"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.

So there's this abrupt start.  I checked to see if this was a continuation from the previous story, but nope.  The first thing you notice about it is the art.  Boy, what a fantastic sentence that was.  But it's obviously extremely different than...any official Disney story.  It IS sometimes a little hard to make out exactly what's happening, but you get used to that.  With just a tiny amount of revision, it seems like one of these stories would fit rather seamlessly into the Disney by Glenat line.

Behold: the premise.  We got some Deliverance-style locals, it appears.  I want to make a political comment here, but I absolutely will not.  Still, you can probably approximate what it was going to be in your head.

Here's where I need a li'l help from the peanut gallery.  Not gonna lie: this is the only one of these I've read so far.  You know, Christmastime, busy busy.  So: does Gladstone actually have, like, a character arc throughout the series that shows how he becomes less of a dick than usual?  Because if so, GREAT.  Now I'm even more keen to read more.  But if not...this does feel a little odd.  Yes, we all know that I've talked about Gladstone's potential as a more multifaceted character--not just the concentrated ball of obnoxiousness that Barks created--but if you're going to do that, you kinda need to be able to see how this happened.  It's a little confusing otherwise, or so I think.

That said, it's not like a deal-breaker or anything.  I still enjoy the story on its own terms.

(Also, have we ever determined with absolute certainty whether Gyro is a chicken or a crane?  Or possibly a stork?  Obviously, the fact that he looks nothing like Clara Cluck isn't dispositive--Gladstone and Gus are both  geese, theoretically--but it sure looks like his long, gangly physique is meant to suggest a water bird.)

Yup, now we're cooking!  I haven't spent as much time thinking of it, but it's fair to say that Magica is another character who could be deepened.  Now do Glomgold.

Of course, it's also worth noting that however much I like this stuff, it wouldn't really work in an "official" comic--sure, there was that one story (that one: you know the one) that suggested possible romance between the two of them, but that's about as far as you can go.  You can't just fundamentally change who these well-established characters are.  Besides, if you humanized all your villains, where do you go from there?

As you know, there's been a lot of talk lately about characters like Steamboat Willie and Popeye entering the public domain, and you know, hurrah, now we can do whatever we want with them!  Yeah...except the only things you seem to want to make are obscene parodies (which people had been doing for years; see Air Pirates) and shitty horror movies.  It's pretty clear that the creators of such things are going for transgression and absolutely nothing more.  Which, fine, I guess, but if you can't think of anything actually interesting to do with these characters, what are we even doing?  Obviously, copyright laws are broken and need to be revised, but surely there's got to be better things to do with free-agent characters than fuckin' Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey or some shit.  It's not like you're expressing some artistic vision that you couldn't before, because, obviously, you don't HAVE an artistic vision.  

My point being!  The ducks aren't PD yet, of course, but I do have to say, Jolley's work DOES seem like the platonic ideal of someone actually doing something interesting with premade characters (who, let's face it, morally speaking should already be there).  Granted, I don't as a rule read fanfic.  But still, kudos.

Nothing much to say; I just like this picture.  So, are we gonna ship these two?  Hard to see how we couldn't, really.  It is just RIGHT THERE, positively begging us.

"Quilliam Drakespeare;" okay, cute.  Still, I'm not so sure about this part about finding the creature (aka "the Arizona Bigfoot"--you learn something new every day, though what with the 'Arizona' part, it's hard to see why it's in this icy wilderness).  Sure, you can have a book or an inscription or an ancient legend that helps you find some treasure or hidden land, but an animal?  Not sure how that's gonna work.  What's the provenance of this alleged diary, anyway?

Also, it's certainly plausible that Gladstone would say that, but my inner pedant does demand that I point out that "use" and "find" in these sentences are both equally active verbs.

I fell into an avalanche; it covered up my soul.  When I am not this hunchback that you see I sleep beneath the golden hill.  Who knows?  Maybe all I want to do is quote Leonard Cohen lyrics!  It could be.

You didn't know that?  Why not?  What made him change since you last saw him?  I'm not kidding; I SO badly need to figure out what the deal is here.

So that "I won my scholarship" is in response to her saying she has student debt, and you have to ask: did Gladstone go to college?  What did he study?  Seriously, what WOULD someone as self-absorbed as him (even if he's nicer now, he definitely wasn't when he was eighteen) study?  Probably just skated through a generic "business" major or the like, though even that feels like it would entail more work than he'd be willing to put in.  Of course, we all know from the extremely canonical "September Scrimmage" that Scrooge did, and obviously there's Ludwig, but that might be it as far as anything that can be officially ascertained.  These comics are not very higher-education-focused.  That's something EVERYONE can agree on.

Again, I have to say, Gladstone's "being seen as a freak" comment IS a fruitful angle on the character, but if it's ever been done in an official story, I don't know what it is.  How'd we get from there to here?

Also, has an official comic ever used the word "sucks" outside of stories like "The Case of the Sticky Money" where sucking in a physical sense is relevant?  I know British localizations have occasionally used mild profanity, but not sure about that one.

Was this whole "too cold" business included just for that picture of the two of them snuggling?  Survey sez maybe.  I would not blame Jolley, and I'm not gonna lie: I definitely want to see them make out.  Why the heck not?  Here's a part from her most recent thing that's definitely an excuse to show them dancing:  

Charming, a word I often say sarcastically, but here...not.

Well, if the story has "bear mountain" in the title, it is meet that we have a bear, though those of you who've read a story before probably have a clear idea of what's going on here.

Very disappointing bit of 'teamwork,' I have to say.  Obviously, the idea should be that Gladstone gets his photo first.  With luck, he can do it without disturbing the thing, and then she gets a turn.  But isn't that just lovers' quarrels for you?

Here's a little gloss on "The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan."  And you are doggone right that I am going to make my SEVENTH Dorfmann/Mattelart reference on this blog.  Honestly, I find that story a bit hard to deal with these days.  I'd say the difference between that and this, though (well, one of many), is that whereas Scrooge getting the crown was never not going to rely on trickery, here they really COULD have not been the "villains" if they'd been trying hard enough.  Really now. 

"THAT LOOKS SO STUPID!!!" made me laugh out loud.  I won't deny it.

Back to civilization, kind of.  God a badger here, which you don't often if ever see in duck comics (actually, did Barks draw a few badger Junior Woodchucks?  Might've done).  These guys remind me of the ones in that late ten-pager I can't quite recall the name of where Donald has to go surfing.  But nicer!  

So there's this social media stuff, which might bother me under other circumstances, but here it's okay.  It's probably a combination of the story's unofficial status and the fact that, unlike Boomer writers desperately trying to figure out what The Kids are into these days, Jolley actually appears to know what she's doing.

But man, those other locals are such unbelievable dickheads, seemingly apropos of nothing.  Were this officially licensed, they definitely wouldn't be able to imply that Gladstone is a castrato.  And THAT would be a shame indeed.

My winter's tale turned out to be a comedy of errors.  That's a fun line, and no mistake.

GODDAMIT, I am being TOO FUCKING POSITIVE here.  Maybe some GOSHDARN profanity will help!  But I have to admit, it's one of the cutest things I've seen.  Okay?  I said it!  Leave me alooooone!

Anyway, happy War on Christmas, and I'll hopefully have another entry or two in the days to come.