"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!

Anyway.  This story is kind of interesting for being a Mickey Mouse story--not common for either Strobl or Lockman.  In particular, inducks lists thirteen hundred ninety-five Donald stories for Strobl and two hundred-thirty five Mickey.  Of course, he didn't actually write that many stories; a lot of those are just random bit of incidental art.  Still, the difference is notable, and noticable.  Also, at twenty-four pages, it's quite long, especially for a 1966 story.  I think in general, it was probably good for Western creators to be trying their hands at longer stories.  It forces them to try a bit harder, probably, if they can't just vamp their way through, or at least not as easily.

It opens with a bang!  Lockman has a lot of stories in this period where he does the in media res thing, the way Barks did with a series of stories in the sixties.  This not as successful as Barks, to no one's surprise, but not awful!  Strobl actually does a fairly capable job of making this look cool and dramatic.

Unfortunately, that opening IS kind of the only dramatic-looking thing in the story.  It's probably unsurprising that Strobl's mice are worse than his ducks; there's a gormless quality to much of the character art here. 

Anyway, what is happening?!?  What's wrong with Minnie?!?

...I mean, I guess you start with this fake sense of urgency just to try to draw readers in, but I feel like those same readers would get jaded pretty fast.

This part is a bit excessively dumb: yes, Spanish, that obscure language that nobody knows and you need a skilled translator to interpret for you.  If Lockman had wanted this to seem a little less silly, he could've emphasized that the words are hard to decipher at all, and that it's written in an archaic form of the language.  But I dunno, man.  She doesn't specify how long it's been sitting there waiting to be translated, but it seems like quite a while, which seems silly.

I also have to say, "Spaniard" isn't an offensive term or anything, but it does sound VERY old-fashioned, in a way that you'd probably expect from Lockman.

I dunno.  There aren't all that many Mickey comics where the primarily motivation is purely pecuniary, are they? But here we are.

Watch out for these guys, I guess.  Their motives, though--you kind of get what they're doing, but it also feels on the vague side, if you know what I'm saying.  But they want our heroes not to find a mine.  That's all we need to know.

I mean, it's kind of a fun treasure hunt.  Not the best-executed, but at least you can see that there's a certain degree of effort, and I do not mind this, nor would I try to dissuade a kid from reading it.  Not sure what the kid's reaction would be, though.

Actually, all this stuff with these inept villains trying to scare them away DOES get a bit repetitive and dumb.  Wish it weren't so, but 'tis.

Also, enjoy THIS, because it's the only place where the story's promise pays off: a less-dramatic version of the opening splash panel.  Wowie.  Reminds me of another Lockman story that I wrote about way back in the day, "The Dragon's Amulet."  In that one we were denied an actual dragon, and in this one we're denied an actual ghost.  Unacceptable.

At least they get trapped under tons of rocks.  Like in Germinal!  Kind of.  A bit less harrowing, maybe.  But again, at least it's something.

I mean "boy scouts," okay, that's a clumsy reference that Lockman WOULD make, but it does beg the question (yeah, I said "beg the question;" what're you gonna do about it?): was Mickey a Junior Woodchuck as a child?  I know we don't think about such things, on account of the JW are so strongly associated with ducks, but all kinds of people are in there!  And Mickey seems like the exact type.  He MUST have been one, mustn't he?

Okay, so here we have, uh, this kid.  It's a sympathetic portrayal, and not overly racist, although--again, as in The Dragon's Amulet!--Lockman can't quite seem to decide whether or not he should speak in dialect.  My recommendation, had he asked me, would have been, no.  That's all I'd want to say.

Well, not "all."  I would also have said to him, "Christ, Vic, don't use words like "squaw.'  Or 'Injun,' for that matter.  It's 1966, and I know we're still working on these things, but come on.  I think you mean well, more or less, or at least did at this period of your career, but you're still a bit of an oaf.  Do better."  That is what I would say to him.

How about this?   It's silly, but still, it's some action!  Especially enjoy that dopey-looking Mickey in the bottom right.

Not that many Disney stories feature sword fights.  Some do, but most do not.  This, happily, is in the former category.

Hey: it's Woke Vic Lockman!  Yeah--they were there first!  I do like how Mickey just treats it as a fact of life: obviously we can't have the silver, because they were there first.  That, to put it mildly, has...not traditionally been how colonialism has worked.  Mind you, all of this is of course purely situational--under other circumstances, Lockman would happily have Scrooge YOINK away some ancient treasure from Indigenous people in South America, say.  But we can still enjoy this.

Huh, I guess that's actually all I have here.  Story ends.  Well, it's certainly better than our last entry, but I dunno.  I worry I might be overcorrecting and giving too much credit for stories like this.  Am I grading it on such a woeful curve that I can end up praising something that isn't especially good?  Heady thoughts, for sure.

This issue of Mickey Mouse also includes a back-up JW story that includes April May and June.  I'm not going to say anything about it; trust me, you're not missing anything.  But I DO want to share just this one out-of-context panel:

She is NOT FUCKING AROUND.  She will drive these needles into your ears and STRAIGHT INTO YOUR BRAIN.  I'm only half-joking when I say she looks like a character from Kill Bill.  Anyway.