lengths to explain why his first coin is an American dime may well seem like some serious over-explaining (especially since Barks himself obviously never conceived it as a potential problem), but let's face it: if you object too strenuously to that, you're going to pretty near kill yourself by the time the series is through.

And then there's the bit where the ghost of Quackly (from "The Old Castle's Secret," natch) gives him helpful tips. At any rate, the American-ness of the coin is as good an excuse to send him off to Ameri-cay as any.

…and there's this rather implausible contraption by which he scares the Whiskervilles away. I tell you, if I had a nickel for every time someone's reused that line from "Duck in the Iron Pants"...well, I'd probably have fifteen or twenty cents. Score! One thing you have to love about Rosa is the elaborate splash-panels like this, which are almost always really impressive-looking.

See previous. Good foreshadowing here, and does it matter whether you specifically recognize the Crown of Genghis Khan there? It does not.

What awaits in America??? For fuck's sake, you've read this stuff--you know as well as I do. Still, tune in tomorrow for "Master of the Mississippi."

<-Chapter Zero Chapter Two->

Public Service Announcement

2011-12-08T23:32:00.004-05:00

Never fear, the L&T Marathon is right on track, but right now, I must make note of this:

"Hey, what's that?" Oh, nothing much, just the complete set of Disney Literature Classics I was finally able to score off of ebay. The seller said that she started buying the books for her children, but then realized that they, the books, were "too young" (but for some reason that I don't understand but am thankful for collected the entire set anyway before offloading them). Well, they may be too simple for British children of some unspecified age, but for me, they're juuuuuust right! Definitely expect an uptick in weird, poorly-translated Italian stories over the coming months hereabouts.

Now, these things are rare as hen's teeth. Believe me, I've been monitoring ebay UK very closely, and I can definitively tell you that, unless some had "buy it now" options and were snapped up before I even saw them, mine is only the second full set to appear since August (David got the first one). Maybe they'll gradually become more common as kids start "outgrowing" them, or their parents think they have. But who knows, is the point. So, while I would've held off on this posting until after Christmas, I felt it was incumbent on me to note, for the benefit of any interested parties, that there's another set available right now. I feel like it's only fair that some reader of this blog should have a shot at it, if desired. Just remember, if you want to bid and you're not a UK resident, drop the seller a polite email asking whether s/he would be willing to ship overseas. And recognize that, if you live in the US, at least, this shipping will NOT be cheap. Still, if you care about this stuff at all, it could be your golden opportunity!

(And if one of you out there is already aware of this and was trying to avoid having the word get out in order to pick it up it as cheaply as possible, I apologize--but how could I possibly have known?)

More Rosa tomorrow!

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Zero: "Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies"

2011-12-08T11:58:00.016-05:00

(I was considering spelling Scrooge with a dollar sign, but I'm not gonna lie to you: I would like for this series to be as high as possible in google search results for "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck," and the non-standard spelling would not have been helpful in that regard.)

We will hit the ground running with what was rectonned into being "Chapter 0" of the series--in the explanatory text, Rosa tells us that this was conceived and written first, but then, on the basis that it would be somewhat redundant with the rest of the series, was shelved until later. This is apparent from the title also, which doesn't adhere to the "person of place" formula that the rest of the chapters do. It's also an odd fit because almost none of the action is from Scrooge's perspective--he's a fairly peripheral character in his own story.

You know what's really, really good about the L&T? I'll tell you: it's that Scrooge is younger--as such, he doesn't adhere to the semi-self-parodic character traits that Rosa too-often sticks him with in present-day stories, and when he does, it's seen as a bad thing, symbolic of a moral fall (though this can also create a certain dissonance at times, as we'll see). Don't get me wrong: I love Rosa's work to death, and we were very lucky to have him. But one thing he never really got right was negotiating the junction in Scrooge's character between "lovable" and "dickish." The reason he's such a great character is because he contains both of these qualities, and the one doesn't cancel out the other--but Rosa often veered waaaaaay too far into the "dickish" side, making the character look like a complete sociopath ("Last Lord of Eldorado" being the classic example--remind me to castigate that story one of these days). This here isn't quite on that level, but Donald really shouldn't be letting him get away with bullshit like this. The behavior that causes Scrooge's sisters to abandon him in the penultimate chapter of the series is not appreciably worse than this is.

Point being, I'm extremely grateful that this is really the only time in the series that this has the chance to come up.

Well, obviously, the idea is to do a dime origin-story. Scrooge will pontificate, as he so often does in Rosa stories. I do like the way Donald's boredom undercuts his self-importance a little. It's only a little, though--after all, he is going to tell the story he's going to tell, and no two ways about it.

Yeah, and Magica's listening, and she concocts a scheme to go back in time and nab the dime before things get out of hand. One thing I do like about this story is that it brings Magica into the series--I feel like it's only appropriate that such a significant character should play some role, even if it would've been difficult to place her in a "normal" chapter.

Note, also: Rosa's rendition of Magica has visible cleavage. What you think about that is up to you. I certainly don't believe it's because of some crazy fetish on Rosa's part; I think it's just part and parcel with his instinct to make the ducks' world more "realistic" (for some value of that word). Whether or not that's a good thing has been fiercely debated in the past and will be in the future. We'll get plenty of opportunities to think about it over the course of this series.

Say what you will about this story--and I don't think it's any sort of classic or anything like that--but Magica does look rather fetching as a Victorian lady.

Also, there's this guy trying to put the moves on her, who is meant to be John D. Rockerduck's father, Howard, though there's no way to know that from this story itself. Why Howard? Because of the character in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, per Rosa in his commentary about his later appearance. It seems Rosa, realizing partway through writing this that he'd be doing a whole series, planted him here, unidentified, to set up his appearance in chapter four, which shows some good foresight. He's basically here for some slapsticky hijinx, which is fair enough. It still feels a bit arbitrary, though, and it's one of those things that many readers will see and think "I know this has to be some sort of reference--but what? And why?" We'll see a lot more of that as the series progresses.

But there is some good physical comedy. That's something Rosa does well (when it doesn't just degenerate into Donald-abuse). This story also features the somewhat innovative thing of using the progressively-more-melted time-candle as a panel-border.

No real point in going through all the rigamarole as Magica tries and fails to get the dime--though from the portrayal of Scrooge's family, it's obvious that he had all this stuff in mind well before he began work on the seres proper. I like this bit because it's funny. What more can I say?

…and there's a rather predictable denouement. Obviously, Magica's never gonna succeed in stealing the dime, but the action here feels even more preordained than it usually does. The real purpose of the story, clearly, is to have some fun with Scrooge's family. That would no doubt be manna from heaven for fans, if not for the fact that by the time this actually saw print, said family had already seen plenty of exposure--leaving it feeling pretty superfluous. Oh well--ever onward and upward! Tomorrow, it's the proper beginning of the series, "The Last of the Clan McDuck."

<-IntroductionChapter One->

Introducing the DCR Holiday Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Marathon

2011-12-07T12:02:00.006-05:00

Hey, guess what, kids? Now, it is beginning of a fantastic story! I've written a little about Rosa's Life & Times series before, but honestly--that amounted to little more than a whole lotta uncritical fanboy gushing--not really all that interesting. I've often thought that it deserved more than that--what with being the most ambitious project in Disney comics history* and all. These days, I'm slightly older and slightly wiser, and I think--hope, anyway--that I can bring a critical perspective to the series that I couldn't earlier. I've also been thinking it would be fun to do a li'l something special for this holiday season. Sooooo...

*go on, then--give me your counterproposal. I think it would have to be one of the longer Gottfredson serials, but I think that would be a stretch. I know there are huge Italian series out there, but length isn't everything**--it's certainly not the same as "ambition"--and given the density and maniacal obsessiveness of Rosa's work…well, I'm standing by that statement.

**THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!***

***sorry.

Yes, there are people who can't stand Rosa's methodology. I get it. It's a bit of a stretch for him to claim that he's just trying to imitate Barks--that much is obvious of course, but he brings his own sensibility to duck comics to the extent that his work is really wholly his own, even if it's meant to just be expanding on that of the master. I want to call his work "Barks in high-definition," but I also don't, because that implies a criticism of Barks that I don't intend. But you know what I'm saying, right? You read his work, and you think, yeah, this is Barks. Only…more so. For both better and worse.

Talking about the L&T specifically, there's also the criticism that it sort of sucks the air out of the room--that, in its own way, it's extremely limiting. What else can you possibly do with Scrooge's past when there's this enormous stone monument just sitting there? Which is fair enough, but I really have to come down on Rosa's side here. It's true that his maniacal approach to Barksian "truth" seems somewhat excessive sometimes. But I ask you: if you're going to embark on a project like this, what are you going to do? You need to have some basis for what you're doing--to respect the character's history to a substantial degree. So even though it's true that Barks' work itself would probably have seen substantial cross-pollination had he been aware of European artists while he was working (when he met Romano Scarpa in the seventies, he apparently loved the idea of Brigitta MacBridge), the fact is, it didn't, and I think it's reasonable for Rosa to restrict himself to what Barks actually did, even if I wouldn't personally couch it in quite such puritanical terms. Let's face it: the Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck as written by Scarpa would've been a fucking disaster, albeit a fascinating one. Rosa's vision isn't flawless, but the idea simply needs to be taken very seriously if it's going to succeed at all--and there ain't no one more serious about this stuff than he is.

I'm going to cover each part of the series: the twelve "regular" chapters, and the six later additions*--one a day, starting tomorrow, the eighth, and ending on the twenty-fifth, Christmas Day--with what is essentially a Christmas story, no less! It's perfect! I was debating whether I should do them in chronological order or in order of publication, but ultimately opted for the latter--and not just 'cause the former would've messed up my plan to end with a seasonally-appropriate story. You could definitely make the argument that using publication order would provide a better perspective on Rosa's artistic development, but I think the flailing backwards and forwards that such an approach would entail would just be too jarring. I'll try to take note of anything that may be indicative of a different sensibility in the subsidiary chapters, but I also believe they mesh together pretty well with the main work.

*No, I'm not including "Dream of a Lifetime," even though it's in Gemstone's L&T Companion; it's not really part of the series, and it would feel very anticlimactic.

Before we start, just for fun: here's Rosa's family tree.* I certainly understand why some people get annoyed by Rosa's desire to ruthlessly quantify arbitrarily thrown-off "facts" the way he does. But hell: it's fun, dammit. Here's something you maybe didn't know: Gemstone did two printings of the L&T. The first is red; the second is yellow. In the first one, there's a printing error, so you can only see half of the portraits of Fethry and the mysterious Lulubelle Loon. This was fixed in the second.

*Okay, so I couldn't find a large image online, and scanning it would have been difficult, inasmuch as it takes up two pages in the Gemstone's L&T. But c'mon; I'm pretty sure you know what it looks like.

(I think I've mentioned this before, but if you buy a print of the family tree from Rosa at a convention (which, though basically the same as the published version, is slightly realigned and features re-drawn portraits--for some sort of copyright-related reason?), it'll show Ludwig Von Drake on the far left, married to Matilda. Now, I love the shit out of this pairing, and wish like hell that Rosa had been permitted to depict it in a story (seriously, you editor people can be such jerks sometimes), but the fact that the tree depicts young-Matilda, whereas Ludwig is modern-day-age, makes it look pretty seriously creepy. If he revised it to include Matilda as depicted in "The Old Castle's Other Secret, it would be way better.)

(Also, in that version you can see HDL's father's face (CF), and he will apparently draw your name in the empty box. Um…thanks but no thanks!)

Here's something that irritates me--and I realize that this irritation basically makes me the geekiest person in the world, but I can't help it: there's a Barksian character missing from this chart. For all of Rosa's obsessiveness, he let one get by him. I would make you guess in comments to see if anyone could get it, but no time! I want to air my grievance NOW! It's Mehitabel Mudhen, mentioned in this rarely-reprinted (because of the most horrifying racial depiction ever in a Disney comic) story. Now, this family tree is cool; it's a lot of fun--but Rosa had to make up out of whole cloth a lot of characters in order to get the genealogy to work. Mehitabel would've been a perfect fit as Fethry's and Abner's mother, slightly ameliorating that issue. I know the "loon" bit is to try to genetically explain Fethry's craziness, but mudhens are pretty crazy too (I would've sworn that "mad as a mudhen" was an actual idiom, but a google search reveals that I apparently just made that up. It works though, dammit!). Yes, in that case he should probably have referred to her in the Barks story as "Aunt," but really, now: Rosa fudges details far more substantial than that throughout the saga. There's definitely some leeway here.

I guess all I'm trying to say is this: down with Lulubelle! Up with Mehitabel! Seriously. I just now thought of this, and now the omission bothers me on a deep, molecular level. Hey, I told you I was geeky.

Oh, and one last thing: my favorite charity for holidays is Heifer International. If you like this series, you could do a whole lot worse than to thank me by buying some livestock for people in developing countries who need it.

Chapter Zero->

"City of Golden Roofs"

2011-12-04T03:40:00.011-05:00

To be clear, when I wrote "new posts starting December seventh," this is NOT what I was referring to. We'll have something completely different on Wednesday. But it so happened that I recently reread this Barks story from and was immediately bitten by the duckblogging bug.

…and while you can clearly see Barks' preoccupation with questions of aging and losing one's touch in later stories (eg, "That's No Fable," "The Golden Nugget Boat," "North of the Yukon"), you wouldn't necessarily expect it in something as early as 1957. And yet, here it is.

So they have this contest in which they both have to start from scratch and try to make some money. The idea that you're going to accrue a Scrooge-esque fortune as a salesman seems questionable at best, but I like the fact that all of a sudden everybody is desperate for "those cushy salesman jobs." It would be understandable if Duckburg was in a recession (but even then: "cushy?"), but no, it seems as if everyone just really, really wants the opportunity to sell stuff.

"Shoeless Pashly." Not that this Pashly character has to be an Elvis-type musician, name notwithstanding, but the fact that he's some sort of calypso guy gives me the impression that Barks wasn't necessarily clear on the differences between the different kinds of music that The Kids are listening to These Days and just mashed it all together. Like a somewhat less sour version of Van Horn.

Hey! HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY! This is blatant cheating, goddamnit! Time to call the game in Donald's favor right here and now! The whole rest of the story might as well not even happen; the question has been decided. Man, this irks me. And it's not at all clear to me whether or not we're intended to see this in that light or not. The rest of the story suggests not, but if that's the case, then Barks has proven the opposite of the point he was trying to make in spite of himself.

I love Donald's "peeel that banana!" That's about all I have to say about that. This story is not unproblematic, but this bit's just delightful, and shows once again that Donald really does have a better handle on the culture than Scrooge does.

Ahem yes. So they find this hidden Angkor-Wat-type place with little difficulty. I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about the depiction of the indigenous people here, because at a certain point you've said all you can say. It is what it is, and constantly harping on it just gets monotonous. I'll say here that, in spite of this dialogue, the people have a generally hip/modern sensibility to them; also, their dialect isn't consistent, with some bits like this and some where they're talking in more or less standard English. Probably no need to put more thought into it than Barks did.

(Though I suppose I'd be remiss if I didn't note that things like this are indicative of the spread of late capitalism.)

And here you realize that this story was in part inspired by the 1956 film version of The King and I, what with this Yul-Brinner-esque leader. Actually, I just realized this on this latest rereading of the story; it always went right over my head in the past.

So Scrooge concocts a plot to sell his stove...and an underhanded plot at that. Not that it violates the terms of the contest; after all, getting ahead normally does involve shady ethics. Still, it's hard to support Scrooge here.

I mean really: is this an honest way to make a buck? It bloody well isn't. Maybe the king would be willing to make that kind of payment, but you obviously don't think he would; otherwise, all this trickery would be unnecessary.

So Donald wins, right? Can't beat all this jewelry and ivory and gold coins and stuff, can you?

Hmph. I'm pretty darned sure that the craftsmanship that went into Donald's haul would elevate it above Scrooge's barrel-shaped lump of gold, even if it is a made-up number or karats.

It's hard to know what to make of a story like this. Unlike the similar "Golden Nugget Boat," Scrooge's triumph comes as a result of real real effort as opposed to sheer luck--I mean, ignoring for a moment the fact that he had disqualified himself long before this supposed victory. But is this "making it square?" Sure doesn't seem that way, yet I get the impression that we're supposed to admire his cunning as opposed to thinking he's just kind of a dick (I'm pretty sure I did when I read this as a young'un). Just another case study for our endless analysis of the unresolvable tension in Scrooge's character, I suppose.

But seriously: come back on Wednesday for more stuff. If you're the type of person who would regret it, I can pretty much guarantee you're also the type who wouldn't be reading this blog in the first place.

New post starting December seventh.

2011-12-02T02:50:00.003-05:00

...and they will knock your fucking socks off. So be sure you're wearing socks when you check back. Otherwise, I cannot be responsible for the consequences.

"Turkey Trouble"

2011-11-24T11:41:00.007-05:00

Today's story, from 1960 isn't all that interesting. In fact, the odds are very low that I would be writing at it, if not for the fact that it has personal importance for me: it's very likely the first Disney comic I ever read. My memory is a little fuzzy, of course--who knew at the time that it would lead to this here massive media conglomerate I'm running?--but I'm ninety percent sure it's either this or Barks' "Spicy Tale," and between the two of them, I would lay pretty heavy odds on this one. So even though it's not exactly in the top echelon of Barks stories (neither is "A Spicy Tale") it evidently did the trick, and for that I am thankful.

…and in a sort of inchoate way, I associate the ducks in the foreground with me and the house in the background with duck-comics-dom.

As you can see by the fact that it's called "Turkey Trouble," this story is called "Turkey Trouble." For some reason, however, this older story--in which HDL win a turkey in a raffle but then become too attached to it to kill it, so Donald wins another one in a turkey-shoot but then decides in turn that it has too much spirit to kill--is also referred to by that title, both by inducks and by the CBL in Color. Really, people. Your imaginations were so limited that you were entirely unable to come up with a title that wasn't already in use? Listen: "A Tale of Two Turkeys." See? I just now came up with that, and it's a perfectly serviceable title--substantially better, I would argue than the one you're using--and it would eliminate any confusion. Crikey! Okay okay, to be fair, it's probable that they were naming the stories in chronological order, and didn't realize the mistake until too late. But that has the disadvantage of not allowing me to assume the worst of people, so I prefer the idea that they were just kinda dumb.

The story feature this weird, low-grade misogyny that you sometimes see, in which the men are at the mercy of the wimminfolk with their crazy, arbitrary schemes.

Note well that Daisy is "the loudest talker"--reinforcing the idea that women talk more than men, even though not actually. HDL's floaty poses there are truly strange.

Oh man, my introduction to Gladstone Gander, also. This story alone was certainly enough for me to figure out what he was all about. I'll note that in spite of the fact that all the men of the town are apparently required to participate in this madness, only Donald and Gladstone appear to actually be doing it, and Gladstone seems to have only heard about it second-hand, since he didn't know that the turkeys had to be wild. Perhaps this suggests that nobody really takes "Daisy's Club"'s schemes all that seriously except Donald, who feels obligated because he's intermittently romantically involved with the president.

The idea is that they buy land from this swindler who tricks them by planting fake turkeys there. Note well: in Disney comics, even non-anthropomorphized animals wearing (what I can only assume are) really obvious disguises are enough to fool everyone.

So they come up with a scheme to foist the land off on Gladstone. I find quite odd the idea that the swindler dude has a whole bunch of fake turkeys that he just sort of leaves lying around in the woods for no clear reason.

But the scheme works, and Donald gets one over on Gladstone, at least momentarily. I really like Gladstone's posture and attitude in the second panel there. He seems to be accepting that, yeah, my luck gives me an unfair advantage that puts me over the top most of the time, but for once, I've been had, and whatareyagonnado? I also like the fact that Duckburg has a "dismal swamp" district. That'll go in the tourism brochures!

And so this happens. I believe I've noted in previous entries that the "ha ha she's so hideous" thing is pretty much my least favorite "joke" in the world. Note also the very clear implication that Donald's victory is all the sweeter because not only does he get to spend the evening with Daisy, but he doesn't have to listen to her talking all the time. Whee.

Anyway, that's about that. Happy Thanksgiving to people in the US. To people NOT in the US, happy regular-day. Coming fairly soon: something else.

Service Advisory

2011-11-08T22:12:00.002-05:00

Hmm. Don't expect to see much here this month (though I'll try to put something up for Thanksgiving). However, we'll be back in full force in December with something cool that will be of interest to you, or my name isn't Barnabas P. Cruller (what?).

"The Poorest Duck in Duckburg"

2011-10-31T12:53:00.017-04:00

Hey, guess what, Dark-Ladies and Gentlemaniacs, it's time for your annual Halloween Tale of Terror! This time, it's Pat Block's and Ron Fernandez's final collaboration.

When I wrote about their previous "Too Late for Christmas" last year, I may have claimed that all of the stories the two of them collaborated on were "stunningly, unbelievably good." Unfortunately…well, as I realized when I reread this particular story to write this entry, there may have been a certain boyish overenthusiasm in that statement. It is absolutely the case that those superlative apply to "Too Late for Christmas" and "The Secret of the Dragon's Den," and even if "The Mystery of Widow's Gap" isn't quite on that level, it's still pretty good, and shows a lot of potential. But this one…well, dammit all, it pains me to admit it, but it's pretty substantially flawed, both in terms of art and story. If you wanted to read between the lines, you could argue that it reveals something about the deteriorating nature of their working relationship. Who knows?

One thing that's a bit problematic is the art, as the above examples indicate. It's not bad for the most part, but there are distracting problems, as in the above examples. In the first panel, Donald is oddly squashed, and it looks very much as if he's just been copy and pasted into the panel. In the second one, due to perspective issues, it looks as though he's lifting off the ground. Hmm.

The idea is that Scrooge HATES Halloween, 'cause all the kids are going to come to his awesome new money bin and trick-or-treat him blind--so he wants to get rid of it (though you'd kinda think his landmines and barbed wire would do the trick as far as keeping kids away goes--otherwise, I see a very expensive lawsuit in his future). This is a reasonable basis for a story (though in that first panel, you can see another example of Donald looking weird). Why would "shopkeepers" object to Halloween, though? They don't like selling costumes and candy...?

Also, we have Witch Hazel, and continuity with "Too Late for Christmas." Kinda nutty, but I like the idea that Block and Fernandez are making this concerted effort to make Hazel into a regular character--an' this crazy witch-country, too! That's not something I have an objection to.

...and also, for some reason, there's this leprechaun-witch. I feel like this must be some sort of reference that I'm missing. In any case, they end up assigning her to give Duckburg the most spooktacular Halloween ever. But without her magic.

...meanwhile, back in Duckburg...look, I think we all feel a little thrill at seeing Lawyer Sharky (from Barks' "Golden Helmet," obviously--I never know whether I should spell things like that out; whether I should assume there are any neophytes in the audience or not). But, sad to say, this is also where Block and Fernandez really drop the ball. If you were gonna involve Sharky here, you'd want to have him come up with some arcane legal way to ban the holiday, and then the nephews would have to scramble to figure out some way to counter it with Hazel's help and it would all be crazy fun. Right? But…the "plan," as it turns out, is just to buy up all Halloween-related things in the city. First: why exactly do you need a lawyer for that? Second: it defies belief that Scrooge would be dumb enough to think that was a good idea--that buying up everything would be a cheaper alternative to giving out candy and possibly enduring some minor vandalism. If it was a one-time investment that was gonna wipe the holiday out for good, sure, but presumably he'd just have to repeat the process every year. It's just dumb, is what it is. And terribly unimaginative.

To stay a little positive, though, I'll note that there are some good moments scattered here and there--like (Scrooge having retired to Grandma's farm to await the results of his scheme) in this vista of pumpkins, telling tales to the placidly-accepting Gus (who has almost certainly heard this many times before).

...but what happens, alas, is that ALL his money gets spent buying up Halloween paraphernalia. Not realistic, exactly, but still--a twist, I would say, in the Barksian spirit.

...oh, and there's this rather pointless cameo from the Beagles, looking a bit malformed. And really, "that old miser won't miss three sacksfull [sic]?" That's not the Beagle MO. I mean okay sure, in "The Doom Diamond" we see them nickel-and-diming Scrooge, but that is entirely uncharacteristic. They're not content to be invisible parasites--they want it ALL! This, I would merely characterize as sloppy writing.

And now...we move on to the nonsensical climax of this tale, where the kids subject him to a haunted house experience so that mumblemumble.

This is another area where the art does not serve the story well: Scrooge's facial expressions are such that it's impossible to tell what he's actually thinking about all of this.

Angry, happy, intimidated, suspicious--who can say? Best guess is that he's supposed to be just indulging the kids' whims, but why would he just instantaneously go from depression about his sudden brokeness to happily playing along with this game? The whole thing makes no sense.

...and then he learns the True Meaning of Halloween, which for some reason completely turns him around. Why? And why was all that previous rigamarole an essential part of it, given that he didn't react to any of it in a notably Halloween-y way?

And why, in that upper-left panel, does he have that squinty-eyed look that generally connotes deviousness? Ach…so many questions. Though that "where would I keep my new quarter?" is kind of charming.

Hazel sold back all the Halloween stuff to restore Scrooge's fortune. As one does. The resemblance to Barks' "Financial Fable" is clear.

I'll grant that these last few pages do a decent job creating a Halloween tableau--it's just that nothing in the story really justifies this conclusion. Is that the same wolf from Barks' "Think-Box Bollix?" Sure, why not?

(don't worry; Hazel gets her powers back and all is forgiven hurrah)

...and the last thing we see is Sharky, who, it must be admitted, looks pretty darned adorable in his clown costume (and with his...basketball?).

It's not so easy to craft a duck story that really catches that Halloween spirit--that combination of fun, spooky, and anarchic. Obviously, Barks' "Trick or Treat" is the ur-text in that regard; Rota's "Halloween Huckster" also does the trick. This one, not so much--though I hasten to add that I nonetheless would've loved beyond all reckoning to see more Block/Fernandez material. I suppose I ought to just write an entry about "Trick or Treat" already, ferfuckssake, but I thought a more obscure story like this one would provide better value for money.

Have a mind-bendingly terrifying Halloween, everyone!

"The Great Orphanage Robbery"

2011-10-27T01:50:00.028-04:00

Okay, time for some Gottfredson. Specifically, "The Great Orphanage Robbery." This, of course, is one of those stories that previously could not be reprinted in modern times, so it's certainly ripe for examination.

It has its problems, of various sorts. For one, it feels a bit disjointed, consisting of three distinct parts that are only sort of connected to one another: the initial, raising-money section; the play; and the Klondike bit. In his introduction, Thomas Andrae notes that two different cartoons--"Mickey's Mellerdrammer" and "The Klondike Kid"--were used as fodder for this storyline, which is a cool idea, but it leads to a certain bumpiness.

For two...well, let's just dive in, shall we?

The initial idea is that we've gotta raise money for the orphanage, which is full. And needs fifteen hundred dollars, though how that precise figure was arrived at is never specified, nor what exactly it's going to be used for. Note the (entirely typical, of course) lack of systemic thinking here: the question of what steps could be taken to ameliorate the problem of homeless orphans is entirely focused, here, on raising this small-ish sum of money. This isn't a criticism on my part; indeed, you can see some implicit social commentary here if you so desire. But it is one of those unspoken assumptions that the reader can easily glide right over without even noticing.

So, um, yes. Whole lotta racial confusion here. What can you say about a thought process that goes "ha ha! You look hilarious, just as if you were in blackface! Hey, that reminds me--Uncle Tom's Cabin!?" You're really reduced to just shaking your head and laughing incredulously. Note also that Minnie's comment seems to indicate that she's never actually met any black people, so she can only think of them in terms of a famous novel. And the fact that she sees said novel as being all theater, to the extent that the African American characters therein can be equated to white people covered with exhaust...well, we'll get to that in a minute.

First, though, we will, in all fairness, note that this difficulty with conceiving of racial issues may be connected to a more general naiveté, if Mickey's embarrassment at "bein' kissed by a woman" is anything to go on (side notes: has he really never kissed Minnie? And isn't there something somewhat Oedipal about him having that reaction to what is clearly a motherly sort of kiss?).

So is Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin racist? Well, obviously, yes. It would be impossible to convincingly argue that it doesn't suffer from the prejudices of its time. Some criticism may be a bit misguided: people object to the title character's passivity, but given that he's meant to be a Christ-figure, this seems to be missing the point, especially given that there are other sympathetic black characters who are much more active. Still, it's true that the smarter, more heroic black characters are the lighter-skinned ones; and it's true that the book can't quite escape from occasional Minstrel-Show-ish moments.

However, it does come down firmly on the side of the angels in very forcefully condemning the most evil institution in American history. So, you know, it has that going for it. For a lot of people, calling something "racist" is an automatic conversation-ender, but that shouldn't always be the case. Depending on context, racist content or subtext need not wholly invalidate a work of art. And other problems notwithstanding, I would argue that it's more effective from a literary standpoint than many people give it credit for.

What does all this have to do with this story, though? Well...the relationship between Uncle Tom's Cabin and the many, many adaptations thereof is a fraught one. Obviously racism continued to be an issue into the twentieth century (as it does to this day), but by 1932, when this serial was published, it wouldn't have been especially controversial to assert that slavery was a bad thing. So what you get--and note that I'm far from being some sorta Stowe scholar, so all this is subject to correction--is adaptations that retain the melodrama (Eliza crossing the river, Simon Legree twirling his mustache), but that sort of sandpaper down the specific anti-slavery sentiments and at the same time play up the Minstrel-Showy bits. I don't think Gottfredson was writing this with any sort of malicious intent; in fact, I'd wager he would've considered himself a progressive on racial issues.* But this part of the story is nonetheless pretty dissonant.

*That might seem like an insurmountable contradiction, given his treatment of "cannibals" in other stories, including the one directly after this. Not so odd, though--Vachel Lindsay (of "Congo" fame or infamy) was the same way. It was entirely possible to be opposed to American racism while still doing cringe-inducing depictions of foreign "savages."

It basically proceeds in this fashion. From watching the cartoon, you can get the basic idea. This is the jokey part of the story, so there's a fair bit of this (though all told, the play section only takes up something like twenty percent of the whole).

Here's a good example of the way adaptations remove the original novel's nuance. According to David in his introduction, it was common to make Topsy into "a simple comic foil" in adaptations of the story. But this was not remotely the case in the original book, in which the idea was that she had so so deeply internalized the idea that she was fundamentally "bad" that she couldn't help but behave to match this self-image. It's an astute bit of psychology, and one that has continued sociological relevance to this day. But here it's just heh! heh! heh!.

Anyway, I think that's about all that needs to be said about the play. Obviously, it has its problems, but I've read plenty of way more questionable Disney comics than this one. I think its reputation eclipses the thing itself.

The point is, they make the needed money for the orphanage--but oh no! It disappears! And so does Horace! What does this mean?

It means we have to put dozens of cops and bloodhounds on the trail to bring Horace back, possibly killing him in the process. Tell you what, people: I'm pretty sure it wasn't this depiction of Mouseton's idea of "justice" that prevented the story from being reprinted, but I find this all way more horrifying than the play bit--even if here it's intentional. Though actually, that's something I grapple with a bit. I mean, it definitely is, but the question is, how much so? And is this really justified within the world of the comic? You'll see what I'm talking about as things go from bad to worse.

Well, it turns out--HOLY SHIT!--that Pete and Shyster are responsible for the robbery, and they knock out Mickey, causing the police chief to leap to a truly insane assumption (innocent until proven what? huh? I don't get it). We're a long way off from the comparatively warm and fuzzy Chief O'Hara days to come. Possibly this is some sort of commentary. Or possibly it's just a really forced reason for Mickey to become a fugitive. You could argue that the one doesn't preclude the other, but regardless, I think "forced" is definitely a word I would have to use.

This section of the story takes place when Mickey gets taken north on a train--though it must be said, there's little sense of any real movement here; the setting (based only VERY loosely on "The Klondike Kid") is pretty thin. Note that they're also okay with Mickey--the guy who spearheaded the project in the first place, ferfuckssake--being brought back dead. You might assume that Pete and Shyster put up that poster to make sure he gets got, but that does not seem to be the case. Also, unless I missed something, it's never explained why their footprints just stop. Maybe they were walking on air.

Here's this. Now, you might assume that the joke here is that Pete doesn't know what "stimulating intoxicants" mean. But I prefer to believe that what he thinks when he hears the term is "cocaine," and he just wants to get drunk first as an aperitif.

But you'll hopefully forgive me if I don't spend a lot of time on these arctic adventures--because frankly, they're pretty boring. It seems as though Gottfredson wanted to do recapture the magic of "Death Valley"--there hadn't really been any far-flung adventures since then--but it's all very going-through-the-motions-y.

I'm way more interested in Horace's tribulations back home. Note the way this jailbird laughs at the idea that dumb things like lack of evidence and mere factual innocence would hold any sway in Mouseton's kangaroo courts.

Yes, of course, the death penalty. As a side note, you might imagine that the complete disappearance of the money would at least raise some questions. Not so much.

Oh, and also, if there's any danger of you getting off, the prosecutor will just accuse you of random unrelated crimes until you're convicted.

Oh yeah, and if THAT somehow doesn't work, you will be dragged out and lynched by a vengeful mob. I mean...I dunno. I just can't help thinking that this is laying it on a bit thick. There's "a dark view of human nature" and then there's "you will be murdered by crazed vigilantes if you are even charged, let alone convicted, of even a comparatively minor crime."

The story doesn't let you forget about this, either, culminating in them getting all ready to actually do it. You cannot tell me, based on this story, that there is not strange fruit hanging from Mouseton trees. I just--I mean--man, I'm at a loss for words. Nothing wrong with harsh social commentary and all, but it sort of feels like the world of the strip is not one that really supports this kind of thing.

Horace is appropriately cynical about his fellow-citizens' sudden change of heart. Yeah, Gottfredson was clearly doing what he wanted to do; I don't think he was oblivious. I'm just not convinced that, in this instance "what he wanted to do" was the right thing to do. Here's this: you'll note that Pete and Shyster do not suffer the fate that the mob had in store for Horace. Obviously not. A humorous comic strip can't depict something that grim. Buuuuuut…in that case, you might wonder if it should bring it up at all.

But I dunno; maybe I shouldn't criticize. If this storyline would even incrementally cause a few people here and there to question the ethics of lynching--which was, of course, a real thing as this was published--then maybe it was worth it. Shrug. Tell me what you think in comments.

Cute ending thing, though. I'm just sorry that that marriage never went through--and, more generally, that Horace gradually lost his prominence in the strip. Nothing against Dippy/Goofy, really, but I feel like Horace brought something to the strip that the later character just couldn't replace.

Hey, look what just arrived!

2011-10-21T15:51:00.001-04:00

Once I've read it, I will endeavor to write about one of the stories in commemoration.

You asked for it, you got it!

2011-10-19T00:07:00.003-04:00

...okay, so you probably didn't ask for it. The second part is accurate, however! Starting NOW, at my other place, Darkwing Duck!

"The Gab-Muffer"

2011-10-18T02:09:00.014-04:00

We now turn our attention to a story that Barks did for a Gyro Gearloose one-shot in 1959. I'm not generally all that super-enamored of these, but this one's good. And important! Well…that may well be a relative term, but it does a few interesting things, and therefore is worth glancing at. As though I needed an excuse!

It starts out with Gyro feeling bummed out by the fact that no one wants his inventions:

Man, if I lived in Duckburg, I'd be hitting him up for his latest and greatest on a daily basis. But clearly, actual Duckburgians have grown blasé about his abilities. The fools! Still, there's a clear problem here: dude, you have to invent inventions to invent inventions that inspire people to invent reasons to have you invent inventions. In it to win it, man.

(Actually, it must be admitted, this intro isn't a super-brilliant way to start the story, given that Gyro's crisis of confidence has nothing to do with the main plot, and isn't really resolved in any way.)

Yup...I'm miserable and screw you for trying to make me less so! Man, you just know that if this dude were around today, he'd be one of these witless "Fifty-Three Percent" people.

But anyway, here's Donald, who wants an invention. I am extremely interested to learn about these primitive mute-buttons that--if Barks is to be believed--you could get your hands on in 1959 (I mean, it seems believable--how complicated can the technology possible be?). Were they ever actually called "gab-muffers," however? That is open to question. Every google-search result for the term refers to this story. Frankly, it sounds to me more like a euphemism for a popular sex act than anything else.

Point is, he wants Gyro to make one that works on HDL here, whose enthusiasm for Tennyson reënactments has gotten out of hand. I really like whenever you see them doing real kid stuff in Barks, since it's so comparatively rare, especially once the Woodchucks have become a big thing. Their earnest expressions are delightful.

Science, ladies and gents. The concept of a "wak-shatterer"--designed, presumably, to obliterate the classic Barksian exclamation--is pretty great.

So, no big surprise, everyone ends up muted, and there's a fire, and mass chaos. The characters still have occasional think-bubbles, but they're silent for a substantial portion of the story, which is really interesting in a way I'm having trouble articulating. I feel as though their actions and reactions are altered and exaggerated (as if they were characters in a silent film, perhaps?) from what they would be if they were talking, to highly entertaining effect. You can especially see it in the above panel from Donald and the middle nephew.

There's a lot of great stuff that comes from this. It's a close call, but I'm going to have to say that I like HDL's stunned expressions even more than I like Donald leaping over them with a phone he's torn out of the wall. Not by much, though.

...and then the Helper casually solves the problem, and that's that. This puts all the previous tomfoolery in perspective, showing just how out-of-proportion (due to the silence--see how it's all interwoven?) everyone's antics were.

And that's that, except that I haven't yet touched on the most wonderful thing about this story, involving the Helper's subsidiary action, which here consists of playing checkers.

See? He defeats the bird. But more to the point:

Bam. Checkers with Bolivar! Who wins, no less! Look how delighted he is with himself! Simply adorable. I cannot put into words how pleased I am with this development. Clearly, I must rethink my previous assertion that Bolivar, unlike General Snozzie, is just a regular dog, lacking human intelligence.

"The Curse of Flabbergé"

2011-10-08T00:54:00.021-04:00

Hey, as you know if you read the companion blog to this one, I recently finished watching the entirety of Ducktales. For that reason, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight a Ducktales story here. And an interesting story it is, too, in several ways (note my carefully neutral tone there).

I won't deny it: I've never been very excited by Ducktales comics. They sort of feel to me like the equivalent of playing Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, and really, what can I get from them that I would want and that I can't get from regular duck comics? Well, in theory, Fenton, except that he has only ever appeared in four stories, according to inducks (Boom reprinted two of them, and they ain't much); possibly Launchpad, but, although I theoretically like the character, the fact remains, he's all-too-often characterized as A. Dumb; B. Crash-prone; C. That's all; which isn't that exciting. So in short. Shrug. It makes sense for other Disney Afternoon properties, but for Ducktales, it seems on the pointless side.

But anyway, here we have this, which, if nothing else, is certainly more ambitious than most Ducktales stories I've read. All due credit to David for the translation, also; it's very crisp, and it's easy to imagine the dialogue coming from the characters in the show, which surely is the ultimate goal here.

Right at the beginning, there's a thing that baffles the hell out of me. Maybe this is because I am dumb, but if someone could explain it to me, that would be great. Here are the final panels on the first page:

And here are the first panels on the second page:

Somebody seriously explain to me: what? What's supposed to have happened here? Why is Launchpad holding a fish? Wuh? The first time I saw this, I thought the pagination had somehow gotten screwed up, but all the evidence suggests that this is in fact the way it's supposed to be. Huh.

Anyway, this is a long story, so I'm going to skip over a lot of stuff in the course of this. I really like Launchpad overriding Scrooge's tantrum and just carrying him bodily out, though.

...and I like this splash panel. This would've been super-cool animated, also. Okay.

...oh, there are fun references to the show here, too. The writing here feels--because it clearly is--more aware of the show's history than contemporaneously-published stories were. It's a good fit.

As far as the vine goes, surely you would want it to have been shorter? If it's longer, you're just going to smack into the water quicker.

Scrooge's tantrum is also funny. Is that bit about coal meant to be an elliptical reference to the Dumbest Ducktales Moment Ever, where Scrooge scatters peanuts to summon elephants to stomp on his coal to change it to diamonds? If not, it should be.

"Woodchuck Information Dump" is just great. I can think of a few Rosa stories to which it would be especially relevant.

Point is, he gets it in his head that there's this fabergé egg equivalent that he can get his hands on, to make up for the diamond thing not working out. This is the first dubious plot point here: since when does Scrooge just go around buying priceless treasures, unless there's some way he knows he can do so at a deep discount? That would seem to defeat the point, which is to be richer.

Here's the other dubious plot point: the notion that this mystery buyer somehow did something wrong/is not "entitled" to the egg, in spite of having paid for it fair and square. Since when is it illegal--or even immoral--to buy something anonymously? What gives you the right to go chasing after them?

...and seriously, what the hell is the deal with that sense of entitlement? It's "your treasure" in...what sense? Granted, he sometimes gets this way in Barks, to an extent, but never that I recall in so obviously a "dude--it's not yours" situation as this.

Um...okay. From this, more prescient readers--even if you haven't read the thing--may already guess what my biggest problem is going to be with this story. And it's not that catwoman there looks pretty creepy in that bodysuit without the mask, though this is undeniably the case.

...and there's this tie-in with Brutopia; that's obviously David's embellishment (if nothing else, the fact that the story does not feature Barks' standard Brutopian agent would tip you off); I admire the chutzpah, though it doesn't ultimately make the story any more or less problematic.

…and here we have Fethry's ancestor! That makes me grin; I won't deny it. Is this a Ducktales first?

I'm a big fan of the signs featuring the Stalin-esque dictator.

Okay, three things: 1) That's not Old English; 2) no one spoke Old English in the sixteenth century anyway; and 3) or in Russia. Sorry, David, but you know I couldn't let that one go :}

…and by "we," I mean "you," and by "free," I mean "subjects of a tsardom." No...seriously? Seriously??? Royalist propaganda in a Disney comic? Dorfman and Mattelart would have a field day with this. I mean, yeah, by all means, get rid of the Stalin-esque dictator, but...I mean, no, robber-baron capitalism didn't exactly do Russia any favors either, but at least it had the potential to lead somewhere else. Whereas here we have...stasis.

You may recognize this as very similar to Barks' "Treasure of Marco Polo," which was problematic in its own right, but that story was non-specific enough to be a bit less so. Whereas this is specifically about Russia, which we can actually look at and say, huh. Things were kinda bad under the Tsars--again, not that they improved after the Revolution, but the idea that the answer is to regress...

Do I think that the writer (Régis Maine, take a bow) intended this reading of the story? No. I mean, I hope not. That would be super-bizarre (though it's also hard to see how he couldn't have noticed it). I imagine that this particular concept was just a sort of extension of the popular Anastasia myth. And it's not as though Europe's democracies are teetering on the brink of dictatorship, so it's not exactly malignant, really. But it is one of the most hilariously weird things I've ever read.

"Diner Sore"

2011-10-03T22:37:00.004-04:00

Just a quick hit: here's a story I ran across while I was looking for Fethry stories, and, upon rereading it, I was every bit as baffled as I was the first time. So here it is: "Diner Sore," a title which, unless I'm missing something really obvious, appears to be a feeble play on "dinosaur," even though this story is not in any way dinosaur-related (nor does it have much to do with diners, come to that, except that it involves thwarted plans to eat). Hmm. I assume the reason for its US publication is that it was drawn by fan-favorite Freddy Milton.

I believe this is the only story I've ever seen with Gladstone as the marquee character. There's a reason the guy doesn't get more starring roles, and it's not just because he's irritating as fuck and we all hate him (which isn't to say that he's not a great character, but really: who "likes" Gladstone, even in an antihero kind of way?). What the hell can you possibly do with the guy? He's lucky. Either lucky things happen to him, or, by some contrivance, they fail to happen to him; in either case, it ain't much. If you were really determined to put the character in the lead, you'd pretty much have to do some sort of deconstruction/critique/satire for the results to be effective. But this story here?

Well, you see what's going on: he wants his luck to bring him food, but FUCK IT'S NOT WORKING HOLY CRUD AM I EVER HIGHLY INVESTED IN GLADSTONE GETTING HIS LUCK BACK.

But no; vague existential crisis results that really just makes us hate him more--or at least, it would were it anything new with him. It would be better if he were planning to hurl himself off the bridge.

But never fear! His luck returns, in the usual contrived fashion and he gets servants and a wheelbarrow of cash. There's a Gurgleurp reference, anyway, even it makes little sense under the circumstances, and seriously, that is all.

So the question is: have you ever told yourself, "man, that Gladstone. He just doesn't get enough credit for his awesomeness. If only there were a story that really focused on how great he is, and then there were some sort of thing that threatened to make him seem less great, but in the end, his essential greatness was confirmed!"

No? I suspect that you are not alone.

This thing is just so fantastically, mind-bogglingly ill-conceived. I try to see if I can't reframe it as some sort of satire, but no matter how hard I look, I just can't find anything that would be even the subtlest of tip-offs. Gladstone's behavior isn't exaggerated or anything; it's pretty much indistinguishable from how he always is, only here there's no one else to root for or identify with. Did some publisher have the misguided idea that Gladstone stories were the wave of the future, and the writer (Piet Zeeman) decided to show them just how bad an idea that was? If so, well played, I guess.

"Birds of a Fethry"

2011-09-24T23:47:00.009-04:00

Things have been quiet here because, seeing as I'm almost done with my marathon Ducktales-watching session, I've been devoting most of my duck-blogging attention to my other place. But fear not--Fethry "Week" continues! Now, we will look at a contemporary Fethry story. A number of these appeared in Gemstone's books; they generally follow the format of the Hubbard/Kinney stories (except the ones in the digests--but that's a story for another day), only with less terrifying artwork--so what's not to like? For variety, here is a story where Fethry's getting on someone other than Donald's nerves.

This story is sort of reminiscent of Barks' more heavy-handedly environmentalist Junior Woodchucks efforts. It's true, of course, that cutting down a tree is somewhat less of a bad thing than killing whales, but still--that smug smile on Scrooge's face, along with his stated desire to destroy a "mighty oak," all militates towards making him the villain of the piece. Which is a bit uncharacteristic; generally, these stories involve Fethry harassing an innocent victim--Scrooge doesn't seem so innocent here.

As I said, the artwork here is a big relief to me, and Fethry's pious expression is funny.

Scrooge tries to get him down like this, and you really do have to admire his commitment to principle. I'm not really qualified to make sweeping statements here, given that I've only read a small handful of both the one and the other, but from what I have read, it seems like these newer European stories are more likely to show Fethry involved with real-world, do-gooding causes; whereas the Hubbard/Kinney ones are more inclined to show him just engaged in apolitical fads.

Actually, Scrooge does kinda have a point there--or at least he would if this were an actual, legitimate offer. Still, Fethry's great idea is humorous for the way it's gonna wind him up.

Good stuff. Dude's certainly committed, possibly in more ways than one.

I have to say, though, I feel like this does him a bit of a disservice. His manias are transient, sure, but they're also real. This implies that he was never really all that concerned about the birds. You could come up with an alternate reading, sure. But that's what I can't help getting out of it.

…and Fethry-haters everywhere will be happy to know about Scrooge's plans to dismember him with a chainsaw. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

More Fethry to come, probably.

"Ducky Date"

2011-09-10T00:18:00.008-04:00

One strange phenomenon resulting from Western's creative flailing around in their latter years is the Crossover Story, featuring ducks (or mice) and characters from completely different comic worlds or, often, from movies. In a way, this is a bit full-circle-y, harkening back to a time early in Disney's history when these distinctions were not at all clearly-defined, as evinced by all the comic-book Merrie Melodies adaptations and whatnot (and, of course, check out David's exhaustive compilation of cartoon adaptations that appeared in Good Housekeeping). Also, remember that those horrible mice from Cinderella were originally meant to be living on Grandma's farm, for some quite unjustifiable reason. Still, the later situation--which produced such signs and wonders as April May June/Scamp, Moby Duck/Big Bad Wolf, and Grandma Duck/Dumbo (would it cause your monocle to pop out in shock if I told you that Vic Lockman was responsible for most of this?)--wasn't really analogous: it was clearly all about novelty, novelty, novelty!

Anyway, the most enduring such paring was the super-bizarre (actually, I suppose pretty much par-for-the-course bizarre as far as these things go, but somehow it always strikes me especially) Beagle Boys/Mad Madam Mim. Well, why not? I suppose--Mim is certainly the most fun thing about The Sword in the Stone, and this pairing actually sorta kinda worked out more often than you'd expect it to.

Today's story doesn't featuring the Beagles, of course, but here's Mim, in an effort that pretty clearly indicates that nobody at Western had any goddamn clue what to do with Fethry, and so just decided to devote themselves to flaking out as intensely as they could. I don't know if the character's speedy disappearance was based on reader input or marketing numbers or the powers that be just not liking him or what, but if this was the best way the character could be supported, it's kinda no wonder that he vanished.

Not to say that this is a terrible story! Not to say that it's a great story, either, or even a particularly good one, and it's pretty darned troubling from an even mildly feminist perspective, but it is amusingly goofy-as-hell, and at three pages it never gets the chance to wear out its welcome.

So we open with Mim being unable to get a date, 'cause she's HIDEOUS no one would EVER want to date her ("date," of course, being a polite euphemism for "fuck") lmao, and I believe I've
previously had occasion to note how much I like this joke (SPOILER: it needs to die in a fire).

Anyway, Fethry is doing his beatnik thing ('cause that's WACKY! and Fethry is WACKY!), annoying Donald. It should be clear where this is going.

Makes sense you'd wanna be a glamour duck. Listen, I know Mim is just a goofy cartoon character, and there's definitely a danger of me getting overbearingly humorless about this, but I just plain don't like the way she's basically used as an object here, to be used in Donald's attempt to fuck with his cousin. Her feelings? Her excitement about going out? Not really relevant. Bugger that for a game of soldiers, as I probably read someone say in a Discworld novel or something.

Another thing you notice reading this is that, apart from the beginning, Fethry himself is wholly incidental to the story. The whole thing would've made a lot more sense with Donald trying to fuck over a down-on-his-luck Gladstone. That would be a context in which his malevolent glee here would actually make sense, and be somewhat forgivable. You can understand why he would want to get rid of Fethry, but his desire for vengeance over something as malice-less as his bongo-playing just seems kind of psychopathic.

Whatever else this story has or doesn't have going for it, there's this image of Fethry and morphed-Mim getting down, which is certainly worth the price of admission.

And, in the end, Donald steals her--which, again would make more sense with Gladstone: he obviously wouldn't acquiesce the way Fethry does, and after Donald had wrested her away, he'd think, dammit, what's wrong with my luck? and then she'd change back into her old self and he'd think HA! My luck HASN'T deserted me. Not that that would be a great story, but it would be more robust and character-grounded than this.

So there you have it: "Ducky Date." In the spirit of the sixties, Western seems to have gotten into some bad acid, of which stories like these provide ample evidence.

"Donald's Buzzin' Cousin"

2011-09-07T21:15:00.011-04:00

Hey, guess what, post one-fifty! Whoo!

I can only imagine how baffling Fethry must have seemed to American readers of duck comics in the sixties: he made his debut in this story, in January of 1966, appeared in two additional stories in the following months, made no impact, and, poof, was gone? Who was that? Why was that? WTF? people must have wondered (that last guy was a guy from the future, versed in internet acronyms). And their confusion would only have been exacerbated if they'd actually gotten their hands on the "Wonderful World of Disney" giveaways where a few of the Hubbard/Kinney stories appeared: so now there's a completely different conception of the character? Who also only appears for a very few stories and then vanishes completely? WTFROFLMAOBBQ?

(Yeah, that guy from the future could get annoying.)

Anyway, here's "Donald's Buzzin' Cousin," which, as you can see, attempts to "introduce" the character by having this be his first contact with Donald since childhood.

The problem is...well, I don't know if it's a "problem," per se, but it's hard to deny that this is not the same character you see in Hubbard/Kinney. Absent is the whole fixation-of-the-week schtick, and instead we have a guy who just does isolated, wacky things 'cause he feels like it. The above panels aren't evidence that he's obsessed with piloting planes; he's just doing it 'cause it's wacky.

Note that Fethry has red hair here, for whatever reason. Also, note the continued absence of HDL. It's too bad, really--I think interactions between Fethry and the nephews could be quite edifying.

Also, it's wacky to drive badly. Make a note of it. This is undeniably a less interesting--because already done to death with all kind of "zany" characters--version of Fethry.

The main action, such as it is, comes with Fethry getting the two of them reservations at a café in foreignland, 'cause he can't stand Americanized versions of foreign food. This is a recognizably Fethry-ish concern--you can easily imagine a Hubbard/Kinney story with Fethry-as-foodie--but again, here it's not part of any overarching story arc. It's just another aspect of his wackiness.

Credit where it's due, however: the story does have a nicely fast-paced, caffeinated (as the title indicates) energy to it, as it's just one damn thing after another in the quest for Faroffistandi cusine.

...like riding a missile. Note the odd misspelling of "develop."

In spite of experiencing a certain amount of stress, Donald actually does all right here. It's reminiscent of any number of movies where a free-spirit type shows the buttoned-down stuffed-shirt how to live life to the fullest, which admittedly, is a pretty vapid plotline. It's okay just the once, I suppose, however.

This ending is both contrived--Fethry has hiccups, and the only way to get rid of them is by more eating, hence this--and pretty amusing in its way:

You can kinda see why, if this was how American-published stories were gonna be, the character never caught on here. There's only so much you can do with him along these lines. The Hubbard/Kinney stories are formulaic in their own right, sure, but they provide plenty of opportunities for unusual situations of a sort that you don't usually see in duckworld. This--less so. It's not really clear to me how the powers-that-be imagined this catching on, but fuck, what do I know? The whaler duck did, sort of, so why not this guy?

"The Health Nut"

2011-09-03T23:24:00.015-04:00

Hey, kids, welcome to Fethry Week (disclaimer: may last more or less than a week. May not be particularly Fethry-centric. Void where prohibited; prohibited where void.)

Really, I don't know quite what the extent of this will be, but I plan on covering at least a few stories, starting, natch, at the beginning.

Fethry's sort of the ultimate test of duck fandom, in the US at least. Most people are probably at least peripherally aware of most Barksian characters--if only via Ducktales--but Fethry…well, if you're familiar with him, then I think we can safely say you're a fan.

But just because you know Fethry, do you like him? When I first rekindled my love affair with Disney comics, I started with Gladstone's Comic Albums, which left me in safely Barksian territory. So when I started buying issues of Gemstone's comics, I was assaulted with all manner of strange, unfamiliar, and terrifying things. I think I can be forgiven for taking so long to cotton to a wider variety of Disney comics, given that it was all so sudden, and some of that stuff was just plain WEIRD-LOOKING to someone not used to it. Or, perhaps, is just weird-looking, objectively. So anyway, when I first encountered Fethry--my amazon history suggests that that would most likely have been here--my reaction was something along the lines of ARGH--WHAT HATH YOU DEGENERATE EUROPEANS WROUGHT?!? Not realizing that Fethry was an American creation, of course. He does have rather a European look to him--more sort of loose and "wacky" than we associate with most American Disney characters.

Obviously, I've calmed down a bit, though I can't claim Fethry has ever been exactly a favorite of mine. But who knows--maybe that'll change as we embark on this magical tour of discovery. Is it necessary to provide background here? Probably not, but: Fethry Duck was created by artist Al Hubbard and writer Dick Kinney for the Disney Studio Program, an in-house organ devoted to producing comic stories exclusively for foreign audiences. The idea with Fethry is that he gloms onto some fad or other--generally something vaguely hippie-ish/new-agey--and bothers Donald about it for a while. Hubbard and Kinney were quite prolific, producing--if my inducks count is correct--a total of fifty-five Fethry stories throughout the sixties (then, there are a bunch more by Kinney and other artists). Only thirteen of these have been published in the US, which is actually more than I would've guessed, though some of those only appeared in these obscure, late-sixties giveaway things.

The character in some ways is like Gyro: a guy created specifically because he was the sort for whom it was easy to come up with scenarios to slot him into. Gyro has some sort of invention-related issue; Fethry has the fad of the week. Not a bad idea in theory--as opposed to a weirdly specific character like Moby Duck, who was clearly only created because someone wanted to use the obvious pun--but how does it work in practice? Let's look, shall we?

The problem I run into with the original stories is that--there's no way around it--Hubbard's duck art is disconcerting. He's fine when he's drawing Scamp, but with the ducks, it always looks like he's trying to do "realistic" renderings of cartoon waterfowl, which is just…weird. I don't want to overstate things; it's something you sort of get used to and then it's not a HUGE problem, but the fact remains--and it's especially the case the way he draws Fethry, with all that shading and stuff.

Note that HDL don't appear to exist in Fethry-world, or at least the Hubbard/Kinney version thereof.

Still, his matter-of-fact eccentricity can be amusing, as here.

It's entertainingly macabre that the doctor is deceased--from following his own program, presumably. It makes you think of Dr. Atkins, who apparently didn't actually die from his infamous diet, but isn't it pretty to think so? Certainly, it's the case that that's the exact kind of flash-in-the-pan thing that Fethry gets into. Seriously, remember how, five or six years ago, shit labeling itself as "low-carb" was everywhere? And then, seemingly overnight, the market completely collapsed? Let that be a lesson for all of us.

I think that bit of him making his soybean and seaweed thing may be the platonic ideal of the character. The idea of people eating soybeans probably would've seemed much more outre in 1964 than it does now. I also want to note how odd Donald looks in the lotus position.

"'Eat' is psychologically a good word." Definitely some decent writing on display here.

Hey, it's Tabby! That, obviously, is Donald's cat, who features in a lot of Fethry stories. In later stories, he has think-bubbles, mainly expressing dismay and terror at Fethry's latest craze. Kind of interesting that Fethry would spawn a character completely unrelated to Fethry himself. Inducks credits this as Tabby's first appearance. And yet...

That's from Barks' 1946 story "Joe from Singapore." No, the character doesn't play a major role, and no, he doesn't "think," as in Fethry stories. BUT. Here he is. This is clearly where Hubbard and Kinney got the name. And anyway, it is often the case that a character's initial appearance has little to do with later ones.

I think Barks has to get the credit here, if we're going to give him credit for other one-shot characters who were picked up on by others, like Rockerduck and April May & June.

The "realistic" art proves to be a problem here--it makes Fethry's anger and Donald's psychological abuse look more real, and therefore more disturbing, than I think they're meant to.

The story has a cool denouement, though, featuring an unexpected appearance by Ludwig, who is such a badass scholar that he's able to write and publish a book over the course of one night.

Ludwig's well in-character, which is always entertaining. And so, we learn the ephemeral nature of Fethry's obsessions.

I actually kinda warmed to this story as I chose panels and wrote about them. My heart really belongs to the classic, Fethry-free Barks (and Barks-ish) conception of the ducks, but I think it's fair to say that there's also room for Fethry in this world. I realize this is entirely a pipe dream, but I think what would be great would be if whoever the next Disney publisher is would put out a trade paperback featuring, oh, say, a dozen or so of what are judged to be the best of the unseen-in-the-US Hubbard/Kinney stories. It would definitely fill a gap; I can't help feeling sort of resentful of Europeans for getting American stories that we didn't. Maybe it would be okay if the opposite were also true, but...

Fethry Week continues probably sometime comparatively soon.

"Bird-Bothered Hero"

2011-08-13T22:39:00.014-04:00

In comments on Ducktales 3, Joe cited this 1969 story--by the dream team of Kay Wright and Vic Lockman--as a candidate for previous Worst Disney Comic Ever. Joe tends to be way more positive than I am about these things, so his "endorsement" really carried a lot of weight with me, and it was necessary to immediately figure out what was what.

Of course, this is by necessity a fairly arbitrary judgment--and you really have to define what qualities you're weighing most heavily, which will necessarily differ from those that others choose--but…well, it's certainly not good, though it does dramatically demonstrate the essential rudderlessness of American Disney comics post-Barks. Not that there wasn't plenty of dreck published during Barks' tenure as well, but after his retirement, it sort of became de rigueur, even if today's offering is worse than most.

"Bird-Bothered Hero." I actually quite like that title. Sounds kind of Homeric, doesn't it? Ox-Eyed Hera, Wine-Dark Sea, Bird-Bothered Hero. But...that's about as far as the "praise" portion of this entry goes.

So the idea is the kids are doing some kind of Junior Woodchucks bird-calling thing, but Donald is unhappy with this, and really, how strange is that first panel? I mean, for all his weaknesses, Lockman had worked with these characters enough that he had a pretty reasonable idea of how--basically--they could be expected to behave. So what's with all the wak-ing? Why is he sounding like cartoon-Donald? I suppose we could posit that the ending 'wak's are there for wordplay purposes--to resonate not only with the initial 'wak' but also the one in 'waking.' I think that's giving the story more benefit-of-the-doubt than it deserves, however. Alternatively, we could suggest--and I find this substantially more plausible--that they're there because the balloon had been placed, there was a screw-up that resulted in there being an extra line, and new text was needed to fill it. Hence, wak! wak! wak!

There's more evidence that such tomfoolery might have been going on:

Note the way HDL have suddenly reverted to caveman-speak. If you REALLY wanted to defend this story (um…could I ask why?), you could note that dropping the article doesn't necessarily make it improper; that's something that you would do also for Cub/Boy Scouts, never mind the fact that you simply don't for "Junior Woodchucks." But I think the more likely solution is that adding a "the" would've pushed "junior" onto the fourth line, and there wouldn't have been quite enough room for the entire name to fit. So, once again, we get the elegant solution of just mutilating the dialogue as a whole. This thing just screams "effort," doesn't it?

It is hardly unprecedented for Gyro to come up with convenient inventions just as they're needed, but I feel like this one might set some sort of land speed record for that particular contrivance. I mean jeez, the nephew is barely able to finish vocalizing the desire before--mirabile dictu!--it is at hand! Not even a panel break. Really, now.

As a side note, I think Gyro is a hard character to write well: sure, he was sort of gimmicky from the start; an inventor because that provided a wide range of possibilities for Barks to crank out four-page stories, but in his hands, they often ended up possessing much more weight than you would expect from such things. Whereas, lacking Barks' gifts, other artists avail themselves of the same gimmickry, but rarely turn it into anything especially arresting.

Anyway, so, uh, Donald accidentally half-swallows the whistle. Can you imagine how much momentum there would have to have been for it to get lodged in his throat? Forget about choking; the impact alone would probably have serious, if not actually fatal, consequences.

…but no, he just gets "a funny feeling in [his] throat," to be remedied with soda. Yeah, okay. Fine.

And, of course, now breathing causes him to summon birds, including this carrier pigeon! Can't you almost just hear Lockman here? Oh man, gotta get this done, need a plot, bird! Message! Map! Okay! I suppose the idea is to introduce all this in such a rush that the reader doesn't even have time to ask: what? No dice on that, I'm afraid.

Actually, I like that image, if only it weren't connected to its story's ungainly, whipsawing plot. It helps that Wright only has to draw the ducks in silhouette.

Then, uh, this. You may be reminded of the ducks getting lost in a fog and falling down a hill in "Lost in the Andes." Then, you may feel shame at comparing "Bird-Bothered Hero" to a Barks classic. Hopefully, you won't wonder how it could possibly have been necessary to send the agent a map to the boat via carrier pigeon. Or why Donald's reaction at having fallen like this appears to be a sudden bout of clinical depression.

Bonk! Scrape! Bash! That is one intense impact! But wait: how 'bout Donald in the second panel? Can we have a close-up?

RAAAAAARR! As you can see, in his rageful glee he has grown a second pair of eyebrows. That's some goooood art-workin' right there.

Oh, yeah, and he coughs up the whistle at the end, as Gyro pounds him on the back hard enough to dislocate his shoulder. And here we are.

Bad, yes, but it's actually easy to envision how this same basic plot could've been good. Just imagine if Van Horn had done a story like this in the early nineties. The differences between that and this, however, are that A) it would've had better art; and B) Van Horn would've gleefully played up the absurdity of the scenario. Whereas the version that exists only plays up the "we need seven pages by five o'clock" of the scenario.

Actually, I think I'm gonna still give my personal favorite, "The Tommy Moccasin Trail," the nod over this one in the Disney badness contest. But really, it all comes down to what you're looking for. One is forced to concede that that story actually tries to make a point--it's a dumb point, incompetently made, but at least there's artistic intent, of a sort. In "Bird-Bothered Hero," there's only "oh shit--deadline's coming" intent. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Daan Jippes re-draw.

Epic Duckfail

2011-08-07T15:59:00.003-04:00

Plenty of ink has been shed talking about Boom's Ducktales 3, which does indeed seem to have a pretty good claim for being the Worst Disney Comic Ever. Well…maybe. That's a pretty high bar to clear. But that artwork...good lord. For me, the title of Worst Duck Artist Ever has always been co-held by Kay Wright and Vic Lockman (when he drew a handful of his own stories in the eighties and nineties). But you know…as bad as those guys were, at least you could read them and think, yeah, this is a comic. It follows the general conventions of comics, and you can believe that it would be published in a real comic book. A certain baseline competence, basically. Whereas good lord, seriously, click that link to Chris's blog and look at the sample pages. On the Disney Comics Forum, an awesome poster known as DuckburgUSA has been doing these hilarious photoshops which seem to capture the story's, uh, spirit quite well:

An' this one REALLY cracks me up:

I'm not sure who actually is responsible for the art, but I think it's probably unfair to blame any individual creative talent here--this was clearly the result of massive, unforgivable editorial malfeasance.

It's funny, but it's also both sad and rage-inducing--sad that Disney comics (only for the time being, we hope) should go out like this, and rage-inducing that the powers that be at Boom have such little respect for the characters and the property that they don't even care who knows it. Clearly, with the success of their Darkwing Duck comics, they saw these Disney Afternoon properties as a license to print money. It didn't occur to them, apparently, that the reason Darkwing succeeded was because, by all accounts, it was actually good. Presumably, they thought that the real selling-point was nostalgia, and that the goodness was just a happy but ultimately not-that-important byproduct.

Really now look: I may in the past have said and thought uncharitable things about Warren Spector, but you know, whatever: it's true that his involvement in Disney comics is due to entirely to his having overseen a Disney videogame, and thus is based on perceived marketing synergy, which is NOT a good indicator of probable quality, to put it mildly, but hey--who can blame him for taking advantage of that? I certainly would've. While I'm certainly not wild about the fact that the title of his essay in the Gottfredson book references his stoopid videogame, I do understand the precarious nature of Disney comics in the US, so if it's felt that such a thing will raise awareness even to a tiny extent, sure, I can live with it--it's not like it affects the comics themselves.

But for Boom to put him, entirely untested, in charge of writing their would-be flagship title? Well, they pretty obvious did it so they could splash "WRITTEN BY THE CREATOR OF EPIC MICKEY" all over their promotional material--in other words, marketing concerns are trumping actual artistic concerns, and if that's the way it's gonna be, we might as well all just pack up our things and go home.

I don't know what exactly is going on at Boom that would lead to such bullshit going down (writing a blog like this pretty well guarantees I'll never be any sort of insider), but it seems apparent that the short happy life of their "classic" titles was only due to somebody or other grudgingly taking it on faith that somebody liked this unfashionable, traditional stuff; and therefore letting people who knew what the hell they were doing select and localize material. It's sure as hell obvious now that it wasn't part of any sort of overriding aesthetic vision…well, okay okay, it was kind of obvious then, too, to be honest, but now that it's all gone pear-shaped, there's no ignoring it. The 'stones cared about Disney comics. Boom cared about sucking a quick buck out of them. I'm sure there were/are people within the company who are better than that, but they aren't the ones who ultimately had their say.

As much as it sucks that we are currently without a publisher, it's hard not to think that this is in some ways a good thing. It hardly seems possible that anyone could fail to do better than the cynical, raging incompetents at Boom. Yeah, famous last words, I know, but really now...