Book and Comic
Reviews
(8/28/05)
Little Lulu
Volume 5: Lulu in the Doghouse (Dark Horse Books). More
hilarity and hijinks from Lulu and friends. This volume reprints
Four Color #165 and the first five numbered issues of the Little
Lulu title (I'm still at a loss as to why Dark Horse didn't proceed
in chronological order). As always, no one story particularly stands
out, but each of them is guaranteed to provide at least a few chuckles.
My favorite in this lot is "Lulu's Conscience," wherein Lulu struggles
with the standard "angel/devil" characters as she debates what to do
with the nickel her Mom gave her, and, later, with a $10 bill she found
on the street. (The latter event seems to happen all the time in
comics, but hardly ever occurs in real life.) Lulu ends up "ahead," but
only after the convoluted-yet-logical twists and turns that are the
specialty of writer John Stanley.
Walt Disney's
Comics and Stories #660 (September 2005). A
very disappointing issue, given the talents represented. Bear with
me, I plan to explain why at some length.
The leadoff story, "The Idle Glitch,"
finally forced me to agree with a number of my fan-friends who've
recently been criticizing William Van Horn's growing tendency to "repeat
himself" in his short humorous tales. Every single aspect of
this story – in which Donald runs into trouble when he hires an
over-zealous household robot to do chores for him while he lazes away a
week at home alone – has been featured in previous, and better, Van Horn
stories. It comes as absolutely no surprise that the robot ultimately
goes berserk, or that Don ends up prostrate and temporarily "out of
commission." I've been in "Silly Billy"'s corner for years, but there's
no denying that he mailed this sucker in.
Parts seven and eight of Pat and Carol
McGreal and Cesar Ferioli's "Mythos Island" saga contain more novelty --
a lot of which has to do with the juxtaposition of characters who don't
normally interact, such as Goofy and Uncle Scrooge -- but the revelation
of the reason for the island's continuing disintegration, which finally
comes at the end of chapter eight, is startlingly poor in conception.
All the trouble, it turns out, was caused by one of Master Mythos' robot
helpers, who became convinced that mankind had forsaken myth and legend
(favoring instead the cheap thrills provided by TV and "making money")
and destroyed Mythos' matter-transporting machine (the gizmo that allows
humans to catch glimpses of legendary creatures) in what can only be
described as a fit of pique, thereby triggering the island's
decomposition. Put aside the question of how what is essentially a
robot drone could allow such thoughts to "obsess and darken its
mind" (not to mention the questions of who the heck Master Mythos is,
how he gained the ability to design such advanced technology, or how he
came to assume his role); it seems to me that the McGreals missed a more
obvious, fitting, and meaningful explanation. Why not have the
crumbling of the island be caused by the creatures' dismay at
what they believe to be mankind's universal loss of belief in legend and
lore, which would give our heroes the opportunity to save the day by (1)
striving to convince outsiders that myths are an essential part of human
culture, or (2) convincing the distraught beasties that people do
still draw inspiration from mythological heroes, using appropriate
examples? Instead, we are now presented with a scenario in which Gyro
Gearloose and Doc Static, Master Mythos' original targets as "the
greatest scientists in the world" (since when are science and invention
synonymous??), must now repair Mythos' busted machine while everyone
else sits around and waits for the "convenient technological miracles"
to appear. Perhaps the McGreals can salvage things in the final two
installments and give our heroes a more meaningful role in the ultimate
denouement. I certainly hope so.
Wait -- I haven't even touched on this
issue's real low point. Marco Rota's handsomely drawn Donald
tale "Between Two Worlds" must nonetheless rank as one of the flimsiest
Duck stories ever committed to paper. While touring an old aircraft
carrier in Duckburg Harbor, Donald gets stuck in a radio-controlled
"vintage fighter plane" and is sent on a stunt flight. Meanwhile, "in a
parallel universe only slightly different from ours," the exact same
thing happens to Donald* (I don't know how else to represent the
"parallel" Donald; he is basically identical to the original except that
he doesn't wear the same size clothes) in a slightly different plane.
An electrical storm causes the two Dons to switch places, they both
return to the carrier and are both chased by shipboard personnel, they
both escape the carrier in the same way, and another storm returns each
Duck to his correct universe. That's IT, folks. What the heck
was Rota thinking when he introduced this "parallel universe" nonsense
into what would otherwise have been an unexceptional but OK gag story?
If the two Dons had been different in any meaningful particulars, then
we might have seen some good gags related to the Nephews' confusion,
etc., but D&D* act exactly the same. To add insult to injury, Rota
makes an error when he has the transformed Donald (the original model,
that is) react to the fact that he has emerged from a "different" plane
when it is in fact the same plane he started in. All I can say
is, Rota's editor must have been in a decidedly generous mood on the day
this story landed on his desk.
Back to the Top
Uncle $crooge
#345 (September 2005). "X-Treme Scrooge" marks the third
installment in writer Terry Laban's Sly K. Switcheroo cycle. In this
go-round, the artistic chores fall to Rodriques, rather than Romano
Scarpa. The plot is probably the most imaginative of the lot, as SKS
bamboozles Scrooge into thinking that he's a Gen-X computer mogul and
nearly gets McDuck to buy his (nonexistent) company for $40 billion. In
the course of trying to bond with the phony "Rich Slackster," the
deal-hungry Scrooge displays a growing interest in such "extreme" sports
as motor skating and upside-down snowboarding. It's nice to see a story
so thoroughly committed to the idea that Scrooge can be thrust
(head-first and squawking, if necessary) into the modern techno-world
and can be forced to confront its perils and opportunities without any
loss of his trademark traits.
The issue's other highlight is a reprint
of "King Scrooge the First," Carl Barks' last original story for the
Gold Key Uncle $crooge title. Barks only scripted this one,
leaving the artistic chores to the much-maligned (unfairly, in my view)
Tony Strobl, and I, for one, am glad that the reported plans to have
European artist Ulrich Schroeder redraw Barks' script from scratch
evidently came to nothing. Scrooge, Donald, and the Nephews are
basically manipulated into the story rather than actively making
anything happen, which counts as something of a debit, but it's
difficult to forget the scene in which the ancient King Khan Khan
swallows the antidote to the immortality powder he had taken from
Scrooge's ancestor thousands of years before and shrivels away to
nothing as he plods off to "go gladly to join" his long-dead
armies and slave girls. It's hard to see this scene as anything other
than a mournful valedictory for Barks' imminent departure from the title
with which he is the most readily associated.
The issue's one negative note is sounded
in a short filler tale, "Feed for Greed." In this story, we are
expected to believe that Scrooge has commissioned a gizmo called a
"Greed-O-Matic" that will give consumers an insatiable urge to buy
McDuck products. Anyone familiar with Scrooge has to be appalled by
this mischaracterization. Why is Scrooge so surprised when his lawyers
tell him that the "G-O-M" may be a violation of fair trade law, and why
does he then demand that they find him some loopholes? "Making it
square," indeed…
Back to the Top
(8/21/05)
Mickey Mouse
and Friends #280 (September 2005). Artist Paul
Murry is back in the lead-off slot with a reprint of "The Case of the
Vanishing Bandit." This 1950s tale is full of the charming naivete and
improbable coincidences characteristic of its era. From his "island in
the sky" – and with Floyd Gottfredson's Dr. Einmug nowhere in sight! –
villainous Professor Homer J. Thugg is "robbing the earth" a couple of
moneybags at a time by using his "super crank crook-hooker" to reel in
his bank-robbing accomplice. The sheer inefficiency of this method does
considerably more than boggle the mind, but Thugg, the self-proclaimed
"world's most unscrupulous inventor," is too delightfully egocentric to
notice or care that people on the ground might actually look up
sooner or later and realize what's afoot. The tale contains a
larger-than-average number of clever lines and non-sequiturs for Goofy
and a priceless ending gag involving the destruction of the Mouseton
police station that gives the story as a whole something of a burlesque
tone. The Donald Duck offering "A Unique Home," which pits
Donald and the boys against a triad of unscrupulous realtors, is a
little older than most of Gemstone's Egmont offerings have been, and
it's easy to recognize the fact from the relatively bland and
predictable plot. In the concluding Goofy story, "Officer
Goofy," The Goof is in harness as a rookie cop trying (and failing) to
live up to the tough ideals instilled in him by the police drill
sergeant. Sarah Kinney proves once again that she understands the
intricate byways of Goofy's mind and reasoning processes, while Fabrizio
Petrossi provides suitably lively, slapstick-friendly artwork. This
would have made a good plot for an installment of Mickey's Mouseworks.
Donald Duck
and Friends #331 (September 2005). DD&F continues
its recent run of consecutive reprints of Carl Barks' early Donald
stories from WDC&S. "Camera Crazy" is fairly straightforward Don
vs. Nephews shenanigans, with the ducks competing to provide a newspaper
with dramatic photographs. The ultimate fate of "The Donald"'s efforts
is nicely telegraphed on the very first page, but in so subtle a way
that it's easy for the first-time reader to miss. The book's
centerpiece and highlight, Stefan Petrucha and Euclides Miyaura's "Gliquid,"
chronicles the efforts of Mickey Mouse and Doc Static to find a use for
a gaseous liquid (fluidous gas?) that Mickey has accidentally invented
after falling and scattering chemicals all over the place (was Petrucha
thinking of the origin of the Silver Age Flash here?). A Mouseton
research lab, some villainous corporate spies, and Krankle Gorb's mob
(cf. Petrucha's earlier story "Mickey Most Wanted" in Mickey Mouse
and Friends #277) try in turn to unlock the "secret" of "Gliquid,"
but it turns out that it doesn't have a "secret" at all – in a manner of
speaking. Petrucha's poker-faced rendition of the spies of Inky Black
Inc. as sun-glassed, trench-coated agents who boldly announce the
location of their "Secret Lab" to the world might almost be considered a
reaction to the types of plots he has regularly scripted for such
convoluted, conspiracy-themed titles as Kolchak: The Night Stalker
and X-Files. The closing tale "You Can Run but You Can't Hide"
showcases a rather over-the-top depiction of Donald's ineptitude, with
Don making a pathetic ass of himself as he tries to prove he can hide
from the Nephews. (HD&L, for their part, treat his "challenge" which
such disrespect that they don't even plan to seek him out until their TV
program is finished.) If nothing else, the story provides more evidence
that artist Wanda Gattino is the closest thing Egmont has to a direct
artistic "successor" to the late Daniel Branca.
(8/14/05)
Donald Duck
Adventures #13 (August 2005). By this title's relatively
high standards, this issue qualifies as something of a bust – not so
much in the quality of storytelling as in the choice of subject matter.
The opening story, Dave Rawson and Manrique's "Mask of the Mardi Gras,"
qualifies as the best, if only because it spins a logically acceptable
-- albeit rather uninspired – tale. It's Scrooge, Donald, and HD&L vs.
the Beagle Boys and Mr. McSwine (the vicious pig-faced villain who
appeared in various Carl Barks stories under different names) for
control of an "authentic mask of ritual magic" with an unexpected
hypnotic power. The mask's power is mildly clever; the balance of the
story is not. The Rio de Janiero "Carnival" and Amazon jungle settings
are depicted in humdrum style, and, when it comes to characterization,
suffice it to say that there's something wrong with a story in which the
Beagle Boys seem more committed than McSwine to eliminating the Ducks
from the land of the living. Well, at least Rawson's main sin was a
simple lack of inspiration. Stefan Petrucha and Miguel, in the
Mickey Mouse story "Mouse by Mousewest," and John Blair Moore and
Carrion (unfortunate name, that), in the Uncle $crooge caper
"Feeling for Ice," commit much more grievous gaffes. A full-blown
parody of North by Northwest, with Mickey in the Cary Grant role,
is a perfectly fine idea, but the normally reliable Petrucha can't seem
to commit himself fully to the notion. In addition to a few
Hitchcock-inspired scenes – yes, the crop-dusting one is included –
Petrucha stirs in a loopy plot involving spies' plans to steal a space
shuttle and reprogram a satellite to beam hypnotic transmissions at the
Earth. Opposing the baddies are a top-secret clutch of good-guy agents
headed by a Mickey lookalike named (wait for it) Jake Bland. I think
you can probably predict Mickey's ultimate role in all this. The
resulting mishmash holds absolutely no surprises. "Feeling for Ice" is
a sort of Scrooge and Donald version of an old Darkwing Duck
episode (actually, the last one broadcast) in which Darkwing discovers
himself in a museum, encased in amber that is billions of years old.
Here, Donald and Gyro Gearloose uncover Scrooge inside a
100,000-year-old block of ice – and, soon thereafter, Donald himself in
the same frigid predicament. As you can probably guess, this is a
time-travel story – one in which you have to buy the notion that Donald
and Scrooge have, indeed, spent the last 100,000 years entombed in ice,
thereby missing all of their already-existing adventures (and all
of recorded human/waterfowl history, besides). I thought the idea was
appalling when I saw it done on Darkwing Duck, and I'm sure not
inclined to change my mind now.
Television
Cartoon Shows (2nd
ed.) by Hal Erickson (2 vols., McFarland). Twelve
years after its initial appearance, this generally excellent reference
work has finally gone into a second edition. This new version rates an
illustrated cover (the original had the generic McFarland "denim-ish"
look) and, due to the proliferation of animated series of all types
since 1993, a division into two volumes, covering over 1000 pages in
all. Unfortunately, a number of the mistakes and oversights of the
first edition are still present. A couple of the old entries
have been updated, but only if a new version of the series has been
produced (e.g., the entry for Superman now includes the 90s
Superman: the Animated Series) or if new information about a
previously obscure project has come to light. (The lack of corrections
may have something to do with the fact that McFarland is a reference
publisher; as a result, many of the copies that were sold have been
resting peacefully on college library shelves rather than circulating
amongst animation fans.) The new entries are well-written, and most of
them seem accurate, but Erickson seems less willing to pass judgment on
the merits of the series of interest. Superman: the Animated Series
was easily as ambitious an undertaking as the earlier Batman
series, yet, while Erickson devotes a lot of space to analyzing what
made the latter series so good and so groundbreaking, he contents
himself with a bald summary of factual particulars when it comes to the
former. I didn't always agree with what Erickson had to say
about a series, but it was most entertaining to read through his
reasoning. I still think quite highly of Erickson's work and appreciate
the effort he put into this revamping, but this new edition falls a
little short of what it could have been had the necessary changes been
made.
Back to the Top
(8/7/05)
Uncle $crooge
#344 (August 2005). Two Italian creators get prominent
places in this month's issue. Unfortunately, the wrong story got the
cover and the prized leadoff position. "Fishpond Frenzy," drawn and
co-written by Marco Rota, exemplifies Rota's one major flaw as a
creator. Though he's a magnificent draftsman, his success rate when it
comes to crafting well-plotted stories is roughly that of the typical
Italian government when it comes to staying in power. Scrooge's plan to
"corner the world carp market" by raising prize koi gets tangled up --
rather illogically -- with yet another try by Magica de Spell at
Scrooge's talismanic Old #1 Dime. Scrooge jumps to the (dubious)
conclusion that Magica is responsible for putting a ravenous pike in his
fish pond, then promptly fetches Old #1 from its well-guarded hiding
place so as to make himself "feel better" before the representatives of
the "Duckburg Koi Fanciers' Society" come on their inevitable visit to
judge his fishy handiwork. Huh???? Perhaps
fittingly, the story ends with Magica's butt getting put in traction,
thanks to the sturdy jaws of the pike. I think reading this story took
a piece out of me, as well. Thankfully, the recently deceased
Romano Scarpa is back (in tandem with writer Terry Laban) with "All You
Need is Love," the second chapter in what David Gerstein tells me will
be a trilogy of stories in which Scrooge matches wits with the
villainous master of disguise, Sly K. Switcheroo. Scarpa's own original
creation, the lovesick Brigitta MacBridge, has a prominent role here and
gets to display some unexpected talents (would you believe, karate??)
over and above her unique ability to get on Scrooge's nerves. The book
is filled out by several small works featuring the Beagle Boys and Gyro
Gearloose and a reprint of "The Cattle King," one of Carl Barks' last
$crooge stories. Though some folks don't care for them, I tend to
like Barks' later adventures. Their light tone and overall air of
bemused flippancy seem to give them the heft of papier-mâché when they
are compared to the solid craftsmanship displayed in Barks' classics of
the 40s and 50s, but they are definitely a few cuts above the less
inspired work that an overworked and underpaid Barks cranked out in the
late 50s and early 60s. Barks may have sounded like a cranky old fart
by the time the Summer of Love rolled around, but, at the best of times,
he was an inspired cranky old fart. "The Cattle King" is as good
as any of the stories from this period.
Walt Disney's
Comics and Stories #659 (August 2005). Now I know
another reason why Mythos Island continues to crumble into the
sea: the combined weight of the characters clambering onto it is getting
to be too much to bear. In chapters 5 and 6 of the ongoing saga by Pat
and Carol McGreal and Cesar Ferioli, Scrooge, Donald, HD&L, Mickey,
Goofy, Pluto, Minnie, and Daisy all either return to the mythological
menagerie or experience it for the first time. Soon enough, Doc Static
and Gyro Gearloose are going to join the crowd. Then what? With
so many characters involved – and that's before we start counting
the banshees, centaurs, genii, and such – the concluding four chapters
could wind up resembling "Donald and Mickey's All-Star Myth-O-Lympics."
Well, the McGreals are probably too clever and accomplished to fall into
that trap. We're still awaiting the promised article where the writers
discuss the origins of the story and the sources of the mythological
beasties. The best thing in the rest of the issue is "That Ol' Soft
Soap," a reprint of a classic story from the late, lamented Disney
Comics era of the early 1990s. Knowing what we now know about the
profound damage that hologram covers, forever-sealed first issues,
black-bagged "death issues" (with accompanying black armbands and
cardboard tombstones!), and similar trickery wrought on the comics
industry during the 1990s, Michael T. Gilbert's acid-etched parody of
collector excess -- in which Donald, brandishing the knowledge gained
from a mail-order advertising course, challenges Scrooge's grip on the
Duckburg soap market by means of increasingly ludicrous marketing
gimmicks -- shows a prescience that's little short of amazing. William
Van Horn only illustrated this 1991 tale, but he was the perfect choice
to do so: who else could have captured the loony soap collectors'
fanaticism or Donald's increasing loss of control over his own somewhat
dubious advertising skills? In place of the usual Van Horn Donald
Duck leadoff story, we get Marco Rota's "Blazing Tastebuds," which
is no classic but, thank goodness, is better than "Fishpond Frenzy" –
though there may be a few too many clichéd gags involving Central
American countries and chili peppers for some people's sensitive (and
not just when it comes to hot peppers) tastes.