"Rough Voyage to Azatlan!"

 So the thing is, I was starting to have almost a parasocial relationship with Vic Lockman.  Yeah, I'm hard on him a lot of the time, but reading a lot of his sixties stories, I was thinking, hey, wow, a lot of these are not bad--way to go, Vic!  It was just a kind of fun thing to explore.  I mean yes sure I knew he was a fundamentalist Christian, with the regressive view that go along with that, but hey, ain't that America?  I was still enjoy celebrating his successes.

Look, I know I said I didn't want to be overtly political here, but in this case I find politics kind of thrust upon me.  I recently discovered something about Lockman.  This isn't a big secret or anything; the only reason it's not more common knowledge is that nobody really cares about him.  But: he wasn't just a generic conservative Christian, as I thought, but almost certainly an actual factual member of the John Birch Society.  Read this hair-curlingly racist pro-Apartheid tract from 1985, originally published in a neo-nazi-adjacent newsletter--or actually, don't, that would be a better idea if you don't need to see to believe--but there it is.  If you know anything about the tenets of Bircherism, this will look extremely familiar, but if you think I'm overextrapolating in making the connection, also note that he wrote this 1972 comic (not available online, but if you know you know) promoting Gary Allen's None Dare Call It Conspiracy, a central Bircher text and the foundation for the beliefs of people like Alex Jones.  You're not promoting that shit if you're not a truly toxic human being. 

(I'm not gonna lie, I do really like this self-portrait of him as a spider from his website.  It makes him seem kind of adorable.)

Now, in a sense none of this matters; it's not like my posts have been glorifying Lockman personally, and you can still critically analyze the works of bad people.  In fact, it could be a good thing, inasmuch as I now have a new critical lens to view his work, theoretically complicating it in an interesting way.  But, as I said, I was really getting into him, so it's hard not to irrationally view this as a betrayal.  And, you know, there's no avoiding it: no matter what I want to do, his work's going to strikes me differently now.  If I'm being honest, I kinda half-wish I'd never learned this.  But I did, so what can you do?  I briefly thought, well, maybe I can just pretend I don't know it.  It's not like anyone's likely to look it up and bring it to my attention, and if they do I can just feign shock then.  But man, I just can't be that dishonest.  You've gotta take a person you're engaging with critically as they are.  So I suppose what I'll do right now is write about this Lockman story and see how the experience strikes me.

I was actually planning on writing about this story last week, immediately after that "Conquistador" business, but then I learned what I learned and it threw me for a loop, so I punted with some Barks while deciding what to do.  Because, true fact, this story actually surprised me.  It turned out to be way more of a roller coaster ride than I possibly could have expected.  So, here we go.

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"Spending Money"

Not a very inspiring title, is it? Of course, it has no official status; it's just what people call it.  Presumably someone from Another Rainbow(?) slapped that title on it, and here we are. Makes me wonder what WOULD make if "official." I suppose if it had the official imprimatur of The Walt Disney Company™, that would do it. They should have official contests to name Barks stories. We'd probably end up with something better than this, anyway.

...is that the trouble with being rich? IS it? I try not to bring politics into these entries too much--yes, I DO bring them in, because these stories are inherently political, but believe me, it could be MUCH worse. But damn, man. Personally, I think the worst thing about being rich--certainly being ULTRA-rich--is that it destroys your brain and you're not capable of interacting with the world in a normal way anymore. Yes, as I constantly point out, comparing Scrooge to a "real" (so-called) rich person is pointless, but this story DOES seem to be a better argument for it than most, given that his excess money DOES cause him to act in extremely dumb ways here.

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"The Ghost of the Conquistador"

I feel a little self-conscious about these entries, given, you know, everything.  I didn't cause it, of course, so I'm not really like Nero acocryphally fiddling while Rome burns, but I dunno; maybe I'm like one of the partygoers in "Masque of the Red Death," carousing during a plague.  But I dunno; if I can provide a small amount of escapist amusement in the grimmest of times, maybe I should.  And whether or not I "should," here I am.  Dammit.

Anyway, because I'm fair and balanced, I wanted to try to find a good, or good-er, Lockman story to counterbalance last week's.  So I hopped on inducks and checked his "top stories."  I was assuming, as one would, that they'd all be Barks-drawn, but to my befuddlement, no!  Only four out of the top ten are currently Barks!  This bears investigation, though I suspect it's just some fluke of certain stories being localized to foreign markets in the right place and the right time to make an impression on a lot of young people.  But it's cool!  Everything's cool!  So, currently, at number three on the list, we have THIS.  First, quick look at the cover, which is pretty funny:

The guy's face is meant to be cloaked in shadows, but the colorist evidently didn't get the message, and as a result, he looks like a lego guy.  Editors?  Pshaw!

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"The Whole Truth Club"

This week we're going to stare into the abyss. "Don't you do that quite a lot?" you ask. And my unambiguous answer is: no. I don't, actually. I may write about various Western stories of shaky quality, but believe me, most of those are Barks-quality masterpieces compared to the real detritus. It's not like I was even planning this; I just thought, Huey Dewey and Louie Junior Woodchucks (complete with weird lack of punctuation) was a weirdly long-running publication (1966-1984), and I realized I didn't think I'd ever actually read any of it aside from the Barks stuff, so...let's give it a look. I wasn't expecting great things, but I ALSO wasn't expecting it to get under my skin to the extent that it did. And unfortunately for him, the author can't hide behind anonymity, because this is very obviously Vic Lockman. I don't think he hated children, but I DO think he had a pretty dang low opinion of them, is all I'll say. Obviously, that's not all I'll say. Whom am I kidding?

This is from 1978, so not a fantastic time for Disney comics stateside anyway, but...you know, I'm going to stop this preliminary throat-clearing and just GET to it, k? We'll have more reference to this later.

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"Two-Way Luck"

 I have to get my biggest--and, really, only serious--critique of this story out of the way first, which is man, that title.  Totally generic-sounding and not providing even the vaguest hint of the story's content?  Blah!  Still, it feels ungrateful to complain too much.  I'm sure we all just think of it as "the giant emerald story" anyway--or how about "Green with Envy;" would that work?.  It's a back-up  (to "All at Sea"), the sort of thing that you expect to be a little more disposable than the main one, even coming from Barks.  But man, it isn't.  I mean okay maybe it's a little silly in some ways (a Disney comic?  Get the heck outta here, ya nut!), but the artistry is also highly apparent.  So.

I do, however, always get caught up on the "emerald contest" thing.  I mean, I don't think I did when I was small, but NOW I do.  So, in this world, can we assume that nobody really knows what the biggest jewels are, or who has them?  Because if we did, it doesn't seem like this contest would really mean much.  But Scrooge DOES appear to believe it's in some way established that his is the biggest in the world--an apprehension he could only be under if there were some kind of organization that makes these determinations.  And, I mean, he has to be cajoled into entering, and he wouldn't do it at all if his nephews weren't here, so you gotta figure there are a bunch of people with big emeralds not entering them, from ignorance or apathy, so what is being accomplished here?  Tell me!

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"Let Donald Do It"

This might be the first story I've written about with an imperative title.  Well...probably.  You could also read that title in the same sense as "let there be light"--a subjunctive usage.   Donald; the creator of the universe--who can tell the difference?  Regardless, its sole claim to fame, if you can call it that (spoiler: you can't) is that it was a backup story for Barks' "How Green Was My Lettuce."  

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"The Skiing/Clock Bandit"

Happy New Year! Let's hope 2026 is less horrible! I feel like that's probably gonna require rolling a natural twenty, but it's worth a shot.

Inducks calls this "The Skiing Bandit," but they also claim that the Australian publication was titled "The Clock Bandit."  I can't verify this one way or the other, but either one is fine.  So anyway, here's a New Year story. Absolutely, that's what this is. Is there any evidence of this? Well, there's snow. And it was published in January. That's all the evidence you will get, and, I think, all you need. Some Dick Moores for y'all! Try to imagine ANY other context in which that phrase could get people excited. And yes, I know: you're not excited. That's why I'm writing this and you're not.

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"The Beagle Boys' Very Merry Christmas"

Hello, all.  Just a quick hit here.  I didn't think I was going to be doing anything else for Christmas, but then, idly flipping through some Christmas comix, I encountered this one.  I'd read it once before, but I didn't even remember that until my reread.  All I recall is that I found it weird and pointless, which is a bit odd, because this came out in 2018, and I would have thought that by that time, I'd have long since come to appreciate the weird and pointless.

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Daisy Duck and Uncle Scrooge Show Boat

 Merry Christmas.  This year I got you nine Western stories.  Hope you like 'em.

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"A Case of Grumps"

Hello all.  Yeah, yeah, but as I noted in comments to the last entry, I DO have something big-ish and dumb-ish coming for the holidays, or something.  In the meantime, though, I wanted to stick something here so I look less dead.  So I grabbed a story more or less at random from Daisy and Donald.  This one is...whoa!  A late Bob Gregory joint!  How's this going to turn out?  Let's find the truth.

And off the bat, I have to say, I'm grateful that the top panel tells us that Donald is saying things with a "grump!" and that the bottom panel clarifies that he needs a cure for grumpiness--because solely based on the visuals, I would have NO idea what mood Donald was meant to be in there.  Time for Daan Jippes to redraw this, please!  Actually, why doesn't he just devote his career to converting the entire late-Western canon into something more readable?  That would be good.

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"The Charge at Dawn"

 Look, I'd LIKE to start with an intro, but there just ISN'T TIME! Gotta get going NOW NOW NOW!

I mean, "He's a lonely old guy" is clearly accurate, and it took some unknown Western author to reveal it so artlessly! Little did he know, he was just what was needed. I sometimes wonder if comix should emphasize this aspect of Scrooge's character more often. I suppose it really mostly has to exist as subtext; we can't get TOO angsty in comix for kidz. I'm writing "comix" with an x now. I just decided that. And "kidz" with a z so it's more extreme.

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"Donald in Mathmagic Land"

 You know, in spite of the grim unavoidability (I could've said "inevitability; it's denotatively the same thing, but somehow it doesn't sound right to me) of thinking about President Dumber Azathoth, he hasn't totally colonized my brain: when I hear the name "Donald," my immediate impulse is still to say "Duck," not...that other thing.  So I've got that going for me.

Okay, so for the last few months, this kind of weird thing: I've been getting emails from a woman, all very similarly phrased, instructing me to review various stories (VERY strange array, including Barks classics, stories that have never been released in English, at least one that I've already written about, and a few that I found totally unidentifiable from the given titles).  I mean.  It's not that I've NEVER been known to write about a story on a whim because a stranger wanted me to, but this isn't necessarily the way to win a duckblogger's heart.  Its not that the emails were rude, but...well, I guess it was that a little, but moreso that I just found the presentation baffling.  Also, a little creepy.  She once sent four emails in a three-day span, and I'm concerned I might be about to live out the duck-comics-writer version of Misery.  Still, I thought, I dunno, maybe I should reward this weird, robotic repetitiveness.  What's the worst that can happen (famous last words)?  One of the stories she requested at one point was this one, so, uh, I guess this is for you, Ms. MacGregor.  But in all seriousness, let's be clear: this is the ONLY one.  If I ever happen to cover any of the others, it'll have nothing to do with you. 

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"The Magnetic Curse"

 I swear, I'm going to try to have something about a Barks classic soon, but I need an easy layup, and for that, we have this story, recommended (or...highlighted, anyway) by Debbie Anne on social media.  This is from Uncle Scrooge 204, in 1983, as Western was entering its death spasms.  But that doesn't mean they couldn't churn out stories like...this!  Drawn by Jack Manning; inducks doesn't specify, but it's definitely written by Vic Lockman.  THERE'S a name I haven't heard in a long time.

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Good God Y'all

 Yes, I know it looks as if I've abandoned this blog. I know there's normally a lull after Christmas, but this seems excessive. Well what can I say? I DO intend to go back to posting, but when your country is being disassembled by nazis, one DOES tend to get distracted, as some of you, thankfully, don't know (though you could probably guess).  Anyone want to suggest a story to me? 

Other than that, I wanted to pass something along, from an Argentine woman:

When I was a child in Argentina, each time we went on holiday to the beach, my mum bought mcduck series comic books for me to read. One in particular completely blew my mind, but I cannot find it anywhere.

I vaguely remember they (either scrooge or donald, most likely with the nephews) went searching for a treasure, with a map, and found a cave with a pirate's spectacular collection of seashells. I believe it was in an island. I remember the drawings very clearly, but might have the details mixed up. I really would love to find it and remember the title etc... I ended up being a maritime archaeologist, so it had quite an impact come think about it.

Super-cool that that would impact someone's career.   The seashell thing didn't ring any bells (am I forgetting something obvious?), but this was the late nineties, she also said, and I THOUGHT that might be specific enough for me to find what she meant on inducks.  Unfortunately, Argentine comics are extremely sparsely indexed, so I'm gonna have to rely on you people.  That is, if there ARE any "you people" after all these months of silence. :/

"The Beast of Bear Mountain"

 Okay, okay, Achille, I yield.  It's time to make some Christmas dreams come true.  Or something.

You know, the reason I was so reluctant to cover this material is because the equation seems to change fairly dramatically depending on whether you're talking about professional or amateur work.  My philosophy generally is, if someone got paid to write this story, and readers were meant to pay for the privilege, it's fair game.  But here, it's like: we're all amateurs!  What right do I have to criticize someone who's writing purely out of love?  Crikey, man!  Also, it's a small internet!  There's a good chance Jolley will see this (actually, unless she intentionally refuses to, she definitely will; it would be rude for me not to email her)!  How am I going to feel about making harsh criticisms?  And even in the even that I don't HAVE any sharp criticisms (and my feelings here are more favorable than not), there's still a sense that this is a performance; that you're kind of on a tightrope.  Who knows!  Maybe I'm overthinking it!  It has happened before.  I'd better get started before I manage to talk myself out of it.  This one, which Achille linked to for fairly obvious reasons.  As usual, I'm not going to try to cover every plot point.  Read it for yourself.

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Dollicious

This blog is for Disney comics, but we may also use it to celebrate the accomplishments of its readers, yeah? It's what Christmas is all about.

Well, yes. So, as you may know, and if you didn't you do now, our own Pan Milius, aka, Maciek Kur, is a comics creator in his own right. Polish comics may not tend to get a lot of international attention (although, of course, The Witcher is Polish, so it's not like there's no crossover), but he's rocking them. His flagship series, and I think the only one to be localized into English, is Dollicious, which we will discuss today. For context, quite some time ago, he got his publisher to send me complementary copies to review, and DAMN did I ever flake out on him (admit it: you thought I'd never get to it.  So did I, kind of). There are various reasons, but really, there's no dang excuse. So here we are!

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"The Christmas Contest"

 Hey!  Let's get some Christmas going 'round here, shall we?  This year...well, I'm not quite sure.  If you suggest something to me, there's actually at least a semi-decent chance I'll cover it, because we are scraping the bottom of the barrel here.  I suppose at some point I'll stop even trying to find new Christmas stories, and just do some general stuff I like for Christmas.  But for now: well, there's this story that I do not feel super-strongly about.  This originally appeared in IDW's Christmas Parade 5--the one after they decided their scripts had to be Fresh and Modern (boy, I ran THAT one into the ground) and fired everyone who knew what they were doing, as you do.  So the script is not great.  But I will say one thing: I don't blame Erin Brady (the translator); it's not her fault.  Sure, her work isn't particularly inspired or fun to read, but IDW was absolutely NOT looking for inspiration or fun, and if she didn't deliver, they just would've found someone who would.  So no hard feelings, Erin.  Try reading some Barks comics!  You might become a fan!

(I remember a few years back I slightly misspoke and blamed Fantagraphics for something that was Disney's fault, and for some reason this necessitated A LOT of people frantically correcting me on this trivial point.  It felt a little...hectoring, let's say.  Mebbe in the future we could be just a LITTLE less heavy-handed?)

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"A Bucket of Scones"

 Look, I know you wanted something for Halloween, but all I have is this half-started entry I'd had sitting around for a while.  Gasp at its spookiness:

Is this blog going to consist exclusively from now on of obscure stories I remember with unearned fondness from my childhood?  Maybe.  Or maybe I just need to decompress as I and everyone else wait for the end of the world.  Blah.

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"What if...? Donald Duck Became the Mighty Thor"

 Gotta be honest: I'm not a big fan of that punctuation system where the question mark isn't at the end.  But it's what we've been given.

Well, I guess we're doing this.  Must we?  Yes, we must.  But fair warning: if this is bad, I'm not going to be as circumspect in my criticisms as I was with that Wolverine story.  This is Marvel, fercryinoutloud, and they shouldn't be able to keep getting away with nonsense.  So, let's have a look, with an open mind to the best of our ability, and see.

In media res.  Hey, Barks did that sometimes!  Maybe this'll be as good as his work!  Sure, let's start with that assumption.

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"The Vat Man"

Ha!  Bet you didn't expect to see me talking about THIS, did you?  Good lord it would be weird if you did.  Well, what happened is that, in the entry on "Family Fun," I made a casual disparaging reference to Daisy and Donald as a metonym for "bad late Western Disney comics" in general.  But then I thought, huh.  I dunno.  Have I ever actual READ anything from that particular line?  The main reason I wouldn't have I think is because I see that title and think, oh gawd, this is going to be NOTHING but regressive gender stereotypes, isn't it?  That sounds hard to take.  But out of curiosity, I dipped into it, and found THIS, from 1979: truly the Götterdämmerung of Disney comics.  Let's take a look, shall we?

'Cause he's a vat man.  Yeah, he's a vat man.  Got some Bob Gregory art for you to enjoy.  Inducks doesn't say, but I'm gonna go ahead and assume that Gregory also wrote this.  It's silly and disposable, of course, but you know what?  It COULD be worse!  We have seen MANY examples of it being worse.

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"What if...? Donald Duck Became Wolverine"

Another entry so quickly?  Well, this is an emergency, obviously.  Indeed...what if?  I'm aware that that's a long-time Marvel conceit, but that's about it.  I suppose I should stay current with these things.  My public demands it!  I feel like the publication of this book must've been timed to coincide with the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, even though they have very little in common.  I suppose that Wolverine is kind of down-and-out in both of them?  Whatever.  For the record, though, I really enjoyed the crass, violent movie.  It was hella fun and had a lot of heart.  So say I.  So!  How about this here comic?  It certainly feels more like what you'd've expected from "Marvel meets Disney" than that Multiverse book did.  For better or worse or neutraler.

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"Family Fun"

 Well, okay, as long as I'm here, I might as well retreat to my usual remit: weird, bad-ish old Western stories.  Hey, it's SUMMER FUN; you can hardly object.  And having written that, I then realize that it's not "Summer Fun;" it's Family Fun.  And it was first published in October.  There goes MY rationale.  Well, like it or not, here it is.  I will say, though, to whet your appetite, that this actually does have one legit interesting thing in it.  I mean, dumb, too; don't get your hopes up too high.  Still--look forward to it!  

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"Uncle Scrooge and The Infinity Dime"

Should I say something about this "Infinity Dime" thing?  I probably should, shouldn't I?  I mean, if I'm pretending that this blog still exists to any extent.  My recent silence is only partly my usual flakiness; it's also because I'm dealing with shit.  Not life-threatening shit, but shit shit.  You know.  I think I'm going to be at least a little more active here for a while.  Inshallah. 

This story was met--at least if my facebook feed is anything to go by--with considerable skepticism: Marvel making Disney comics?  How will this not turn into a bad joke?  Certainly, the 703 variant covers they released didn't inspire a great deal of faith in the proceedings.

To start, we get one of these intros like you do from the writer, Jason Aaron, where he's like you guys, I've been a fan FOREVER, Scrooge is THE BEST, and...I really shouldn't mock.  Obviously I get the impulse.  It's fine, and there's no use shaming anyone.  THAT SAID, I just have to point to this:

"I've been a massive Disney fan for about as long as I've been reading comics, which is all my life.  But I didn't read my first Uncle Scrooge story until my son was born."  Hmm...what can one say in response to that?

Phoenix Wright would NEVER let that slide.

(Kidding, Jason; all in good fun.  You seem cool, and what's more, my brother said he'd enjoyed some of your superhero work.)

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"The Case of the Sticky Money"

 Man, I always feel SO accused when we get into spring--MID spring!--and my last post was in December.  Oh well!  Let's try to make something happen. And to start, because when else will we get the chance, let's just take a look at Barks' one-pager for this issue:

The idea of them offing one another in this Sword-of-Damocles fashion is a little macabre.  But really, I mainly wanted to point out that this McDuck v Bulgewallet duel is precipitated by an argument over...who's richer.  Now, we have the idea that it's so well-established that Scrooge is definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent the richest, and that's all there is to it.  Pretenders like Glomgold and Rockerduck only reinforce the notion.  And yeah, that was obviously Barks' initial and continuing concept.  And yet, things like this suggest to me that this was pretty mutable in Barks' mind, subject to change if that's necessary for a story he wants to write.  I don't think a contemporary duck writer would write a scene where Scrooge implicitly concedes the possibility that the other guy might be richer.  But maybe they should!  

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"Christmas Down the Centuries"

It sounds unbelievable when I say it like this, but it's true: in the history of this blog, I have written about a grand total of one Brazilian story (this weirdo).  What can I say?  They just aren't published overseas with much frequency; truly, the undiscovered country of the Disney comics world.  I mean, for those of us outside Brazil.  I realize that that was an Amero/Eurocentric thing to say.  But it's still interesting to me!  There has to be so much that we could discover if we were able to delve into that world!  Case in point: today's story, which I have labored to translate into English for you all (this story did see a single French publication, its one appearance not in Portuguese).  I may not have written about a lot of stories this Christmas, but I have good news: I've decided that one translation counts the same as ten commentaries.  What could "count" possibly mean in this context?  It is a mystery!  But it really Goes to Show.  Show what?  Well, you'll know soon enough.  I must credit Elaine for bringing it to my attention.  You would not be reading this otherwise.

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"Spaced-Out Christmas"

Here's a story that I found whilst rummaging around looking for something good to write about!  It was published as part of IDW's much-lamented run.  I'd only read it once before, and hadn't been overly impressed by it, but on rereading...I actually think it's pretty good.  These things happen: I didn't much care for "Being Good for Goodness Sake" when I first read it, and now it's my favorite Italian Christmas story.  This is not on that level, but that's never stopped me.  Let's check it out.

The opening is certainly festive enough to pass muster.  That's so important.  "Spaced-out" may give you pause as to what is to come, but it's all right.  Let us look, by the by, and this inducks scan of the original printing:

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"The Snow Princess"

Ah yes, the holiday season!  And if you thought I wasn't going to have some Christmas gifts, then you, sir or madame, are a first-class chump.  Assuming I'm able to get my shit together, I should have something extremely interesting to share with y'all on or about Christmas.  But in the meantime, let's enjoy some vaguely Christmas-ish stories, to keep the momentum going.  And let's start with some Barks, since--as incredible as it may sound--I suspect some of you aren't as obsessed with mediocre Western also-rans as I am. 

We can call this "The Snow Princess."  That's fine.  The other title that inducks gives--I think the one that was decided on by whoever at Another Rainbow or whatever--is "Statues of Limitations," which I'd give a C-, maybe.  On the plus side, it IS a pun.  You cannot take that away from it.  On the minus side, "statues" for "statutes?"  In addition to having nothing to do with the story, that is the most boring pun in the world.  I do not approve.  Anyway.  Fifty dollars!  With inflation, that'd be five hundred-some, which is okay, I wouldn't refuse it, but still, it's not as high-stakes as you might think, given what people are willing to do for it.

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"The Fabulous Fiddlesticks"

 Is this appropriate for Halloween?  Well...Venice is commonly associated with Carnival, and with disguise more generally.  There are lots of operas in Venice that take that as a theme: Ponchielli's La Gioconda, Korngold's Violanta, J. Strauss's Eine Nacht in Venedig, of course Britten's Death in Venice.  What point am I making?  That I like opera, and, not to brag, but I know the names of several operatic works.  I think that's public knowledge.  But anyway!  Sure, let's go with it.  Why not?

Man, I was hoping that that "Christmas in July" thing would be the start of me blogging here more regularly, but then I almost immediately had to go and get a job that involved relocating and, you know, doing a lot to get situated; it's not like I don't have free time, but you know how it goes.  Well, here we are.  Let's write about another old Western story.  I was thinking a bit about Bob Gregory, and thinking, man, I know I keep saying that he was generally the best of the non-Barks Western crew, but is that true?  What else can we look at?  And I have the impression that this is one of his more famous stories, based on the fact that I think that I've heard upwards of two people mention it, and in a semi-positive sense at that.  That's about as much positive press as you can expect this kind of story to get.  I did read this when I was small, though it never stood out in my mind as being that great.  Still, let's check it out.

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"Mission to Mangomoa"

 And now, the grand finale of the DCRCIJS!  Well, you can judge for yourself how "grand" it is.  But it's DEFINITELY the finale.

The good news, maybe-kinda, is that this is a Bob-Gregory-penned story.   This wasn't written in his egregiously dumb period, so there's a certain modest level of quality guaranteed, but I wouldn't call this one of this best efforts.  And, even knowing nothing about the specifics of the story, "Mangomoa" might give you vague misgivings.  And, spoiler, those are not unjustified.  But we'll get there when we get there.

But before we do that, why not make yourself some beachy snacks to munch on?  "Sprouting apples" is just odd.  I'm sorry, but I'm just not convinced it is a favorite with the gang.  It's not like apples, celery, and peanut butter is a weird or unappealing combination, but somehow cramming all that stuff into a whole apple just seems...excessive.  Do you really want to eat all that?  Well, especially if you're a kid, you probably find it preferable to "carrot and olive dumbbells," which seems to have been created just because it looks like a thing.  Are you really going to find this delicious?  Olives are kind of an acquired taste, and unless you're one of those weird kids who grew up eating healthy food, I have my doubts.  On the other hand, en gee el, that "pickle in a blanket" sounds kinda delicious to me.  Yes, that might make me weird, but I like all the ingredients  (no, I don't eat bologna, but acceptable vegetarian facsimiles are easily obtained).  Maybe I'll try making one of these.

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"The Gem Jam"

 "The Gem Jam," eh?  As soon as I saw that title, my Fallberg detector started going like crazy.  What, you've never heard of a Fallberg detector?  Every home should have one.  At any rate, in spite of being better known for writing those abominable Paul Murry mouse stories, he also did a lot of ducks--some of them not too bad.  Still, don't expect too much from this one; I'm pretty confident that this is going to be the shortest entry in this series, just because this story really isn't interesting in any way.  Well, it happens; what can you do?

But MY POINT WAS, two-word alliterative titles were extremely Fallberg's jam.  His...gem jam.  Oh, stop it.

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"The Secret of Saltwater Cove"

You know, the openings of these stories often have these glimpses of a kind of utopian blissfulness that evaporates like the morning mist when the actual plot kicks in, which is always very quickly.  Still, I don't know.  We can maybe appreciate these isolated bright spots for what they are, even if the story itself isn't much.  Not that this one is really bad, by the standards of these things, but...worth thinking about, anyway.  How 'bout someone just printing a book consisting of the fragmentary good parts of these forgettable stories?  I'll be the editor.  Granted, the resulting book probably won't appeal to anyone but me, but, well, it would appeal to ME.  What else do you want?

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