"The Hypno Thief"

 Today, we are returning to the work of Dick Moores.  It's actually sort of surprising that I haven't already covered this.  It definitely made an impression on me when I read it as a youngling, and rereading it from my current vantage point...it still kinda does.  I think it's worth looking at for more reasons than pure nostalgic self-indulgence.  Let's see.

And the first and possibly only thing I have to say is, LOOK HOW GREEN IT IS!  My GOSH is that ever green!  I'm not sure how this can be, since I assume the same colorists were coloring all these stories, but somehow, the colors in Moores stories do seem to really POP.  At least some of them.  Like, remember this?

Maybe it has something to do with the art itself, though I can't figure how that would work.

Anyway, it's interesting how this is and yet isn't Barksian.  You can definitely picture Scrooge shafting his nephews like this in Barks, at least some of the time.  But also, is there ever a situation in Barks where he offers his nephews a lump sum to do something, as opposed to hourly wages?  Not sure. And then, of course, the idea that he'd have a big ol' country estate...hmm.

But, the idea of him going around with a magnifying glass checking on individual blades of grass also seems like it could be seen in Barks, and you know, as I think about it, I'm not sure why I feel compelled to compare this to Barks.  I mean, that's not exactly true; obviously he's the most important Western creator by orders of magnitude.  But does he really have to be our only metric by which to evaluate others?   Yes, everyone else, like it or not, is toiling in his shadow, but it still seems kind of limiting.  Worth thinking about.

I very much enjoy this also.  I don't suppose it's intentional on Moores' part, but it's still an interesting character beat.  Scrooge is trying to lord this contract over his nephews, but he immediately lets slip that he knows he's got nothing with his "aw, be reasonable, guys" reaction in the second panel.  Donald's "screw this" attitude is good, and surely the most reasonable reaction under the circumstances.

But that's all just preamble., as you might've guessed from the title, this story's gonna be about a "hypno thief."  ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOADTHIEF.  That, rather obviously, is this guy.  But before we move along to that, I'd also just like to highlight "the older Scrooge gets, the harder he is to get along with!"  Now, there ARE some late Barks stories where Scrooge grapples with his own mortality, true, but those stand out, don't they?  And they're the whole point of the stories in question.  Just a casual comment like this about Scrooge aging is not usual.

Yes, okay, but.  Burying the lede a little bit here, which is, this story FREAKED ME OUT when I was a kid...and, not gonna lie, the kicker is, it still kinda does.  Part of it is the art, clearly.  I wonder if this would be less effective coming from a more sophisticated artist, but GODDAMN, those ducks with the blank, concentric-circle eyes and those blank smiles--BRRR.

See?  Of course you know, it's still a Disney comic; it's not going to be THAT terrifying, and this guy's only apparent motive is wanting to get a cheap house, which isn't all that sinister.  Who knows; maybe he had other plans going forward, but those will remain mysterious.

Donald just chanting "I am waiting for my pal" over and over.  If anyone's seen the first season of Marvel's Jessica Jones, you will remember David Tennant's terrifying villain, and ol' Hypo reminds me of him.  IYKYK.  We often accuse these NBW guys of just bumbling around aimlessly, and it's substantially true, but you really feel like Moores is doing this well and on purpose.  Well done, Dick.

Although it is slightly deflating that it turns out he legitimately hypnotized Donald solely because his car was out of gas.  That's not a good reason to hypnotize someone!  Fortunately, he also has a scrapbook featuring all his greatest feats of mesmerism.  Presumably.

DOESN'T this freak you out?  DOESN'T it?

I keep feeling as though Moores must have had some kind of inspiration for this.  It's a classic trope, isn't it, this idea of realizing, oh my god, people I trusted are now servants of evil, or something along those lines.  I was thinking Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but that was a few years after this.  Anyone know any other specific cultural artifacts he could've been drawing on?  I looked up "evil hypnotist movies" but didn't find any obvious candidates.

This has to be the apotheosis of this whole thing.  The people you love and trust are changed into something terrible, and they will casually brutalize you at the behest of a scary magic dude.  I mean seriously.

Well, but no need to get TOO freaked out, as the problem gets solved like this--with threats of violence!  As all our problems should be solved, perhaps.  Or made worse.  Which seems more likely.

I also want to point out this: how unusual is it for two of the three nephews to be the heroes of the story like this?  Not very, and I would categorize this with that comment about Scrooge getting older as the sort of thing that Moores just stuck in there, he obviously didn't give it any deep thought, but which somehow stands out as different.  Moments like these are one of the main reason to read stories like this.

Ha!  Pwned!  Justice for the working man!

Mind you, it's still going to be a tedious task if Scrooge is going around with his magnifying glass the whole time.  And as conclusion go, this doesn't give you much.  Okay.  You'll charge a hundred dollars more.  I...guess?  As long as you're not ripping them off (or not as badly, at any rate), do we think they really care what you do with the house pricing?  A hundred dollars is meaningful to them, but not to you.  At least not in the same way.  Hmph.  Well.  Anyway.

This one turned out a bit short, and I've already covered the other two stories in this issue, "Scavenger Hunt" and "Show Biz."  Oh well; let's at least take a look at the issue's triptych of one-pagers.  I know that's not how you use the word "triptych."  I guess I used it because it's less common than "trilogy," and therefore made me sound smarter.  Or would have, if I'd used it correctly.  I guess "trilogy" isn't even really the right word either.  Probably best to just say "trio."  NEVER MIND.

Is this...funny?  Are you VALUETAINED™?  We DO learn about Daisy's weird hybrid friend, Gus Gander, at the airport, so that's something.  Look how blissed-out HDL (or at least HD) are there in the bottom about their golf game:

Dang; I'm not sure ANYTHING makes me that euphoric.  It's kind of weird to think of them as being so golf-obsessed, but it's also kind of fun; I'm there for it.  It's just...the story doesn't exactly cohere very well, does it?  What does the golf have to do with the skywriting?  NOTHING, that's what!  Not exactly one for the ages.

Hmm.  This has Phil DeLara art (as does the previous page), but it looks a lot like a Taliaferro gag, albeit with a somewhat more wordy Donald.  Very little to say about it.

And last, this, in FULL COLOR!  A rather weird joke.  I do not think that using a machine like that would avoid neck stiffness.  Just exacerbating that stiffness seems much more likely, or possibly accidentally breaking your neck.  It's kind of hard to tell, since you don't really get that good a look at the ducks, but this is Tony Strobl art.  And the writing is by...Carl Barks?  For real?  Well, that's what inducks says.  Why would they have him writing but not drawing random one-pagers like this?  Far be it from me to question inducks' authority, but that seems pretty weird!