Book and Comic
Reviews
(3/26/06)
Mickey Mouse
and Friends #287 (April 2006). The original Mickey
comic-book stories that appeared in the Four Color series during
the 1940s don't measure up to the best of Carl Barks or Floyd
Gottfredson, but they possess a naοve charm nonetheless. "The World
Under the Sea," a 1948 story drawn by Bill Wright and reprinted in
this issue, is in every respect typical of the breed. If logic isn't
totally thrown to the winds, it's certainly pitched into a light breeze
as Goofy builds an "underwater tank" that actually works,
enabling Mickey and the Goof to take a trip in search of Atlantis. The
duo instead find a cave containing what amounts to a pocket-sized
version of the surface world, including a kingdom of dogfaces, a woods,
a desert, and a villainous usurper who seeks to use technology to extort
money (in dollars, yet) from the kingdom's rotund monarch. An
obvious question: Why bother putting all of this under the sea,
anyway? Surely Mickey has visited enough Ruritanian lands above sea
level (heck, he even ran one in Gottfredson's "Monarch of Medioka"
story) that placing this new one on legitimate dry land wouldn't
have made that much of a difference? As absurd as it is, the story is
entertaining (with Wright's delightful art an obvious highlight) and
does avoid casting Goofy as a dope for once, giving him a few moments of
legitimate ingenuity. A Donald three-pager, "That Darn Hat,"
and a decent Rodriques-Kinney Mickey tale, "For the Birds,"
round out the issue.
Donald Duck
and Friends #338 (April 2006). Carl Barks' "ten-pager"
"The Easter Election" leads off this enjoyable book. Reprinted
in celebration of its
uh, 53rd anniversary (I
have no idea what to give as a present), the classic Donald-vs.-Gladstone
matchup delivers a funny twist ending that leaves the lucky gander
grateful that he didn't best Donald for the role of Grand Marshal
of Duckburg's Easter Parade. Cesar Ferioli, C.R. Teixido, and Sarah
Kinney then score a ten-strike (or, should I say, reach the ninth level
of consciousness) with the Mickey story "Guru Goofy."
After Mickey and Goofy meet a cantankerous sage atop a mountain and
"enjoy" a soupcon of quickie enlightenment, Goofy decides to
become a guru full-time. Faced with the functional equivalent of a
permanent loss of his old friend, Mickey must convince Goofy that "Goofism"
is a dead end. How he does so may surprise those readers who would
expect Goofy to immediately succumb to the obvious temptation of
returning to his regular routine of cheeseburgers and Flip the Fish
comic books. This is one of Kinney's better Goofy-centered stories, and
that's no small complement considering her track record. Ferioli and
Teixido do a super job on facial expressions, especially those flashed
by the nasty Nirvana-noodler who gets Goofy on the guru kick to begin
with. Bringing up the rear is Gorm Transgaard, David Gerstein, and
Vicar's Donald story "Master of Mice," the latest version
of the well-worn but always welcome "mastery" theme. After Donald
"finds and masters his true purpose in life" (that makes about 78 times
he's done so, by my count) and goes into business as a super-successful
mouse-catcher, he's hired to protect the wares at Duckburg's
International Cheese Festival. He should have offed his muscine
captives (whom he's unaccountably kept as "trophies" -- even bringing
their cage with him on his jobs in order to facilitate quick "storage")
when he had the chance. I have read better "mastery" tales in my time,
but Gerstein does his usual great job dialoguing the story, even using
the groan-inducing pun "weapon of mouse destruction" before all's
said and done. (And here I thought I'd cornered the market on
rancid puns.)
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(3/19/06)
Little Lulu
Volume 8: Late for School (Dark Horse Publishing). Forever
to be immortalized, in my mind at least, as The "Flying Turkey" Issue.
The undeniable highlight of yet another fun, fine collection of John
Stanley's Little Lulu stories is a Thanksgiving epic in which
Lulu wins a turkey in a raffle that she didn't even enter in the first
place. The "free bird" proves quite a handful for Lulu and her little
friend Annie to handle, up to and including carrying Lulu in its talons
as it soars through the air. Yes, you read that right. This story
illustrates one of the fundamental differences between John Stanley and
Carl Barks. Stanley, based in New York, may have set his Lulu
stories in a no-name small town, but he was a city guy at heart. I
betcha (to use a Lulu-ism) the only turkeys he had seen when he wrote
this story were the ones in the butcher's window. Carl Barks, born and
raised on a farm, would never have let such a gaffe get its head in the
door. It's an honest mistake, but all the funnier for that reason. One
other note: Some of the later stories in this volume do not appear to
have been inked by Stanley's regular inker, Irving Tripp. The style is
livelier and sketchier than Tripp's. I am not an expert on Lulu, but I
suspect that Stanley may have taken on the job himself, since the
Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics quoted Stanley as saying that
he considered Tripp's work to be too "static."
Blue Blood:
Duke-Carolina, Inside the Most Storied Rivalry in College Hoops
by Art Chansky (St. Martin's Press). This completes Chansky's
trilogy-of-sorts on North Carolina basketball; he had previously written
The Dean's List and Dean's Domain, both about former UNC
Coach Dean Smith. In the time-honored tradition of "never throwing
anything anyway," Chansky includes many of the same anecdotes that
graced his earlier books, but, to be fair, he goes into more detail in
most cases. He also surveys a wider field than previously, tracing the
history of the Duke-UNC rivalry from the earliest times to the present
(2004-05 season). There are some factual errors that might have been
eliminated with greater editorial diligence, such as the
misidentification of Jim Nantz as the lead announcer on the famous
Duke-Kentucky East Regional final of 1992. (It was actually Verne
Lundquist, and no, it's not that hard to check, since clips from
that game appear constantly during CBS' broadcasts of Tournament
action.) The book is very thorough and, though it displays a slight
bias towards UNC, does do a reasonably even-handed job of detailing the
highs and lows of the love-hate relationships between the geographical
and athletic rivals. It's definitely a good choice for the college
basketball fan's permanent library.
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(3/6/06)
Uncle $crooge
#351 (March 2006). It's hard to tell what will get the
moniker "Classic" hung on a work of art. Nowadays, any ordinary
household implement liberally garnished with human body wastes would
seem to qualify. The Italian Disney comics fans have somewhat better
taste than that, and they've long regarded Romano Scarpa's 1950s story
"Anti-Dollarosis," published in America for the first time in
this issue, with considerable reverence as one of Scarpa's greatest
early stories, so who am I to sour the ricotta and disagree? Actually,
it wasn't hard to find flaws in this tale of Scrooge seeking a remedy
for the titular malady from a scientist who lives on what appears
to be an extinct volcanic island. Scarpa wanders away from the
relatively simple plot (which bears some resemblance to the plot of the
DuckTales episode "The Money Vanishes," right down to the guest
appearance by the Beagle Boys) for several annoyingly lengthy stretches
and gives the Ducks themselves surprisingly little to do. Evidently,
Gladstone I's decision to introduce Scarpa to American readers in the
late 80s with several stories of a slightly later vintage was a wise
one.
The rest of the ish is OK, on balance. John Lustig and Daniel Branca
team up for "The Grouch Kings of Duckburg," in which snarling
Scrooge butts head with an equally cantankerous grouch, Prunepuss J.
Crabapple Duckburg's "undisputed King of the Grumps!" -- who appears
to have nipped in from a neighborhood William Van Horn story. Branca
draws Prunepuss with an oversized schnozzle, in the manner of a W.C.
Fields type, and does well by the character, but I'd love to have seen
how Van Horn would've portrayed him. The plot well, really, doesn't
exist per se but it's good to see Lustig in Gemstone harness again.
"Race of the Snails" features the first American appearance of Dutch
artist Ben Verhagen, a Gladstone I staple, in many a year. Scrooge finds
himself in one of the oddest competitions of his life when he races a
stereotypical Texas oilman for the rights to an inheritance with the
prize going to the competitor who crosses the finish line last .
Amazingly enough, Scrooge loses, but after seeing how shabbily he
treats Donald and the Nephews along the way, you won't mind the outcome
too much. In Jens Hansegard, David Gerstein, and Vicar's "White
Gold," Scrooge again plays the role of "heavy" as he enlists Donald
and Gyro in his efforts to corner the snow-removal market in Duckburg
and thereby gain a cheap source of water to sell to the Maharajah of
Howduyustan's parched citizenry. Scrooge again ends up outsmarting
himself, but this time, he makes the best of the bad situation. Finally,
Pat and Shelly Block also check in with the three-page "Pearls of
Wisdom," which is, quite frankly, embarrassingly lame: Scrooge
thinks an entire bin of pearls has been stolen and calls in the cavalry
before realizing that the bin is so big that it was "hiding in
plain sight" all along. Right
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Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
#666 (March 2006). Gemstone celebrates WDC&S'
reaching of a rather ominous milestone with an audacious gesture: a
reprinting of "Mickey's Inferno," a lengthy Italian story from
the late 1940s that has long enjoyed a special sort of cachet among
internationally-minded Disney fans. Writer Guido Martina and artist
Angelo Bioletto's bold decision to retell Dante's Inferno with
the Disney characters of the era was probably a greater risk 60 years
ago than it was today, given the general public's greater familiarity
with the source material and the consequent potential for claims of
inappropriate or irreverent treatment. But considering that Dante
himself was not above putting contemporary popes and other Church
figures in Hell, he might have reacted much like the Dante-stand-in in
this story, who threatens the (hooded) artist and writer with an
evisceration by pen-nib but ultimately relents when Mickey points out
that a Disney version of Inferno might cause young readers to
gain new affection for the epic poem. The story itself, with David
Gerstein doing yeomanlike work in converting Dwight Decker's prose
English translation into an approximation of Dante's terza rima
scheme, is more interesting in some places than in others, but the sheer
improbability of the idea carries the reader along. Scattered amongst
the tortures handed out to innumerable generic Disney dogfaces and
numerous teachers (including groan a couple of math-peddlers), we
get such memorable scenes as Zeke Wolf being picked clean to the bone by
an exploding pig and Eli Squinch (the turnip-squeezing skinflint created
by Floyd Gottfredson for the Mickey comic strip) being consumed
by flames emanating from his hoarded money. (Scrooge had just been
created when this story debuted, so he was probably never a candidate
for this particular "honor".) Donald undergoes the largest number of
transformations, being turned into a ghost and a flock of Harpies (yes,
really) before managing to escape to a higher realm. About the only real
complaint I have is that the tale was printed in what appears to be its
original comic-strip format, meaning that the panels had to be shrunk to
fit on each page. Gemstone should consider a larger-scale reprint in a
specialty graphic album, perhaps a more modest version of the format
used for David Gerstein's book Mickey and the Gang. (Just
wondering: In Disney's version of Hades, who would inhabit Limbo, the
First Circle of Hell, where all the good pagans went? Would all the
Warner Bros., Fleischer/Famous, and Walter Lantz characters wind up
there?)
The highlight of the rest of the issue (and, with "Inferno" clocking
in at a cool 37 pages, there isn't much room left) is "Wonder Down
Under," part one of a six-part cycle of stories written by Per-Erik
Hedman and dialogued by Pat McGreal, in which Scrooge and Flintheart
Glomgold match pits uh, wits against one another in a series of
Formula I auto races. The main problem I can see developing here, apart
from a Wacky Races sort of repetitiveness not to mention
possible appearances by the likes of Racer X and the Car Acrobatic Team
is that Scrooge and Glomgold won't truly be competing against each
other. In this first installment, Scrooge tries to give his driving
job to an old Australian acquaintance but finds that the latter is too
obese to drive, then has Donald guided by the Aussie ace via remote
control take the wheel and earn victory. Scrooge has little to do but
fret and/or celebrate on the sidelines. Glomgold's role is even tinier.
The tale is bannered as a Donald Duck story, which makes sense, I
suppose, but so many characters are involved HD&L as pit crew, Daisy
as PR liaison, and Gyro as automotive techie that even Don will
probably be more "along for the ride" than anything else. At least
artist Flemming Andersen, who's done such good work on the TNT
series in the Donald Duck Adventures pocket books, will finally
get a nice, leisurely opportunity to fully introduce himself to readers
of the "regular" Gemstone titles.
Mickey Mouse Adventures
#8 (March 2006). Since when is Eega Beeva an alien from outer
space??? That's the premise that we're obliged to swallow in "Project
Volcania," a lengthy story written and drawn by Guiseppe Zironi in
which Eega takes Mickey to the "planet of Psaint Pvalentine" to buy a
gift for Minnie. The doodad, a "Turbo-automatic Hair-Styling Helmet,"
ends up causing trouble when it falls into the "Great Mouseton Tar Pits"
and is snaffled by some underground aliens who want to make over Earth
in their own image, and
but why am I bothering telling you all this,
because it's all a dream. What a pointless exercise (and to top
it all of in the manner of a rancid Maraschino atop a dunghill sundae,
Zironi plays the "green card" and tries to work in a preachy
environmental theme). At least the Mouse-tale in the back of the issue,
Michael T. Gilbert and Joaquin's "Colder than Ice," fares better.
A crashing meteor turns Mickey into the thermodynamic equivalent of a
black hole, sucking heat away from anything that comes near him. Some
ruthless, but blessedly inept, minions from a nearby "secret government
lab" put Mickey to the test as a potential "ultimate weapon," but Minnie
comes to the rescue in disguise. Mickey is ultimately forced to exhaust
his powers when he fights a forest fire accidentally ignited by the
bungling government agents. The story gives Minnie a lively role and
could be considered an indirect send-up of The X-Files (I wonder
how Stefan Petrucha, who has written for Mickey and for Agents
Mulder and Scully, would have handled this part of the story). The
Donald story, Spectrum Associates' and Bancells' "Crystal Ball,"
is a great deal of ado about nothing, centering on Don's inadvertent
rescue of humanity from an intergalactic road-construction project, but
at least it doesn't feature any scenes of Don beating Daisy's head
against a rock, of the kind Bancells was obliged to illustrate in a
recent digest tale.
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