(7/31/05)
Mickey Mouse
Meets Blotman (Gemstone). Gemstone gives this extended
parody an oversized book all to itself, but that might not have been the
proper format for it. If any Disney comic-book story ever DESERVED a
multipart treatment over several issues, it would have to be this one.
With the help of inventor Doc Static, Mickey follows the fugitive
Phantom Blot into a parallel universe where The Blot is a vengeful agent
of justice in the night ("Blotman," get it?) and Doc Static is his worst
enemy. When the "real" Blot hooks up with the devilish "Doc Stat,"
Mickey offers his services as a sidekick to Blotman (the secret identity
of whom is the best thing about the tale). Writers Pat and Carol
McGreal do a fine job with the expected elements of the parody, but a
lengthier examination of Blotman's "parallel universe" would have been
even more enjoyable. (Imagine the possibilities: Minnie Mouse as a
bawdy hoyden... Chief O'Hara as the reigning king of the city rackets,
with his cigar-chomping underling Detective Casey as his enforcer...
Horace Horsecollar as a Joker-style villain whose practical jokes are
used for evil purposes... Clarabelle Cow as a vicious gossip
columnist! The mind reels, no matter WHAT dimension it's operating
in.)
The tale does have one rather weak
element: the fact that the entire plot turned on Doc Static's
questionable inference that The Blot's sudden disappearance HAD to
have been due to his being sucked into a "parallel universe". What --
he didn't even consider transporters, cloaking devices, or other
convenient scientific marvels? I know, the Doc is somewhat
"entitled" to such improbable leaps of faith, being Mouseton's resident
inventor-genius and all, but fer gosh sakes, let's have some logical
justification here!
Fittingly, the title story is backed up
by a tale starring the Disney universe's "original" superhero character,
Super Goof -- this one, a Disney Studio effort from the 60s or 70s drawn
by veteran artist Jack Manning. David Gerstein's dialogue is no doubt
much punchier than the original script.
Donald Duck
and Friends #330 (August 2005, Gemstone). The Duck
stories at front and back are the epitome of "blah". The leadoff
reprint, "Rival Boatmen," is one of Carl Barks' less inspired
brainstorms from the mid-40s (though it is neat to see Black Pete
"cast" in the guise of a good guy, in this case, short-tempered richnik
J.P. Diamondtubs). The Renard-Manrique snoozer "The Pauper and the
Pauper," meanwhile, is an Egmont tale with an all-too-familiar plot:
Donald temporarily switches places with a dot-com-millionaire
doppelganger whose financial "bubble" is just beginning to burst. Apart
from treading on well-worn ground, the tale seems dated now (its date
code indicates an original publication date of 2001).
The prize of the issue is the middle
Mickey story, "The Mouse Who Knew Too Much" by Pat and Carol McGreal
and artist Noel Van Horn. After Minnie strong-arms Mickey into serving
as a fake swami at a carnival run by Minnie's "Women's Affirmation
Group" (!), Mickey finds himself making real (and highly
embarrassing) predictions thanks to an apparently magical amulet. The
story is solid, NVH's lively artwork is a cut above even his usual
superb standards and I'm still asking myself why Minnie
needs a "Women's Affirmation Group." Perhaps to remind herself that
she's a woman first, a mouse second?...
Mickey Mouse
and Friends #279 (August 2005, Gemstone). By now,
"Don't mess with the Time Stream!" should be stamped on the forehead of
every self-respecting comic-book hero. Leave it to Mickey's inventor
pal, the brilliant-yet-impulsive Doc Static, to tempt the fates -- not
once, but several times -- in Pat and Carol McGreal and Cesar
Ferioli's "Time and Time Again". After Doc S. loses an alarm clock
while "fishing for artifacts" in "an opening in the space-time
continuum" yep, using a fishing pole and everything he goes back in
time to retrieve it, but he just can't help giving the various
civilizations he encounters a little push in the right direction.
Mickey is confronted with the task of saving Doc S. from the past (not
to mention the present/ future from Doc S.). The "here we go again!"
ending used by the McGreals seemed just the right way to end this
story. Perhaps Mickey should give up the idea of persuasion and simply
knock the wayward "time master" out cold the next time he encounters
him.
The balance of the book consists of a
thoroughly vapid Grandma Duck story written by Pat and Shelly
Block (what do they see in that character, anyway?) and a wholly
unexpected reprint of a 1967 story from Gold Key's Super Goof
title. After the convoluted "Time and Time Again," the naive simplicity
of Vic Lockman and Tony Strobl's "Super Goof meets Super Bad Wolf" is a
particularly welcome palate-cleanser.
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The Grand
Slam by Mark Frost (Hyperion Press). Frost's follow-up
effort to the outstanding The Greatest Game Ever Played the
movie adaptation of which will be released by Disney this fall this
meandering tale tracks the career of Bobby Jones, the greatest amateur
golfer of all time, climaxing with his assault on the Grand Slam (back
then, it was the US and British Open and Amateur titles) in 1930. After
winning the Slam, Jones retired from tournament competition, at the age
of 29. After reading Frost's harrowing account of his physical and
mental anguish during the ordeal, you'll certain understand why.
Aesthetically, this book doesn't hold
together nearly as well as Greatest Game. Frost includes far too
much "background" information (most of which is, quite honestly, common
knowledge) about everything from the origins of World War I to the
Scopes "Monkey Trial". The bits of early 20th-century lore
than festooned the pages of Greatest Game were a welcome addition
to the storyline, helping us to understand the time and place. Here,
they are an annoying intrusion. Despite this unfortunate slip, Frost's
prose is still enjoyable to read, and the story will be of interest to
anyone who has an interest in the history of golf.
Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling (Scholastic).
No, I'm not going to reveal any aspects of the plot. Just a few more or
less random comments about the sixth book in the Potter series:
(1) We've left "kid stuff" far behind. Prepare your little 'uns
as best you can for a true shock. (2) If you don't like teenage soap
operas, beware the middle of the book, wherein Harry and company have
hormones a-pumping. (3) J.K. Rowling evidently wanted to leave as many
options repeat, as many options open as possible before
writing the final volume. That explains a lot of what goes on in the
final couple of chapters. (4) If you've been following the series
faithfully, you'll finish the last page of the story and immediately
start wondering when Rowling will lift the "seventh veil."
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(7/17/05)
Marge's
Little Lulu Volume 4: Sunday Afternoon (Dark Horse).
Dark Horse presents its fourth collection of John Stanley's
Little Lulu comic-book work -- with this batch coming from Four
Color Comics releases of the late 1940s -- in the same uninspired,
but easy-to-read, format. The most ambitious tale of the lot is the
very first one, "Lulu Is Taken for a Ride," wherein little Miss Moppet
is kidnapped by two crooks who have mistaken her for a wealthy girl.
Travails faintly similar to those seen in O. Henry's story The Ransom
of Red Chief ensue, but Stanley, as is his wont, keeps the reader
guessing as to exactly what's going to happen next. "Ride," as opposed
to the relatively minor story "Sunday Afternoon," probably deserved the
honor of the volume's subtitle, but DH must have thought that the choice
would have been inappropriate next to such previous subtitles as "Lulu
Goes Shopping."
In all of these stories, one can see
Stanley developing his trademark "ball of string" narrative style
setting up a very basic situation and essentially letting the characters
"run with it" in believable, amusing fashion. I've seen enough of them
to become convinced that Lulu stories should rank with the best
of the Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson stories as an ideal way to
introduce youngsters to the wonderful world of sequential art. My
8-year-old niece Lulu loved the first two volumes of this series when I
bought them for her as a birthday present
and it wasn't just
because of the title character's first name.
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Reversing the
Curse: The Story of the 2004 Boston Red Sox by Dan
Shaughnessy. Boston Globe sportswriter Shaughnessy was
responsible for popularizing the whole "Curse of the Bambino" legend
about the Red Sox, so it's entirely fitting that he close the circuit
with this narrative of the Sox' 2004 season, which climaxed with that
amazing playoff comeback against the Yankees and subsequent World Series
sweep. Actually, Shaughnessy was the beneficiary of a tremendous slice
of old-fashioned dumb luck, since he had planned to write a book about
the Sox' '04 campaign all along. He's honest enough to admit the fact
by including comments from Sox execs and others who fretted that the
book would be a bust if the Sox didn't win.
The book is a good, straightforward
prιcis of the tumultuous twelve months preceding the Sox' first World
Series win since 1918, beginning with their seventh-game collapse
against the Yanks in the 2003 league championship series an event
which only strengthened the efforts of the club's aggressive management
to best the "Evil Empire" at (literally) all costs. There are enough
backroom deals, hissy fits, overblown tabloid headlines, and clubhouse
crises to satisfy even the most jaded baseball fan. BTW, if you're
looking at the book's table of contents and don't see a listing for
Chapter 13, it's not a misprint. Shaughnessy skips from Chapter 12 to
Chapter 14 for a reason that probably does not need to be explained,
given the book's theme and title.
Regarding a point raised by Shaughnessy
at the end: there is little evidence that "reversing the curse" has
lessened the ardor of Sox fans or caused them to lose interest. At a
recent Sox-Orioles game at Camden Yards, Nicky and I spotted far, far
more red shirts in the crowd than black-and-orange shirts, and a fair
portion of the folks in red must have traveled from New England, judging
by all the Massachusetts license plates we saw. The real effect of the
Sox' win will be to muzzle all those literary types who had turned
musings on Boston's perpetual disappointment into something of a
fetish. The Sox are a "normal" team now, and, as such, can no longer be
used as metaphor. The Yankees and Cardinals deserve considerable thanks
for this, I'd say.
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Nine Lives to
Live: A Classic Felix Celebration by Otto Messmer, edited
by David Gerstein (Fantagraphics Press). I have David to thank
for the loan of this volume, which was published by Fantagraphics in the
mid-90s. The book collects some of Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat
comic strips from the 1920s and early 1930s, the feature's prime
period. The strips may have been signed "Pat Sullivan," just as the
Disney-related comic strips were signed "Walt Disney," but it was
Messmer who not only created the character of Felix but shepherded him
through his glory days as the most popular animated-cartoon character of
the silent era. A great and imaginative animator, Messmer's touch was a
little less sure when he turned his attention to comic strips. Direct
adaptations of Felix cartoons -- many of which are reproduced
here -- tided the strip over for a good long while, but once Felix
ceased to appear on movie screens, Messmer's limitations as an
original strip-writer quickly became apparent. The material in this
volume is as good as this strip got, so it's an essential read for
anyone interested in the history of this character and early animation.
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Last Shot: A
Final Four Mystery by John Feinstein (Knopf). This isn't
Feinstein's first foray into fiction the best-selling author of such
fine sports books as A Season on the Brink, A Good Walk
Spoiled, and The Last Amateurs has also written at least one
other mystery novel but it is his first work of fiction for children.
Two teenage kids win a sportswriting contest and get to participate as
working journalists at college basketball's Final Four, where they
stumble upon the mother of all game-fixing scandals. The book doesn't
have much action even the coverage of the Final Four games is
perfunctory but it is reasonably written and provides a clear-eyed
view of the seamier side of college athletics. Two unusual features of
particular note: (1) The book features an inordinate number of real
college-basketball personalities who interact with the fictional
characters. The gambit helps maintain the verisimilitude of the
narrative, but it's decidedly odd, akin to reading a work of
alternative-reality fiction. (2) Any adult reader who skims the book
will recognize a lot of side-themes and references that reflect
Feinstein's adult works. Feinstein gives full play to his disdain for
the NCAA, officious security guards, rampant commercialism in college
sports, and other personal banes, but he also has a lot of fun with the
notion that Duke (his alma mater) is the most loved and the most
disdained of college basketball powers. It's no Harry Potter,
and Feinstein is no J.K. Rowling, but I think that any kid who is
interested in basketball and likes (or needs to be encouraged) to read
would enjoy this story.
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(7/3/05)
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
#658 (July 2005). Chapters 3 and 4 of the Pat and Carol McGreal-Cesar
Ferioli serial "Mythos Island" appear in this issue, but don't expect
any startling new revelations in these episodes merely a "transitional
phase" that makes the island's true nature somewhat clearer to the
reader. Between Chapters 1 and 2 and Chapters 3 and 4, those characters
who had not maintained direct contact with some tangible, tactile
memento of their adventures on the island evidently lost their
memories. In "Pegasus" and "The Unicorn's Horn," Scrooge and Mickey
literally "regain consciousness" in the course of fighting sidebar
battles against, respectively, Flintheart Glomgold and a pair of
con-artist villains named Philcher and Cheatum. We now have a secondary
theme (How will the characters manage to hold onto their memories when
they depart Mythos Island?) to pair with the primary one (What other
mythological creatures will they encounter on the island?), thereby
widening the scope of the epic, at least in a psychological sense. I'll
be interested to see how the McGreals choose to exploit this "lost
memory" conceit in the upcoming chapters.
The rest of the issue is OK but nothing
special, including, among other odds and sundries, a William Van Horn
story with a unfortunately predictable ending ("A Bird in the Hand") and
a David Gerstein script for the Marco Rota-drawn Donald tale
"Knight Rider." (No, Donald does not perform a David Hasselhoff
turn in the latter story -- thank goodness for small favors.)
Uncle $crooge #343 (July
2005). Oooops! Right on the heels of Don Rosa's magnificent "The
Old Castle's Other Secret" (U$ #342), which delved deeply into
the fantastic legend of The Knights Templar (among many other
things), this issue brings us the two-part story "A Knight to Remember"
by Pat and Carol McGreal and Jose Massaroli, wherein Scrooge encounters
the magically immortal Sir Simpy, the last remaining "Knight Simplar
of Mundania." Reader comparisons will be inevitable, and, of course,
will be decidedly in favor of the former. That's not to say that this
new tale is a poor one. For a solo Scrooge adventure, it's quite good,
with Massaroli's energetic artwork being a major plus. The tale's
visiting female character is a dogface double for Gadget Hackwrench of
Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers, which fact certainly doesn't hurt
it in my eyes. Scrooge even gets in a plug for democratic free
enterprise. "That's what makes the frankfurters so yummy!" he tells Sir
Simpy, who's been charged with protecting the Mundanian Crown Jewels
"until the King returns" but finds the decidedly modern, democratic form
of his country to be most bewildering. Milton Friedman or Alan
Greenspan couldn't have put it better than Mr. McDuck does here!
At the front of the book, William Van
Horn gives us "Pudding it Straight," which can best be described by the
single word "bizarre." Make that the three words "really, really
bizarre." It's a throwback of sorts to Van Horn's coming-out period of
the late 80s and early 90s, during which he larded his pages with all
sorts of loony, off-center doings and well and truly earned the
sobriquet "Silly Billy." It also makes me wonder whether tapioca
pudding ranks with pesky houseflies as one of Van Horn's biggest
bugaboos.
Elsewhere in the issue: "Security," which
pits Scrooge and Donald against "notorious con-man and disguise artist"
Sly K. Switcheroo, turns out to be something of a requiem for artist
Romano Scarpa, whose recent death is announced by John Clark at the
front of the book. Beagle Boys filler stories have become
something of a regular feature in this title no surprise and this
ish's "Being Donald Duck," written by Olaf Sostrand and drawn by the
Daniel Branca-channeling Maria Nunez, is particularly clever, spicing up
its venerable "body-switching plot" with multiple references to past
Carl Barks stories, plus a running gag based on the old standby, "This
is going to hurt you more than it hurts me
". Gail Renard,
Tony Isabella, and Manrique's "Gyro 2.0" (a robot double of Gyro runs
amuck) and Pat and Shelly Block and Marcal's "Golden Slumbers" (Scrooge
"rests" by dreaming of bloodcurdling Klondike adventures) are modest
fare by comparison.
Mickey Mouse Adventures Volume
4 (June 2005). Pat and Carol McGreal and artist J. Gonzalez tackle
the legend of Pandora's Box in this issue's lead story, "Boxful of
Troubles." The tale is modest in scope compared with the McGreals'
"Mythos Island" saga but is notable nonetheless in that Minnie is the
real driving force behind the adventure. After the box falls into her
possession at a Mouseton yard sale (!), Mickey's girlfriend becomes
determined to restore the "good name of all women" and return it to its
Grecian home so that the various troubles released by Pandora will be
obliged to retreat. Mickey's only true contribution to the denouement
occurs, quite literally, by accident. The story is no great shakes but
is an A-1 effort next to the issue's Donald Duck offering, "A
Texas Tale," which, while not the worst story I've seen in the pocket
books, is surely among the most annoying. Hapless Donald, relegated to
the duty of a line-painter on Texas roads, gets involved in a convoluted
oil-drilling caper that mostly consists of a lot of screaming, yelling,
threatening, and slapstick action. The concluding Mickey story,
"Incredible Menace of Cyberman," from the Italian digest Topolino,
is the best of the recent run of Topolino reprints slotted in the
back in MMA, a sort of modern updating of the "private detective
Mickey" stories that became the Mouse's primary vehicle for "adventure"
in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. When the comic-book superhero Cyberman
literally "comes to life" and menaces its putative creator, it's up to
Mickey to crack the case.
Star Trek: The Key Collection
Volume 3 (Checker Book Publishing Group). A third "bindle" of tales
from Gold Key's Star Trek title with this bunch coming from the
years 1972, '73, and '74 makes for an entertaining read for someone
who, like me, thinks that the over-inflated Star Trek
"phenomenon" needs some firm re-grounding in the original series'
slightly campy reality. The tales' plots vary in quality, while artist
Alberto Giolitti's work wavers on- and off-model and relies rather too
heavily on what Managing Editor Constance Taylor calls "goofy haircuts"
in its depictions of aliens. (Giolitti does OK with humans and "tentacled
blob"-type creatures as adversaries; it's in that "middle ground" of
semi-believable, human-like alien-looking characters where he seems to
be the least sure of himself.) Plus, whoever picked up the lettering
job starting with "The Haunted Asteroid" should probably have been
working for Charlton rather than Gold Key. Still and all, I'd
rather read something like this than watch "Star Trek: The Greatest
Generation Meets the Voyager of Deep Space" or something similar try
to make viewers believe that this is, in fact, the
"semi-official" future history of humanity's encounter with the cosmos.
Dick Tracy: Unholy Matrimony 5/7/39
to 9/26/39 (Pacific Comics Club). The latest Dick Tracy
reprint volume from Tony Raiola's company features the notorious
sequence wherein Tracy's impatient flame Tess Trueheart, claiming she
"isn't getting any younger," marries the wealthy ex-athlete (and
four-star heel) Edward Nuremoh and lives (barely) to regret it. Driven
semi-crazy by the wedding's gruesome coda, Tess goes "but definitely"
nuts and takes up with a crooked dog-trainer who'd previously tried to
bump her off. The nasty Nuremoh family has all the heart appeal of The
Sopranos, and Tess comes off as a complete buffoon and airhead
throughout. This was not one of Chester Gould's better efforts, and
Tracy's creator seems to have recognized the fact right away, as he soon
thereafter embarked upon his famous run of grotesque villains.
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