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Book and Comic
Reviews
(7/30/06)
Walt Disney's
Comics and Stories #671 (August 2006). For
whatever reason, the latest issue of WDC&S arrived at my
comic-book shop unaccompanied by Uncle $crooge, its usual "travel
partner." David Gerstein avows that both books were indeed released on
the same day, and he would know. As a result, U$ will have to be
put aside for the time being.
In #671's lead story, William Van Horn
celebrates what might be termed "Old Home-Grown Week" by bringing back a
trio of his original character creations: Uncle Rumpus McFowl, con
artist Woimly Filcher, and whistling flea Baron Itsy Bitzy. "Zenith"
finds Donald and HD&L joining Filcher and Rumpus in a quest to ascend
Old Mt. Cranky, with the winner earning the right to rename the
terribly-named tor. (Given that mountain-mastering is the theme here,
wouldn't "Summit" have been a better title? "Zenith"
suggests that everyone is heading straight up.) Rumpus' bow is
little more than a (literal) nod, with most of the inevitable bickering
and one-upmanship being traded by Donald and Filcher. If you're
wondering about Baron I.B.'s role in all this, you'll have to read the
story, as I don't want to spoil what little surprise the "surprise"
ending holds. I can't help but feel that a younger, fresher Van Horn
would've managed to make this supposedly "wacky" contest a whole lot
zanier; a single gag in which the leading "generic" challenger to our
heroes abandons the race after inheriting "a doorknob factory in Kansas"
hardly fills the void. It's a pretty good yarn, but something of a
testament, I'm afraid, to the gradual wind-down of Van Horn's
distinguished career.
In Part 2 of Floyd Gottfredson's
"Mickey Mouse in Love Trouble," the despondent, two-timed Mickey
finally starts giving back as good as he gets after the blonde Millicent
Van Gilt-Mouse, complete with collagen-enhanced lips and (canonical)
rouge spots on her cheeks, suddenly blows into town. Mickey begins what
folks used to call "stepping out" with Milly, to the chagrin of Minnie
and her "new squeeze" Montmorency Rodent. In the course of the ensuing
insult-swappage, Millicent reveals a tart tongue, but Minnie sinks far
lower, going far deeper into "high-snouted bitch" territory than she had
ever or would ever venture. (Her frosty response to Mickey and
Milly's appearance on an otherwise uncrowded beach is a true classic.)
Those who are familiar with this story know what's coming in the
concluding chapter, but Gottfredson keeps the new reader guessing,
though a small hint as to the ultimate denouement is given for
those paying close attention.
Following a decent, if unspectacular,
"summer-themed" Li'l Bad Wolf story from Holland, we get the
second major bow in the Gemstone era for Daisy's nieces April, May, and
June. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", by Pat and Carol McGreal
and artist Rodriquez, rolls out a seemingly obvious but (to my
knowledge) hitherto untried notion: what would happen if AM&J and
Donald's Nephews literally had to trade places? Yep, it's "Drag City"
as the nieces, angling to avoid a boring birthday bash Daisy's cooked up
for them, trick HD&L into donning dresses and false eyelashes under
equally false pretenses. Meanwhile, AM&J, now dressed as the Nephews
and looking forward to having their own sort of fun – exactly
what is never revealed -- are shanghaied by Donald into doing yard
work and then get the unwanted "reward" of a fishing trip. It's not as
clever a plot hook as the wonderful "Dirk Duckly Fan Club" story we got
a while back, but it's a funny idea, provided that you don't look too
close, to wit: How are the kids reasonably expected to disguise their
voices so that Donald and Daisy can't recognize the switch? Why does
Donald finally get wise after AM&J lose their caps (in a plunge
over a waterfall), but not before? On a more philosophical
level, would the girl-hating Nephews I know and love (I'm
thinking in particular of the DuckTales version) assent so
readily to playing "distaff dress-up" just because they think they're
getting a chance to visit an amusement park, and would they forgive AM&J
their undeniable chicanery at the end just because they admired the
girls' fishing and aquatic skills? A few surprisingly sexist notes
(Dewey's reference to Happy Mountain's roller coasters as "no place for
girls," the portrayal of an incredibly lame and clueless
"image-obsessed" Daisy that even Carl Barks might have disavowed)
trouble me as well. I still think the idea is a good one, and I love
Rodriques' artwork, but the execution of the story reminded me of a less
accomplished episode of DuckTales.
After an underwhelming Bucky Bug
story from the 40s (I know Carl Buettner is mailing it in when he
rhymes "this" with "this"!), the issue "pulls into the
pits" with "Final Refuel," the last installment of the Formula
One story arc. My enthusiasm for this serial has cooled a bit over
time, thanks to the repetitive use of the "Will Team McDuck overcome
Glomgold's foul frauds and get to the racecourse in time?" conceit, but
the twist that settles the Formula One title is really difficult
to accept. After dodging so many efforts by Glomgold and his bumbling
"sparkplug-uglies" to cheat and otherwise circumvent the rules, Team
McDuck's ultimate strategy during the final race in Japan is – to
cheat! Granted, TM was provoked by a Glomgold gambit, but if
you're going to set up a "Wacky Racers vs. Dick Dastardly" scenario to
begin with, at least try to maintain some semblance of
consistency in terms of how the characters behave! The climax and coda
are also remarkably weak, given the assumed buildup in reader interest
and excitement that was supposedly a beneficiary of the six-part format.
Overall, I'd have to give the Formula One saga a grade of B- or C+:
worth doing, but a little bit less than the sum of its (spare) parts.
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Walt Disney
Treasures: Disney Comics, 75 Years of Innovation – The Official
Anniversary Book (Gemstone). Phew! That title is long
enough to fit an 18th or 19th century manuscript.
The first installment in the Treasures series is a 160-package
stuffed to the gills with Disney comics stories published between 1930
and 2004. Virtually every major Disney comics creator is represented,
and there's a reasonable mix of reprints and previously unseen (in this
country, anyway) material – though I honestly would have preferred more
of the latter. No doubt, the need to make sure everyone was
included (and, in the cases of Don Rosa and William Van Horn, to save
the relatively small amount of unseen material left to us for the
regular Gemstone books) dictated a number of the choices – which, by and
large, were excellent ones.
Given the fact that there are 25 (!)
features of various lengths presented here, I won't attempt to assess
every single one of them. I will, however, single out a couple of items
for particular praise -- or otherwise. The restoration of Carl Barks'
"Race to the South Seas" is superbly done, even unto the
depiction of the brown-skinned island natives whom Gladstone,
Donald, and HD&L encounter en route to "rescuing" a supposedly marooned
Scrooge. (David Gerstein provides a quasi-"apology" for both this story
and an Uncle Remus Sunday-strip sequence, which I honestly wish
weren't necessary, but better that than not seeing these things at
all.) As the first extended depiction of Gladstone's luck, this tale
would be significant enough, but it's got a crackerjack "contest" theme
to boot. The reprints of Al Taliaferro's Donald Duck sequence
"Donald's Nephews" (the comics introduction of you know who) and
Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey adventure "Foray to Mount Fishflake"
are also well done, though the (mostly silent) action in the shrunken
Sunday-strip panels is easier to follow in the latter. The stories from
overseas are all good to excellent, and we even get an unexpected bonus
when Romano Scarpa, Giorgio Cavazzano, and Dwight Decker's Goofy and
Ellsworth story "AKA Cormorant Number Twelve" features a
prominent role for Scarpa creation Trudy Van Tubb, Pete's paramour in
the Italian comics. (It also features a shockingly angular,
nigh-anorexic version of Goofy.) Only one overseas story is an American
reprint – Freddy Milton, Daan Jippes, and Geoffrey Blum's Donald
tale "Sauce for the Duck," which originally appeared during the
"Gladstone I" era – and even that is acceptable in light of the 20-year
(!) wait since its initial American appearance. Jose Carioca is well
represented in a two-strip reprint from the Sunday feature of the 1940s
and a Brazilian story, "End of the Line," that plays off
then-contemporary shortages in that country. (Apparently, the latter's
a big favorite of Jose's fans in Brazil.) The book closes strongly with
"With Friends like These...", a good showcase for the modern
Egmont version of Mickey that features the elegant artwork of Cesar
Ferioli.
What didn't I like? Erm… I can't
help but think that Bill Van Horn got a little shortchanged, rating only
a Gyro Gearloose and Launchpad McQuack four-page story from the
"Gladstone I" DuckTales title. This may have been the product of
a space crunch and a desire to give Launchpad a spot in the
"lineup," but I would've preferred to see one of the Lustig-Van Horn
confections from DT. (Don Rosa, at least, fares better than Bill
with the reprint of "Fortune on the Rocks," one of his better
early gag stories.) Vicar's one appearance in this collection, as
illustrator of Janet Gilbert's Donald tale "The Leaning Tower
of Meatloaf," is a rather disappointing "tribute" to the works of
this prolific artist. Finally, while the Fethry Duck story
"The Retriever" isn't exactly bad, this Dick Kinney-Al
Hubbard yarn surely qualifies as strange: Fethry asks to borrow
Donald's pet cat Tabby to help him go duck-hunting! Not only
that, but the semi-realistic mallard targets are capable of speech!
Boy, and here I thought making sense of the "universe" of Cars
was tough…
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(7/23/06)
Donald Duck
and Friends #342 (August 2006). Never
underestimate the power of reputation. Despite the fact that the
featured item in this issue is unquestionably the 1966 Vic Lockman-Tony
Strobl adventure "Og's Iron Bed," to the extent that Strobl's
original cover (a fine effort, I might add) from Donald Duck #109
is reprinted as well, the book leads off with a Carl Barks reprint
from 1944. "The High-Wire Walkers" is a good story for its era,
focusing on HD&L's success at tightrope walking and Donald's inevitable
attempt to top it (and, of course, profit handsomely in the process) by
conquering Niagara Falls, but it surely wouldn't have been an insult to
Barks' memory had "Og's Iron Bed" taken the lead slot instead. As David
Gerstein makes clear in the editor's column – and Duck fan Pete
Fernbaugh made even clearer in an excellent analysis of the story
published several years ago in The Harveyville Fun Times! --
"Bed" ranks as one of Lockman's most ambitious attempts to craft his own
version of a Duck adventure epic. What sets this story apart from so
many of Lockman's fanciful late-60s soufflés is the fact that he draws
directly upon one of his own "areas of expertise" for ideas, much as
Barks frequently used the National Geographic as a reference
source and Don Rosa occasionally draws upon his engineering background.
King Og of Bashan, whose "beat-up" old iron bedstead Scrooge has
purchased for $1 million – leading him to commission Donald, HD&L, and
Gyro to travel back in time to get photographic evidence that the bed
really was Og's and thus justify a profitable museum donation –
is no fanciful creation of Lockman, but a figure from the Old
Testament. The "big slaughter" that engulfs our century-crossing
canard-chicken combo in ancient Bashan is actually the battle between
the Israelites and the Amorites that wound up destroying Og's kingdom.
A frequent producer of illustrated religious pamphlets, Lockman knew his
Scriptures well, and he sows the story with other Biblical references
above and beyond the basic Og-plot. Evil inventor Emil Eagle, a Lockman
creation, provides the obligatory rival to the Ducks for possession of
Og's bed. To be sure, Lockman didn't make any overt references
to "Bed"'s Biblical roots, but if Barks and Rosa deserve praise (and
they do) for their use of real historical and physical details, then
surely Lockman rates the same sort of encomium for his fine effort
here. A one-page Goofy gag, "Light the Fire," provides
the issue's obligatory piece of non-Duck-related material – and it's a
clever one.
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Mickey Mouse
and Friends #291 (August 2006). This issue's main
feature, Stefan Petrucha and Noel Van Horn's engagingly offbeat "Flip
Mickey," may not be "high-concept" in the manner of such earlier
Mouse tales as the McGreals' "Shambor" series, but it certainly
qualifies as a story with a purpose other than to merely entertain.
Thanks to the efforts of a "high-tech hypnotist," Mickey is bamboozled
into becoming "a mystery-hating, adventure-hating romantic fop"
at the request of a riled-up Minnie, who's resentful of Mickey's charge
that she is too enamored of "refined and domesticated stuff." The
overarching intent – as David Gerstein explains in an editorial
"backgrounder" – was to satirize the dull, bland, "straight-man" version
of Mickey that appeared in several animated shorts, came to be the
standard representation of the character in the gag-a-day era of the
Mickey comic strip, and is still referenced by many
non-Disney fans when they attempt to explain why they do not respect
Mickey as a viable, interesting character. Even if David hadn't
made the point clear to the reader, it becomes explicit when the
"anti-Mickey" dons the Bing Crosby-esque hat and bow tie that became a
regular part of his wardrobe after World War II. (For obvious reasons,
Mickey doesn't adopt a pipe as well, though it certainly would have been
fitting.) Admittedly, the canasta-loving, art-ogling,
restaurant-hopping sap we're left with here (after several hooded thugs
disable and kidnap the hypnotist, that is) is something of a "straw
mouse," in the sense that he was merely one version of the
postwar Mickey, existing alongside the "cheerful bandleader" of The
Mickey Mouse Club and the "dogged detective" of the Paul Murry
comic-book stories. Then, too, the story doesn't really address the
more fundamental problem with the modern image of Mickey –
namely, that his overall status as an unquestioned "good guy" has fallen
out of favor in a cynical, overly ironic era that likes to tear down,
"deconstruct," or otherwise attach "clay feet" to its icons. Given the
limitations of its viewpoint, however, the tale is an excellent one.
The sight of Minnie trying valiantly to motivate the blasé "anti-Mickey"
into helping her track down villain Sylvester Shyster, who's using the
hypnotist's (battery-powered!) staff to bamboozle all of Mouseton while
he steals "the most valuable mirror in the country," provides plenty of
laughs in and of itself, and even the somewhat predictable climax
doesn't detract from the essential strength of the plot. NVH's
supporting artwork is superb.
In its own way, the backup Mickey
tale, the McGreals' "The Old Switcheroo," represents something of
a departure from the norm, despite the fact that it recycles the
"body-switching plot" that fans of the Disney Afternoon TV series
(among other venues) remember seeing all too many times. Using an
ancient artifact from the cult of Janus, the "two-faced" Roman god, the
Phantom Blot trades torsos with Mickey, intending to use Mickey's
(presumed) "universal" popularity to rise to world domination. As I
watched Mickey/Blot gloat over how he would rewrite laws and dominate
the World Court and the U.N., I suddenly got the feeling that an episode
of Pinky and the Brain had suddenly "broken out." At that point,
I began to watch out for the inevitable "small flaw" that doomed so many
of Brain's schemes -- and its revelation wasn't long in coming.
Mickey/Blot quickly realizes that his unique image of The Mouse as "a
clever, relentless nemesis" doesn't account for the fact that Mickey is
a "regular schmoe" who must endure such mundane pains as going to boring
garden parties with Minnie, helping Goofy with repair work, and
confronting neighbors who are upset about the misbehaving Pluto – and
who, despite his reputation, would never be allowed to dominate
the world. The disenthralled do-badder wastes little time in returning
things to the status quo and skedaddling. Jesper Lund Madsen's
somewhat simplistic artwork wouldn't have made sense for "Flip Mickey,"
but it seems to fit the animated-cartoon sensibility of this story quite
well. In fact, I'm almost sorry that this tale didn't show up on an
episode of House of Mouse.
Filling in the cracks of a great issue,
the three-page Donald story "Get a Life" almost seems to
warrant a more extended treatment. After Donald gets a PDA, he's forced
to come to grips with the fact that he has no schedule to organize – and
henceforth, he becomes an "active Duck" in all manner of ways. That is,
until the PDA suffers a slight mishap… Another excellent effort from
Janet Gilbert, adequately supported by artist Santanach.
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Carl Barks'
Greatest DuckTales Stories, Volume 2
(Gemstone). Second collection, same (idea) as the first, except
that there's no David Gerstein-penned featurette to back up the
introduction by Joe Torcivia and yours truly. "The Giant Robot
Robbers," "The Golden Fleecing," "The Horseradish Story," "The Status
Seeker," "The Unsafe Safe," and "The Land of Tralla La," all adapted by
DuckTales with varying degrees of fidelity, are reprinted
herein. (The TV series did use additional bits and pieces of
Barks stories – most memorably, the money-dam collapse from "Only a Poor
Old Man" in "Liquid Assets," the first installment of the epic that
introduced Fenton Crackshell/Gizmoduck – but those stories were not
included in these volumes.) Joe and I will likely raise some hackles
with our contention that the DT take on "Tralla La" was markedly
superior to Barks' original – will anyone respond, and, if so, in what
forum? The first volume reportedly sold well, and the second will
likely do the same, so it's not as if there won't be any potential
objectors…
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Movie
Reviews
(7/17/06)
Little Lulu
Vol. 10: All Dressed Up (Dark Horse). This latest
agglomeration of John Stanley's Lulu stories features two tales
previously reprinted in The Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics,
the locus of my first exposure to Stanley's work. "Five Little
Babies" is frequently held up by longtime Lulu fans as an
epitome of the "comical escalation" in which Stanley specialized; now
that I've finally read the tale "in context," as it were, I can readily
agree. As an exemplar of the "Lulu is humiliated by the 'fellers' and
turns the tables in clever and painful fashion," one could hardly top
the sights of (1) "fresh rich kid" Wilbur van Snobbe somehow convincing
Lulu to trail in his wake on her hands and knees while carrying a ball
in her mouth, or (2) Lulu contriving to expose Wilbur and his
co-conspiratorial "clubhouse pals" to general ridicule by forcing them
to wear diapers in public. "The Little Rich Boy," an entry in
the "Alvin Story Telling Time" series, spotlights a similar
bouleversement, as "poor girl" Lulu suddenly gets rich and then gets
even with the nasty little richnik who'd previously scorned her. One
other significant highlight of this package is the first appearance of
Witch Hazel, the evil witch who'd come to menace Lulu in a number of
"fantasy" stories. Hazel was the first continuing character in
these "storytelling tales," and, as such, may represent the first
evidence that Stanley's well of inventiveness was starting to run dry,
much as Carl Barks' overuse of Magica de Spell in the early 60s
indicated a certain degree of flagging energy. I'll be interested to
see how often Hazel appears in the next several collections…
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Mickey Mouse
Adventures #10 (Gemstone). A marvelous issue, the
best MMA offering for quite a while. Interestingly, all three
stories are portmanteau offerings of sorts, combining ideas and
themes from several different sources, yet the storytelling is no less
crisp and coherent for all that.
Pat and Carol McGreal and Massimo
Fecchi's "May the Farce Be With You" is, as you might expect, a
Star Wars parody, originally produced to coincide with the
release of SW Episode II: Attack of the Clones. What lifts this
effort above others of the genre is its combining of elements from
ALL of the Star Wars movies, gathering within its grasp
everything from Darth Maul to the Ewoks. Overall, the McGreals manage
to keep the "long ago/far away" laughs coming without resorting to
overly crude or sarcastic humor in the manner of a Mad parody.
The setup is admittedly a stretch: Gyro's "realism-enhancing" device,
which the inventor has contributed to the opening of the latest Star
Force (sic) epic, sucks Mickey, Donald, and Goofy into the
"universe" behind the movie screen. There, M&D play heroic pals Luke
Puddlehopper and Drumm Solo, while Goofy assumes the role of… well, it's
pretty easy to guess even before the secret is revealed, but I'm
going to preserve the "suspense" for those who haven't read the story
yet. M&D bicker rather more than we have come to expect – I don't
recall them being anywhere near as nasty towards each other at
any point of the McGreals' earlier "Mythos Island" saga – but their
byplay is funny nonetheless, as is the McGreals' clever take on the
mangled grammar of Master Yoyo, the unexpectedly esurient Jedi trainer.
Cleverest gag: Donald outfitting the cute and cuddly Ewok-clones (who,
like the C3PO and Chewbacca stand-ins, never do get named) with
different types of garb a la the Vermont Teddy Bears.
In John Blair Moore and Fecchi's
Donald "sandwich" story, "Healthy Choice," we get a mixture
of sorts of the DuckTales episode "The Big Flub" and the Michael
T. Gilbert/William Van Horn classic "That Ol' Soft Soap." Like "Soap,"
this tale comes down to a no-holds-barred "marketing war" between
turf-protecting Scrooge and up-and-coming Donald, whose "video course in
salesmanship" leads to remarkable success when he promotes Gyro's "Snifflezap"
as the long-sought "cure for the common cold." With assistance from
Daisy, HD&L, the Nephews' pals, and the Junior Woodchucks, Donald soon
has Scrooge's "McDuck Medicine" on the ropes, despite the best efforts
of Scrooge's crack sales and advertising staffs. (Scrooge ultimately
becomes so desperate that he authorizes the distribution of – gasp!
– free samples.) Daisy, HD&L, and Gyro are first amazed at, then
increasingly disturbed by, Donald's apparent knack for high-caliber
huckstering. Ultimately, however, the "Big Flub" half of the equation
kicks in, as Donald (like Fenton Crackshell) learns too late that Gyro's
warning that the wonder-product's "long-term effects" haven't been fully
evaluated was given with good reason. Some funny dialogue and
first-rate Fecchi art give this story a remarkable level of energy and
overall likeability. Notable, too, are the appearances of such
infrequently seen "kid characters" as HD&L's pig pal Herbert, the boys'
friend Garvey Gull (who hasn't been formally introduced in this country
yet, but I'm assured that he soon will be), and Glittering Goldie's
niece Dickie Duck (a Romano Scarpa creation making only her second
American appearance here).
The second Mickey story in MMA
has generally been reserved for a tale from the Italian digest
Topolino. The previous efforts we've seen have mostly been OK, but,
with Bruno Sarda, Dwight Decker, and Giuseppe Dalla Santa's "Double
Danger," we get a real gem – a sort of "three-way collision"
between the Disney "universe's version of The Prince and the Pauper,
The Man in the Iron Mask, and the Floyd Gottfredson classic "The
Monarch of Medioka." This time around, the pivotal figure gets a sex
change. Vacationing Mickey and Minnie fall in with Rattistani rebels
who wish to restore an unjustly deposed ruler and depose her "wicked"
sister – both of whom have features identical to Minnie's. But are the
rebels – or, for that matter, the Rattistani police chief – or, for
another matter, the "wicked" Queen Sita – all that they appear to
be? Sarda (and translator Decker) manage to sustain legitimate suspense
and uncertainty almost until the end, not an easy task. Just as
remarkably, Minnie, who is called upon to portray the potentate for the
good of the rebels' cause, spends much of the tale in need of rescue,
yet the story is most definitely not a throwback to the days when
Mickey and Minnie filled stereotypical hero/damsel roles, as Minnie cuts
every bit as strong a figure as her man here. Dalla Santa's artwork is
somewhat on the angular side but is excellent nonetheless.
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Shanda the
Panda #45 (April 2006 [note the cover date]).
Admittedly, my level of tolerance for the quality level of
"micro-press" independent projects is rather more generous than that for
material produced by the likes of DC Comics or Gemstone. This being
said, there is, quite simply, no excuse whatsoever for the shoddy
shape of the latest installment of Mike Curtis' anthropomorphic,
mature-audience "slice of life" comic. The lead story squanders a
golden opportunity to use Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf
States (from whence "male lead" Richard Sabatier hails) in a really
meaningful way in the story line. The "artwork" is embarrassingly
amateurish, the lettering is worse than that, and the paper
quality is poor. The whole production looks as if it were traced from
sketch form directly onto the page. The backup stories aren't much
better. In the second one, in which a lecherous "senator from
Massachusetts" (sound familiar?) attempts to score with a Cedar Rabbits
policewoman, the first dialogue balloon contains microscopic print that
is literally too small to read. This isn't some
"hit-and-run" outfit we're talking about here: Shanda Fantasy Arts has
been producing this title for 13 years. Whatever happened to
taking pride in your own creations? What possessed Mike Curtis to
permit this "dog" to escape (and rather late, to boot, judging by the
cover date)? If he can't find better helpmates than this, then
Curtis should seriously consider folding Shanda, in order to
preserve what remains of its reputation. I will admit, however, that
that last story ends up giving a whole new meaning to the phrase
"getting screwed by the Democrats." :-)
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(7/2/06)
Walt Disney's
Comics and Stories #670 (July 2006). Sorry I
didn't review this book last week; I was still catching up on my
reading, post-Nebraska. The latest WDC&S features a trio of
intriguing reprints: a Jose Carioca story from WDC&S #28 –
that's three issues before stories by Carl Barks began to appear
in the title, BTW – a Li'l Bad Wolf tale from the 1950
Vacation Parade annual, and, choicest of all, the first installment
of "Love Trouble," a Mickey Mouse strip continuity from
1941. This last was one of the very few continuities from Floyd
Gottfredson's salad days that "Gladstone I" could have reprinted
(bereft as it is of ethnic stereotypes and similarly Verboten
themes) but did not. The single best thing about this reprint is the
format: four tiers per page and two large panels per tier, very
closely approximating the dimensions of the original comic strips. For
years, Gottfredson's work has suffered at the hands of well-meaning
reformatters who treated his art roughly as they attempted to fit it
onto comic-book pages. Would that "G-I" had had the resources to use
Gemstone's layout in the late 80s and early 90s – not to mention the
technology required to color the panels without having to mix together
tints and leftover Ben-Day in a muddy mess. "Trouble" itself ranks as
the finest of Gottfredson's few outright domestic comedies. Minnie
decides that Mickey has dashed off on high adventure without her once
too often and decides to get back at him by taking up with "another
mouse." In this case, it's the lanky, debonair Montmorency Rodent,
who's in effect a "relaunch" of Mickey's old romantic rival, Mortimer
Mouse. (The "Monty" character design has since literally become
the one used for Mortimer, completing the transition with grim
finality.) The stunned Mickey finds himself having to fight Monty for
Minnie's affections – and the battle quickly becomes one-sided in favor
of Monty, whose parlor tricks and dancing abilities are the 1941
equivalent of "da bomb." Mickey manages to hold his temper, with the
exception of one memorable sequence in which he literally walks
through Minnie's picture window (a scene excised from previous
reprints of this tale), but burdened as he is by his lower-middle-class
mannerisms and a few untimely spells of clumsiness, he'll have to think
fast if he wants to appear on a stamp with Minnie some 65 years hence…
The Carioca story, "The
Carnival King," actually predates the Brazilian parrot's
animated debut in Saludos Amigos (1943); Jose similarly appeared
in the Sunday Silly Symphonies page at about the time that this
story was printed. Carl Buettner's tale shows Carioca's "elegant
con-artist" persona to good advantage. The brazen bird poses as a
burglar in order to crash a masquerade ball and dance with the
inevitable distaff bird bombshell. (Seeing as how Lolo, "the famous
samba dancer," and Jose won the "Best Costume Award" despite the fact
that Lolo was wearing the exact same costume as the one she'd
previously worn for newspaper photographs, I have to believe that the
proverbial "feex" was in.) Alas, Jose is soon on the run again as a
policeman mistakes him for a real burglar. Nothing so spicy
occurs in Gil Turner's Li'l Bad Wolf tale, a simple story of a
camping trip gone awry, but Zeke Wolf and Li'l Bad do get to cross paths
with Bent-Tail Coyote Senior and Junior, the stars of a contemporary
Disney short. BT Jr. mistakes Zeke for a giant chicken (do I hear
Warner Bros.' Henery Hawk mumbling something about residuals?), and the
expected slapstick chaos concludes with the Wolves hightailing it for
home, pursued by angry hornets.
Elsewhere in the ish, "Wheels of
Fire," Part 5 of the Formula One series, finds the Ducks in Italy,
where Glomgold, devious as ever, schemes to keep Donald and the Team
McDuck racer from reaching the race site in time. With his clunky truck
transport broken down, Donald has to use the racer itself to get to the
starting line, which he really should have thought to do from the start
(that is, if he'd remembered his Speed Racer plots). The plots
are starting to get repetitive, right down to the concluding "raging
chase-off" scene, so it's probably just as well that this series will
wind up next issue… A "temporary obsession" conceit powers the issue's
lead Donald story, Fred Milton, Daan Jippes, and David Gerstein's
"Rewarding Formula," but the tale is no less entertaining for all
that. Donald, who's blindly prejudiced against scientists for some
reason, finds himself in a battle of wits with a hidden egghead at a
remote "science center," but HD&L suspect that there's more going on
than meets the eye. Sure enough, the boys discover that two crooks are
inside trying to wangle a secret formula from a research scientist, and
they come to the rescue the "scientific" (or at least ingenious) way.
This must have been one of Milton and Jippes' earliest "Barks-like"
stories; aside from the date code, there are a couple of Duck poses that
appear to have been "inspired" directly by Barks… Finally, in Stefan
Petrucha and Santanach's "Scream Team," Gyro and Donald get
scared when they hear dreadful noises from Gyro's "post-temporal
recorder," indicating that something bad is going to happen in Gyro's
lab in a couple of hours. You kinda suspect from the start who's
inevitably going to wind up making all that racket, though, so the
"twist" ending really isn't one.
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Movie
Reviews
Cars
(Disney/Pixar). Nicky and I were slow to see this, turned off as we
were by the generally negative reviews -- and, more significantly, by
Nicky's (entirely accurate) recognition, upon learning of the movie's
plot, that Pixar was ripping off the decade-old Michael J. Fox vehicle
Doc Hollywood. That Pixar, which has shown such refreshing
originality while building its reputation as the most reliably
outstanding animation house in Hollywood, should choose to swipe a plot
in such brazen fashion seemed downright unbelievable. Now that we've
seen the movie, we can only echo Alley Oop's Dr. Wonmug and
personally attest to the fact that we have, in fact, "beheld the
unheard-of." Pixar doesn't even attempt to hide the
similarities; Sally, the cute little Porsche who's the main romantic
interest for arrogant racing car Lightning McQueen, is a former "city
coupe" who's found a comfort zone (parking space?) in the
decaying-yet-friendly backwater town of Radiator Springs – just like the
Julie Warner character in Doc Hollywood – and the
elderly-yet-proud ex-racer (voiced by Paul Newman) who challenges
McQueen's self-centeredness (and, along with other denizens of Radiator
Springs, ultimately comes to L.A. to help McQueen in his battle to win
the Piston Cup) has a direct parallel in the town doctor who faces off
against, then comes to respect, Michael J. Fox. Did the pressure to get
out another feature as quickly as possible finally catch up with Pixar
here, as it ultimately did with Disney in the waning days of its 2-D
animation studio? Or perhaps Pixar's attention was partially diverted
by work on another feature (Ratatouille, slated for release next
Summer). Whatever the reason, Cars is the first Pixar feature to
have that unsettling "assembly-line" (sorry) feel that plagued the last
several Disney 2-D releases. I suppose it was inevitable, but it's
still disheartening to see.
In several other aspects, Cars
mirrors the machines it uses as stand-ins for humans (not to mention
animals [tractors and combines] and insects [literal VW "bugs"]!). At
its core, the movie purrs like a car's motor, but it lacks any sort of
organic "Heart." Gone are the family dynamics of The Incredibles
and the emotional heights and depths experienced by the Toy Story
characters. Instead, we get predictable collisions between predictable
stereotypes, most of whom are amusing, but whose shticks are easily
forgotten. The banal (albeit good-natured) bickering between Sarge (the
surplus-supply-store jeep) and Fillmore (the "hippie" microbus voiced by
George Carlin) sums it up as well as anything can. I got the distinct
impression that the Pixar scenarists carefully identified certain
elements of their target audience ("straight arrows" [Sarge], 60s
leftovers [Fillmore], elderly folks [Lizzie], blacks [Flo], other
ethnics [Luigi, Guido, and Ramon], red-state rednecks ["Larry the Cable
Guy"'s mildly irritating Mater]) and designed their characters to meet
certain demographic specifications. "Custom features" may have a place
on cars, but they're a rather cold-blooded notion around which to build
the supporting cast of a movie. Lightning McQueen may have undergone a
true change of heart (or should we say, "undergone a life-changing
transmission"?) during his involuntary sojourn in Radiator Springs, but,
unlike Michael J. Fox' character, who ultimately decided to return to
the small town he had gradually come to love, McQueen's salvation comes
when the other characters decide to help him. McQueen ultimately
proves the sincerity of his "conversion" during the climactic race that
decides the winner of the Piston Cup. Even so, the fortunate fact that
the other vehicles showed up at precisely the right moment struck me as
something of a cheat.
Technically, Cars is excellent.
The Pixar animators shine with particular radiance during the races that
serve as the bookends of the movie. (Actually, since we're in a world
of sentient cars here, aren't McQueen and his fellow competitors
actually participating in the equivalent of a foot race? Would
this make the "Interstate Highway" that has left Radiator Springs to
wither on the vine the car-world's version of an extremely lengthy
running trail?) Notable, too, are the breathtaking desert vistas
that Sally shows an awestruck McQueen during a casual drive – er, run –
er, whatever. This last may have been an homage paid by director John
Lasseter to Chuck Jones of "Road Runner & Coyote" fame (it is well known
that Lasseter counts Jones as one of his creative inspirations). The
movie could easily have been shortened, however; I heard youthful
fidgeting during Cars that I'd never heard during any other
theatrical showing of a Pixar flick. Cars certainly doesn't
qualify as a terrible movie, but it's not terribly involving, either.
Hopefully, Ratatouille will show that Pixar is back on the right
track – er, running trail – er, I know when to quit…
As is Pixar's fashion, Cars is
preceded by a short -- in this case, One-Man Band. It's an
amusing little tale in which two street musicians try (and fail) to
convince a cute little urchin to part with her one gold piece. Band
isn't particularly ambitious or groundbreaking, but it's good, like
all the other Pixar palate-cleansers.
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