DUCKTALES Fanfic Review: "The Sincere Fraud" by "Commander"

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. -- Robert Frost

Of course, what happens AFTER they take you in is often the most interesting part...

I'm back with another DuckTales fanfic focus... and the angst is STRONG with this one!  Thankfully, DuckTales doesn't appear to have inspired nearly as many of these soul-sucking fics as, let's say, Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers (does anyone remember the concept of "Gadget-gouging"?  If not, then be thankful) or Darkwing Duck (the Gosalyn-Drake relationship was always rife with potential for emotional exploitation, and numerous writers have taken advantage).  The TV series simply didn't provide sufficient raw material for the introduction of soap-opera elements.  With THE LIFE AND TIMES OF $CROOGE McDUCK still well in the future, the show's explorations of Scrooge's past were comparatively straightforward, and they focused almost entirely on his individual exploits.  The Nephews and Webby were too young to enter "the dating zone" and similar locales where adolescent Weltschmerz might have a chance to get its hooks into them.  As for Launchpad, he was primarily concerned with where his next crash was coming from.

Of the main cast of DuckTales, Fenton Crackshell came the closest to experiencing some legitimate angst, thanks to his occasionally rocky relationship with Gandra Dee, the demands of his "M'Ma," and his struggles to reconcile his "normal" and superheroic identities.  However, these experiences  were generally played for laughs.  The mere fact that such stories were attempted with Fenton indicates just how promising a character he was... and what a shame it was that he was left abandoned on a metaphorical siding following the TV series' shutdown, with no further opportunities to build upon the ideas that had already been introduced.

The prolific fanfic writer "Commander" appears to have reasoned, logically enough, that, in order to introduce any heavy-duty emotional dynamics into the world of DuckTales as a whole, the characters would have to be pushed forward in time.  OK, I know what many of you must already be thinking...

... and, yes, HD&L are thrust into middle school in the epic under discussion here, but there's little indication that "Commander" was influenced in any meaningful way by Quack Pack.  During the traumatizing events of "The Sincere Fraud, " the boys are anything but ironically detached snark-dealers. 

"Commander" apparently planned to write a whole series of fics set in his personal version of the DT "universe" -- which turns out to be a mixture of the world of the TV series and his own take on Don Rosa's LATO$M timeline -- but "The Sincere Fraud" turned out to be the only major product that survived the vagaries of time and the demands of "real life."  He did, however, manage to set the table for the story in the reminiscence tale "Sepia Tone," which basically consists of the seven-year-old Louie finding an old family album and asking Scrooge to tell him about some of his and his brothers' "foreducks."  It's a pretty quick read, and I encourage you to give it a look if you get the chance, but here's a summary of the significant takeaways.  Some of them will be quite familiar, some not so much.

(1)  The McDuck siblings, in order of age: Scrooge, Matilda, Hortense (as per Rosa).

(2) Matilda married Ludwig Von Drake (as per the Rosa Family Tree) and died young.  Scratch "A Letter from Home" (preferably, while shedding a silent tear or two).

(3) Hortense married Quackmore, and they had Donald and Della two years apart.  That is, Donald and Della were not twins.  This fact actually turns out to be rather significant.

(4)  Quackmore joined the Navy during World War II and died in action when Donald was nine years old.  Since Donald was a "Mama's boy" and never really that close to his Dad, that was what really motivated him to join the Navy... AND, more than that, to make the service an actual career.

(5)  Della was the proverbial "bad seed," getting into repeated, and increasingly serious, trouble as a youngster and developing a knack for conning people into making them do what she wanted them to do.  In the process, she also developed a bad feud with her older brother Donald.  Don's original intention, to keep her from running completely off the "road of life," was actually a good one, but he ultimately got so angry at her that he came to believe that he had always hated her.  For her part, Della resented Donald trying to butt into her life, and he similarly assumed the role of a monster in her own troubled mind. Della ultimately got knocked up by someone or other -- I'm guessing that the picture of Della's anonymous mate on the Rosa Family Tree is meant to be a generic composite; if so, then it's probably an overly flattering one -- and had her triplets, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

 Idealized portrayal of Duck relationship #1

(6) Incapable of supporting herself, yet desperate to provide for her kids, Della tried to rob a bank and was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison.  The Nephews, who by that time were three years old, were subsequently transferred over to Donald's care.  The famous 1938 DONALD DUCK Sunday strip that introduced HD&L is therefore in error in at least one respect: The document that was sent to Donald to inform him of the transfer was probably a lot more formal than a simple handwritten note.

(7)  At the age of five -- yes, you read that right -- Donald joined the Navy, and HD&L came to live with their next closest relative, Scrooge.  Commence the events of DuckTales.  IF you can buy the idea of the Nephews being that young at the start of "Don't Give Up the Ship," then this actually explains a lot about why the characters act the way they do during the "dock scene."  As I noted in my review of that episode, it is quite clear that the Ducks of "Ship" do not know one another all that well, and it is therefore next to impossible to imagine them sharing any joint adventures between the time Donald assumed charge of the Nephews and the time he left to go to sea.  Heck, even if they had wanted to have an adventure, there was hardly enough time for them to do so!

Take a moment to consider the consequences of this setup.  "Commander"'s interpretation takes the events of "Don't Give Up the Ship," and subsequently of DuckTales, as being the TRUE Duck "canon," at least in an adventurous sense.  Any previous tales told by Barks (basically, the only Duck-bard who was relevant at the time of DT's debut) are hereby rendered null and void... EVEN THE ONES in which Donald and HD&L went on adventures all by themselves!  We're dealing with the cleanest of whiteboards here!

(8)  Webby was three years old when she and her "grammy" came to live with Scrooge and HD&L.  Despite Webby's occasionally "childish" behavior, that age also seems a little low.  Perhaps young Ducks mature at a quicker rate than humans of a similar age.  (If nothing else, then their memories improve quickly; HD&L do not have any clear memories of their mother, but, in the span of two years, their memories are suddenly working on roughly the same level as a typical adult's.)

Flash forward a decade or so.  Scrooge is older and creakier, and he now allows himself the luxury of a day off every week (gasp!), but he remains feisty and driven.  HD&L are now 14, are in eighth grade, and have developed very distinct personalities.  Webby is 12, is in sixth grade, is about to start dating, and may also harbor a secret crush on Dewey.  Mrs. Beakley, sad to say, is in a nursing home with Alzheimer's disease, and Scrooge has become Webby's legal guardian.  Donald is still in the Navy, albeit on leave, and Daisy is pushing him to finally "pop the question" (about time, don'tcha think?). 

** MAJOR SPOILERS **

THE STORY:  Having secured an early release from prison for good behavior -- or what would pass as such for a character with a temperament that's just as explosive as Donald's -- Della comes to McDuck Mansion in search of a fresh start... and, perhaps, some assistance from Scrooge to help her get her life back on track.  The Nephews have very different reactions to her.  "Troubled kid" Huey is suspicious of her motives, partially because he sees himself in her but doesn't want to end up like her. "Intellectual" Dewey tries to weigh the available evidence and maintain some objectivity.  "Optimistic, sensitive, and creative" Louie, meanwhile, embraces the idea that his Mom has returned and accepts her wholeheartedly.  When Donald proposes to Daisy and is turned down (for a presumed "lack of sincerity" -- sheesh, even Barks' Daisy never came close to being THAT fickle!), Donald has a mental breakdown that requires him to be cared for by Scrooge.  With Donald and Della now forced to be in close proximity, their long-standing feud flares up, in the manner of a particularly wince-inducing hemorrhoid.  When Ludwig von Drake calls from Europe to check in with Scrooge, the increasingly stressed tycoon jumps at the chance to invite Ludwig to his mansion, where the prof will be able to provide some much-needed therapy for Donald and Della.  Alas, Huey chooses this moment to explode in frustration at his role as the "put-upon," least favored Duck triplet, and he chooses his "cousin by adoption," the "perfect porcelain doll" Webby, as his primary target.  Events finally come to a head when Donald and Della get into an ugly fight at a restaurant at the same time that Scrooge, beset by familial dysfunction, finds himself at the mental -- and, more importantly, the physical -- breaking point.  Can this family be saved?...

PLOT:  The unraveling and subsequent reraveling of the Duck family.  That's pretty much all that happens.  (*** out of *****)

One of the problems with "angstfics" is that there is usually quite a lot going on -- of the emotional variety, anyway -- but nothing is actually happening.  To his credit, "Commander" doesn't completely succumb to this trap.  We only hear about Donald's post-turndown breakdown at second hand, from the policemen who come to tell Scrooge about the incident, but the restaurant ruckus is "on screen" and is appropriately nasty, complete with cursing and knives wielded with deadly intent.  Adding to the noxious atmosphere is the fact that Donald had been on a blind date and had been confronted and dressed down by an angry Daisy before Della even got there, making Don's reaction to Della's subsequent arrival all the more malicious.  (You may wonder why Daisy should even care that Donald has plunged back into the dating whirl, given that she had turned down Don's proposal.  Sorry, I got nothin'.)  Apart from this one ugly scene, "Commander" basically sticks to dialogue scenes (frequently involving arguments) and uses very little action. 

I know that there are those who love this sort of thing.  I typically don't count myself among their ranks.  At least "Commander"'s dialogue scenes are usually well-written and, given the characterizations that he has chosen to use here, generally believable.  They're just somewhat painful to read through at times.

CHARACTERIZATION:  "All over the map" doesn't begin to cover it.  (***1/2 out of *****)

There's no denying it... some of "Commander"'s decisions on characterization here are a little tough to stomach.  Take Huey, now... he's basically a complete asshole.  He "acts out" in school, breaks curfew, bullies the more passive Louie into spying on Scrooge and "his mysterious visitor" (Della), and pelts Webby with crudely sexist insults even before he verbally attacks her (and is apparently also ready to SLUG her!!) for being the cute little "favored child."  He's like the egocentric Huey of Quack Pack with the amp set at "11."  It's hard for me to believe, as "Commander" suggests (through the medium of Huey's thoughts), that Huey got to be this way because of some school pranks that just got out of hand.  There's a definite suggestion of something uglier having been there under the surface all along.  That thought kind of disturbs me.

Donald and Della, whose feud is sufficiently nasty to render them both as contemptible as Huey from the start, nonetheless wind up faring a bit better in the long run.  We all know about Donald's legendary (and supposedly "hilarious") temper, and Don did have a few minor blowups during his infrequent appearances on DT, but his outbursts here seem uncomfortably... realistic.  We are led to believe that the authorities may have had a point in examining Don at the psychiatric hospital before releasing him into the care of Scrooge.   To his credit, though, Donald rallies after Scrooge's cardiac event, pulls himself together, and even manages to make up with and become engaged to Daisy before the end.  (Daisy... fickle.  Just saying.  Actually, the reconciliation is handled very well, with both characters admitting that they will inevitably have arguments as husband and wife, yet deciding to get married anyway.  That's what makes a marriage work... the partners recognizing and accepting one another's flaws while, at the same time, cherishing the more meaningful feelings that drew them together in the first place.)

"Commander," of course, has more direct control over the characterization of Della, and he basically opts for the "female version of Donald" notion... the difference being that Della's temper has tended to have much more serious consequences in her life than Donald's has had in his.  This is why Della suffers through such despair after her fight with Donald at the restaurant gets them both tossed in jail.  She had been making some progress with Ludwig's help and now appears to have tossed it all away.  This was the first moment at which I legitimately felt bad for Della and hoped that she would, indeed, get control of herself and reform.  She subsequently earns additional points by deciding to leave Scrooge's mansion, move into a homeless shelter, and pick up the pieces of her life without being a burden on others.  (In response, Scrooge allows her to keep her job as a janitor at the Money Bin, despite all the problems she's caused.)  The change of heart comes very late in the game, and after Della had amassed a pretty sizable likability deficit, but at least she winds up making some progress, and I do appreciate that.

Idealized portrayal of Duck relationship #2

The rest of the gang is characterized fairly well.  Scrooge is Scrooge, albeit with a few thousand miles extra on him, and Webby is a reasonable advancement of the DT character to the lip of adolescence.  (Webby's "desperate" desire to be accepted at her new school does strike me as a little extreme, though.  Why haven't all of those adventures with Scrooge and the boys given her more self-confidence?)  Ludwig von Drake's bubbly enthusiasm provides a nice counterweight to all of the troubles swirling around him.  He can't completely escape the imperatives of an angstfic -- he is still clearly affected by Matilda's early death -- but he serves as a welcome voice of reason, and his psychiatric dissection of Donald and Della is far more adept than, say, his semi-comical analysis of Launchpad in the DT version of "The Golden Fleecing."  In a sidebar, "Commander" says that Ludwig is one of his favorite Duck characters, and his affection for the loquacious polymath is on clear display.

I also admit to being quite taken with the characterizations of Dewey and Louie.  Dewey is an intellectual with a heart; he wants to be supportive of others but prefers to get as many facts as he can about the case before committing himself.  Thus, he learns that Webby's "big first date" was a disappointment and immediately moves to comfort and counsel her, but he reserves passing final judgment on Della until he becomes more familiar with her.  Louie, meanwhile, is akin to the sensitive-souled kid of Quack Pack who wanted to protect "pugduddies" and such.  The difference is that he is even more trusting and optimistic.

HOMEWORK:   Only relevant when it comes to Duck Family Tree material. (N/A out of *****)

These are basically "Commander"'s own future versions of the characters, so it's not all that surprising that he does not refer to any of the TV episodes.

WRITING AND HUMOR:  The story is very well-written.  The humor is... well, quirky, for lack of a better word.  (***1/2 out of *****)

"Commander" has an odd way of slipping humor into unlikely places in the narrative.  When two policemen come to inform Scrooge of Donald's breakdown, one of them inexplicably starts acting like a character in a goofy cop comedy:

"Can I tell the story, officer?" asked the other policeman, younger and more hyper than his supervisor.

The older one sighed.  "Go ahead, Korwitz..."

Korwitz spread his arms out dramatically, as if about to begin an epic tale.  "Dateline, Duckburg, eight o'clock last night!  Location, the Dragon's Head restaurant, 825 L Street!  Incident, a broken-hearted Duck goes crazy, overturning tables and eating napkins!  Cloth napkins, not the paper kind!"

Considering that Scrooge, because of the return of Della, is already on edge as this scene begins, this strikes me as not exactly the most opportune time to shoehorn in some (rather forced) comedy relief.  Later, when HD&L and Webby visit Scrooge at the hospital, we get an awkward exchange that I think was supposed to pass for some manner of humor, in which Scrooge teases the youngsters' assuming responsibility for his hospital bill... or, barring that, his insurance premiums. Unnecessary cheapness gags during a family-wide crisis?  Not a smart editorial move.

QUESTIONABLE MATERIAL:  Occasional curse words, though none of the REALLY bad ones, and argument scenes that are sometimes difficult to endure.  Plus, one fairly nasty fight scene.

OVERALL:  ***1/2 out of *****.  RECOMMENDED, BUT WITH RESERVATIONS.

This one is definitely a matter of taste.  If you don't like watching the Ducks -- even slightly altered versions of same -- bickering like a hypercaffeinated version of The Fantastic Four, then I would suggest that you avoid.  If you're curious, or if you're indifferent to the notion of mutual Duck-breaking, then you're extremely unlikely to find a better version of the DuckTales angstfic anywhere in Googleworld captivity, so have a look.

NEXT FANFIC UP: Time for the Big Kahuna, the Top Boss, the Meat Grinder.  "DuckTales: 20 Years Later."  You'll definitely have to be patient with me on this one.  It's 125,000 words long, it features multiple crossovers, and a WHOLE honkin' load of stuff -- some of it quite untidy -- comes down in the process.  I may even have to break the review into several parts: one setting the stage by describing the world in which the story takes place, the other examining the story itself.  So as not to tease my reading public unnecessarily, I will not announce the review's impending arrival(s?) until I am just about finished with the project.

Comics Review: MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #25-26 (IDW Publishing, November and December 2014)

What is it about "Wild West" themes and the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic franchise that causes the best of creative intentions to result in something... um, less than optimal?  The TV show's two stabs at Western stories -- season one's "Over a Barrel" and season two's "The Last Roundup" -- are generally not that highly thought of, though, for my own part, I found their biggest sins to be ones of dullness.  Katie Cook and Andy Price sent Rarity and Applejack on the Equestrian equivalent of a "West Coast road swing" during FRIENDS FOREVER #8, during which the "odd couple" took a stagecoach ride and dispatched a bunch of would-be cattle rustlers in the process, but it's hard to separate that incident from the issue's somewhat questionable (in my mind, at least) characterizations of the two "mane" principals.  During that story, one of the defeated rustlers did the "fourth wall" thing with the reading audience, informing them that the gang would be back in a future issue.  Well, here they are, terrorizing and extorting from a small town, like the "bullies" that they literally are. Everything seems to be in place for a good, new-fashioned Western parody.  Instead, we get, by far, THE single worst story that has been dished up in ANY of the IDW MLP comics... and, yes, that includes even the weakest of the defunct MICRO-SERIES offerings.  From Cook and Price, the bellcows of the entire MLP comics franchise?!  Unfortunately, yes.

This failure is basically on Katie Cook, almost 100%.  There's nothing at all wrong with Price's artwork.  Cook, however, seems to have forgotten rule number one about dealing with well-established characters: Never let the desire to tell a particular story tempt you into pulling one of the characters completely OUT of character in order to achieve the goal.  The damage that Cook inflicts in her handling of Twilight Sparkle here, combined with the problems we saw with Rarity and Applejack in FF #8, have combined to make me a little apprehensive about future stories by this creative duo.  Why is Cook suddenly having so much difficulty getting the "Mane 6"'s characterizations right?  And make no mistake, this was a BAD misstep... so much so, in fact, that some people immediately declared that they'd NEVER buy the comics again if the comics could get things THIS wrong.

** SPOILERS **

Given her magical powers AND her status as an alicorn princess, you would think that Twilight would be well-equipped to help Applejack and her other friends handle an invasion of the tiny town of Canter Creek by the massive steer, Longhorn, and his beefy buddies.  Even if Twilight were too nice to get really rough with them, surely she could magically imprison them, or put a protective force field around the town and Applejack's Great Granduncle Chili Pepper's ranch, where the rustlers have squatted in Chili Pepper's absence.  Evidently, however, things are more... um, nuanced than that:

As I said before... there are many different ways in which Twilight could use her magic to neutralize the bad guys, none of which involve the use of lethal magical force.  For example, she could have tried flooding them out, using the same simple magic that she did when she and Rarity (!) knocked down a water tower in order to put out a barn fire that had been set by Longhorn and his meaty minions:

But, no... apparently, the rules for alicorns involve a liberal application of the old "Mutually Assured Destruction" doctrine from the Cold War years.  When it comes to using magic against either "sentient non-magical beings" or "Equestrian citizens" -- Cook doesn't seem to be certain as to which -- Twilight appears to think that there's no alternative between doing nothing and using overwhelming force.

The "logic" behind this... uh... operational paradigm is simply mind-boggling.  If you're a magically endowed villain, like Tirek in the season four finale "Twilight's Kingdom," then it's perfectly OK for Twilight to use any and all magical means to deter you, including... well, if there's a magical equivalent of advanced weaponry, then she certainly used it at some point during her battle with Tirek.

However, if you're a garden-variety, non-magical, "schemer/plotter" type villain, such as, say, The Phantom Blot... OK, I know that his "garden" is far more varied than most, but you get my point... then getting the best of Twilight and the other unicorns and alicorns of Equestria is cake.  Simply find some way to get yourself declared an Equestrian citizen, and then, violate laws with impunity.  St. Paul appealed to his Roman citizenship for a good cause, to demand a trial in Rome, so it would make perfect sense for a villain to use the same tactic for evil.  Actually, the Blot would probably go it one better and get himself attached to an embassy in Canterlot.  It's not as if he hasn't tried that before.

It would have been a simple matter for Cook to have written Twilight completely out of the story, letting her travel with Spike to the Pony Trek convention (now, there's one real-world Equestrian parallel that didn't need to exist...) and leaving Applejack to take the lead in fighting back against villains who have, after all, taken over HER relative's ranch.  In fact, that's what Applejack eventually does, picking up the defeated Sheriff Tumbleweed's discarded star at the end of MLP #25 and becoming the sheriff herself.  For AJ, this represents quite a nice bounceback from the "all ya gotta do to sell apples is sell apples" dumbitude that hamstrung her in FF #8.

The ponies' resulting plan to foil Longhorn, while it pleasantly brings to mind ideas from one of the most-beloved Western spoofs, isn't without its own share of nits.  It only works because Longhorn, having basically already won the battle, decides to figuratively "sweep around the telephone poles" and legally take control of Chili Pepper's ranch.  Uh, why?   Why do the "Mane 6" figure that it's all right to temporarily kidnap a clerk and impersonate a legal official in order to flummox Longhorn, right after Twilight had freaked out over the others trying to destroy Longhorn's (notarized) paperwork?  (Twilight definitely was schizophrenic in this story, wasn't she?)

At least Twilight puts her legalese where her magic normally is, when she zips off to Canterlot and returns with... no, not reinforcements, but a surefire legal way to allow her to finally use her magic against Longhorn.  (Of course, it requires Longhorn's unknowing cooperation, but that doesn't prove to be much of an obstacle.)  Alas, even the traditional "stroll into the sunset" doesn't work when the "Mane 6" exit without evincing any interest whatsoever in whatever happened to Chili Pepper.  

Aside from Applejack and, yes, Rarity -- who flirts with multiple stallions, contributes more than her mite to the anti-Longhorn scheming, and gets to use her generally finesse-oriented magic to move houses, knock down water towers, and perform other intriguingly unladylike operations -- the rest of the gang walk through the story as if they're in a daze.  Twilight's deficiences here are manifest, but Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy contribute virtually nothing -- you would think that both of them, especially the former, would be hacked off at the sight of their friend Applejack getting knocked through a barn wall by Longhorn, but no joy -- and even Pinkie Pie is somewhat lacking here.  (A joke about a character eating a red-hot chili pepper, making faces, and then saying that they like it?  That has SO been done... and, therefore, it probably isn't worth wasting Pinkie on.)

So... yeah, a really bad one.  I'm not going to bail, of course -- Cook and Price are doing the very next arc in MLP #27-28, and I'll be interested in seeing how well they can bounce back.  There is some work to be done here, though... if nothing else, to reassure those who, like me, have been on board from the very start.

Book Review: FUNNYBOOKS by Michael Barrier (University of California Press, 2014)

What Michael Barrier did for the history of classic Hollywood studio animation in HOLLYWOOD CARTOONS, he does here for the golden years of Dell Comics and its most accomplished and historically significant creators -- Walt Kelly, John Stanley, and, above all, Carl Barks.  While devoting most of his critical attention to this trio of greats and the ways in which they helped shape the development of the American comic book into an art form with its own distinct verbal and visual language, Barrier also unearths facts and highlights overlooked personalities in a manner that is sure to surprise and delight even the most knowledgeable Dell/Western Publishing fan.

As was the case with HOLLYWOOD CARTOONS, FUNNYBOOKS had an extremely long gestation period, with Barrier using interview material from as far back as the 1960s to help craft his narrative.  Barrier also draws upon material used in his 1981 book-length study of Carl Barks, but he expands greatly upon that earlier work.  Perhaps his most important critical achievement here is his in-depth illumination of exactly how Barks, who famously worked in isolation and with minimal (at first) editorial interference, became one of the very first comics creators to "crack the code" and essentially discover how to tell effective stories in comic-book form.  Barks fans have always known of the Old Duck Man's mastery of narrative, but they will come away from this discussion with a newfound appreciation of the wider importance of his work.

Barrier pretty clearly considers Barks to be primus inter pares even among the "really good ones," but Kelly and Stanley get their due and then some.  Kelly's creation and development of the POGO characters is covered in detail, as is Stanley's work on LITTLE LULU, but Barrier brings their other notable comic-book works (e.g., Kelly's stories for OUR GANG and his fairy-tale and Christmas comics, Stanley's honing of his craft in NEW FUNNIES) under similar critical scrutiny.  As was made quite clear in HOLLYWOOD CARTOONS, Barrier is a very astringent analyst, and it takes quite a lot for a story to wring praise out of him.  Everyone who knows these creators will probably disagree with Barrier's assessments at some point -- for example, I think that he is much too harsh on Barks' more loosely-wound, but still immensely entertaining, UNCLE $CROOGE stories from the 1960s -- but he always has a well-considered reason for his opinions.

The "extra material" here is what really lifts FUNNYBOOKS to "instant classic" status.  Anyone who has ever wondered about the precise relationships between the various corporate subsidiaries and allies grouped under the spreadeagled "Western Publishing" umbrella -- Whitman, K.K. Publications, Dell, Gold Key -- will have any and all questions answered to their satisfaction here.  Interested in the early history of LOONEY TUNES AND MERRIE MELODIES, the Warner Bros. "answer" to WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES, or in how Dell handled such significant "non-funny-animal" licensed properties as TARZAN and various movie cowboy heroes?  You'll learn about some of these comics' most accomplished writers and artists here.  Perhaps the biggest surprise is a brief discussion of "the Jim Davis shop," an association of artists who produced "funny-animal" challenges, of a sort, to Dell's humorous hegemony for the notorious comics entrepreneur Benjamin Sangor.  It's nice to see the exquisitely obscure characters that came out of this outfit get some recognition, even if Barrier's primary purpose for bringing them up is to demonstrate how their comics failed while the best of Dell's succeeded.

If I have a small nitpick here, it is with Barrier's comparatively brusque brushing-aside of the Gold Key era.  Yes, that era did see ill-considered format and price changes and increasing editorial restrictions, but there was a whole lot of high-quality material being produced at that time, as well.  (See Joe Torcivia's 50th Anniversary tribute for numerous examples.)  I fully realize that Barrier's intention was always to focus on the years before the Dell/Western split, but a few extra pages discussing some of the GK highlights couldn't have hurt.  Anyone want to pick up the bracketed torch (as opposed to fallen; it's not as if Barrier failed, after all) and try writing a sequel?

So, what are you waiting for?  If you care at all about the Dell Comics that truly WERE "Good Comics," or simply about the history of quality comics in general, FUNNYBOOKS virtually defines the term "MUST-GET."

Book Review: WALT DISNEY'S MICKEY MOUSE, VOLUME 6: LOST IN LANDS OF LONG AGO by Floyd Gottfredson (Fantagraphics, 2014)

We've finally hit the mother lode of the early-modern (read: "post-pie-eyed" and "pre-all-gags-all-the-time") MICKEY MOUSE strip.  If I had to choose a single era of Floyd Gottfredson's prime creative years in which I felt the strip was at its very best, it would be 1940-42, the years covered in this volume.  No single story jumps up and presents itself as a "smack-you-across-the-face" classic on the order of "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot," but all of them are, at the very least, good.  Merrill de Maris' imaginative verbal interpretations of Gottfredson's plotting is at its best, while Bill Wright's inking is slick and confident.  The locations of the stories spreadeagle the map; to take the most head-spinning example, Mickey jumps from a bloody, near-deadly encounter with the primitive inhabitants of the "Lost World" of Cave-Man Island ("Land of Long Ago") right into the catty "drawing-room comedy of manners" (so saith yours truly, in an introductory essay) that is "Mickey Mouse in Love Trouble."

A fan's appetite for revisiting (or, in such rarely-reprinted cases as "Mystery at Hidden River" and "Mickey Mouse, Super Salesman," making initial acquaintance with) these tales is made all the keener by the knowledge that major changes in the strip were just over the horizon.  De Maris departed the scene in 1942, Dick Moores assumed the inking chores soon after, and we would have to negotiate several long stretches of gag strips before Bill Walsh took firm control of the plottery... and promptly steered the stories into very different, though still highly entertaining, channels.  Thad Komorowski has a good point when he fingers "Hidden River" as the last adventure that could be said to fit the "prewar Gottfredson adventure model." (This is quite literally true: Pearl Harbor was attacked just as Mickey was riding down a log flume, heading for the end of the North Woods encounter with a newly pegless Peg-Leg Pete.)  The happiest thought that one can take away from these tales is that the "prewar model" rolled out of the shops in first-class condition, rather than gasping to the finish line.

** SPOILERS **

The best story herein?  Well, I'm kinda prejudiced in favor of "Love Trouble," but even I would admit that an actual adventure needs to take pride of place, and I'm perfectly fine with Byron Erickson's praise of "The Bar-None Ranch" as an ideal story to show a "Gottfredson newbie" so as to pique his or her interest in seeking out more of the strip.  The story has very few plotting problems and a good mix of humor, action, and "forward thinking" (Peg-Leg Pete's use of a scientist's "dinguses" to create the illusion that he is an unstoppable master crook).  In addition to being a bit more sedate -- not to mention a bit dated in its portrayal of feminine "wiles" and overall bitchery -- "Love Trouble" also contains an annoying flaw, one that I did not mention in my essay but have always found irritating, nonetheless.  In order to get back at Minnie's stepping out with the caddish, superficially debonair Montmorency "Rodawn," Mickey calls on his cousin Madeline to play the role of visiting debutante Millicent Van Gilt-Mouse, who becomes smitten with him.  At one point, though, when we see Madeline call Mickey on a house phone, Mickey answers and refers to her as "Millicent."  What, does he think Minnie has the phone tapped?  They're conversing in private, so why just call Madeline by her real name?  And it would have been so easy to have fixed the problem, too, by having the two meet at a cafe or something.  OK, it's not as obvious a flaw as the sudden change of the mysterious ghosts in "Bellhop Detective" from three-dimensional spooks to 2-D projections on a wall... it's just that this story came SO close to stone perfection.  I can't help but be just a LITTLE resentful.

Insert "beach/bitch" gag here.

We begin to get inklings (and even a few overt mentions) of the war era in "Hidden River" and "The Gleam."  One possible essay feature that I would like to see in the next volume -- which will take us deep into the war years -- is how depictions of the conflict in the MICKEY strip changed over time.  I've only had extensive exposure to the Walsh-scripted continuities from 1944 and 1945, and some of those stories could certainly be considered more or less escapist.  I seem to recall that there was far more actual war-related material (including war-themed gags) in the strip during the first few full years of the conflict.  At least we won't have long to wait to test my theory.

Feature material in this volume includes a cartoon tribute by Stephen DeStefano (of Disney Comics peak-years fame), reprintings of several panels' worth of examples of the Gottfredson "redraws" that appeared in WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES in the late 40s and 50s, and an "Heirs of Gottfredson" piece on Carl Barks that includes a color reprinting of Carl's one MICKEY adventure, 1945's "The Riddle of the Red Hat" (FOUR COLOR #79).  For something that Barks claimed to not be his "cup of tea," this story is surprisingly good.  Barks certainly didn't mail it in; he does a particularly good job of writing Goofy. 

One comment of Gottfredson's concerning this era that probably should have been mentioned somewhere in here was his claim that the revenue from the MICKEY strip and the other ongoing Disney strips was literally keeping the straitened Walt Disney Studios above water in the early 40s.  (Recall that Pinocchio [1940] had been a box-office disappointment, the first release of Fantasia [1940] was an out-and-out bomb, and the war had cost Disney the overseas market.)  How about a statistical report at some point on how successful the MICKEY strip actually was?  Do those data even exist any more?  It's worth a dig through the appropriate archives, if you ask me.

Comics Review: MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDS FOREVER #11 (IDW Publishing, November 2014)

FRIENDS FOREVER gets back on the beam with issue #11, doing what I always hope that this title will do... namely, use a limited cast of MLP characters to allow for a focus on certain aspects of a character that have never been examined, or perhaps even clearly defined, before.  The task is trickier here than it might appear at first glance, certainly more so than when Katie Cook and Andy Price cast the hitherto characterization-challenged Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor as refugees from a John Hughes movie.  Spitfire, the Captain of the Wonderbolts and thus something of an "aspirational peer" for the gung-ho Rainbow Dash, has a problem opposite to that of the Princess and her hubby; she has literally gotten a different characterization every time she has appeared on the show, and most of those did not exactly put her in the best of lights.  Somehow, writer Ted Anderson manages to cut through the muck and give us a new take on the character that feels believable and does not entirely abandon what has gone before.  It helps that Rainbow Dash, whose various foibles have been the subject of televised dissection more than once, gets one of her best "supportive adult" moments in any medium here.

** SPOILERS **

Think I'm kidding re: Spitfire?  Glad-hoofing celebrity and partygoer ("The Best Night Ever"), bumbling co-conspirator in a surprisingly incompetent group of supposedly heroic pegasi ("Sonic Rainboom" and "Secret of My Excess"), bland sideline-watching executive ("Hurricane Fluttershy"), hardass drill instructor ("Wonderbolts Academy"), conniving bitch and colleague-betrayer ("Rainbow Falls")... Baskin-Robbins would be hard put to top the variety in that list.  My hopes here were that Anderson would (1) not add to the damage caused by the character derailment in "Rainbow Falls," (2) bring Spitfire back to something resembling the "authority figure" setting of "Wonderbolts Academy," where I think she works the best, and (3) give her some relatable foibles without making her an overt figure of fun.  All three missions accomplished!

Spitfire invites Dash to be an instructor at a "Junior Flyers Summer Camp" because... she simply isn't good at dealing with kids (beg pardon, fillies and foals).  It seems that she doesn't know how to temper down her "mean" behavior as a Wonderbolt D.I. (I'd call it "demanding" rather than outright "mean," but potato, potahto...) and thus lets the littl'uns walk all over her.  Dash suggests being "tougher" with the kids, but Spitfire promptly overdoes it, treating them just like adult recruits.  Spitfire, however, does have a legitimate, inherent ability to motivate others -- though, as we are told in a flashback, it took a while for her to assert herself when she was a new recruit -- and Dash cunningly gives Spitfire a chance to literally show the little(r) ponies how it's done by whipping up a tornado for the Wonderbolt Captain to disperse before their eyes.  (The meteorological danger is perhaps a bit extreme for the purpose, but, then again, this is Rainbow Dash we're talking about.)  The "practical lessons" finally take, and Dash reminds Spitfire that the latter can always get better at working with kids by herself, yet still ask for a helping hoof when needed.

The plot is handled spot-on perfect.  We get a look at what makes Spitfire the entire character, as opposed to Spitfire the icon/buffoon/meanie/bitch, tick.  Anyone who has ever had to wield authority that they have earned, as opposed to authority that they have been awarded, will be able to both understand Spitfire's pride in her capabilities and recognize that any leader must be willing to keep learning, just as Spitfire does here.  And all credit to Dash for being so understanding, thoughtful, and (what else?) friendly while playing a lower-key role than the "cheekily bombastic" one at which she normally excels.

The plot is strong enough by itself, but the artwork, by a newcomer named Jay P. Fosgitt (henceforth to be referred to "Fearless" for blog-obvious reasons), is really something special.  It is at utter variance with any visual depictions of the MLP:FIM characters that we have been given in any of IDW's MLP titles, or on the TV show, for that matter: cartoonier, sweeter, softer-edged.  I would even go so far as to call it "POGO-esque," but that may be setting the bar just a tad high, and, in any event, Fosgitt uses more exaggerated facial expressions and poses than Walt Kelly ever did.  Having seen a preview page or two, I wasn't sure how this style was going to wear in a book-length tale, but it didn't take long for Fosgitt to win me over.  It helped that the story, with its mix of slapstick, reminiscence, and sentiment, seemed to be complemented quite well by Fosgitt's approach.  I don't think that the somewhat stiffer "official" visual versions of the characters would have carried the plot off with such panache.

You can get an idea of the amount of "cartoonification" involved here by looking at the cover at the top of this blog entry and comparing it to the Fosgitt cover.  I hope we see more of Fosgitt in the future; I would be particularly intrigued to see how he would handle a more "action/adventure"-oriented story.

This title continues to mix gems with relative clinkers.  Perhaps I should do some research and try to come up with a numerically-based reason for the inconsistency... you know, like the thing about "original Star Trek movies" only being good if they're even-numbered.

Book Review: THE COMPLETE DICK TRACY, Volume 17: 1956-57 by Chester Gould (IDW Publishing/Library of American Comics, 2014)... plus RIP Jay Maeder

** SPOILERS **

This latest TRACY collection begins by wrapping up the "Joe Period and Flattop Jr." continuity.  The denouement features one of Gould's most (literally) haunting sequence of images, as the ghost/spirit of a murder victim of Flattop Jr.'s literally attaches itself to his neck and won't let go until he himself is gunned down.  By the time Flattop meets his demise, he is white-haired and completely barmy.  The fact that he is a teenager makes the images particularly compelling.  Joe Period doesn't fare much better, getting arrested by Tracy and crew after scoring his first (and, since he's thereby doomed to the electric chair, only) notch on the old gun-butt.  In another highly effective and eerily mounted series of strips, Joe's grieving mother comes to see him in prison, laments her inability to be a good and responsible parent for her boy... and promptly commits suicide by running out into city traffic.  Gould applies a final twist of the knife when he refuses to let us see Joe's on-panel reaction to the shocking news; all we get is a panel of a guard coming to tell the "juvie" prisoner that something has happened.

The Joe Period/Flattop Jr. tale was the latest one in time order to be reprinted by Harvey Comics' old DICK TRACY COMICS MONTHLY.  From here on in, easily accessible pre-IDW reprints of TRACY continuities will be conspicuous by their absence.  Not quite "uncharted waters," but close enough to smell the salt air.

The year 1957, the very crux of the 50s, was once described as "the year it seemed that everyone graduated from high school -- or at least wished they had."  As for Gould, well, he had certainly had better years.  The Kitten Sisters, a trio of close-cropped, acrobatic, "butch" burglars who take a giant step up on the ladder of crime when they commit a revenge murder, are fairly interesting as characters, but they are almost captured too easily: these are the types of arrogant villains that I would have expected to have gone down in "a blaze of gory."  There's actually more bloodshed in the next continuity, which is supposed to serve as comedy relief, or at least I heard some rumor to that effect.  B.O. Plenty's father Morin Plenty (it only seems as if old B.O. has had as many relatives as Snoopy) spends many weeks of panels touting his amazing new invention, a screw-on shoe heel, only to vow bloody revenge after a pair of would-be swindlers cause the death of his barefooted, teenaged hillbilly wife Blossom.  In his Introduction, Max Allan Collins calls this Gould's worst comedy continuity ever.  I can't bring myself to go that far.  OK, it's far from a laugh riot, but Morin is an engaging, genial sort, with an energy that belies his advanced age, and it's genuinely touching to see him break down after Blossom is killed.  Some of Gould's comedy bits from the 30s -- the ones with half-witted wannabe rube detectives and stereotypical black servants -- were far more annoying than this.  The whole affair comes to a classic DICK TRACY conclusion, with the requisite high body count.  Thankfully, despite his vow of revenge, Morin wasn't involved in any of the carnage.

Atypically, the volume closes on the end of a continuity, the tale of the unfortunate Crystal family and the "mad" mother Elsa.  Child abuse, fire, flood, drug pushing, and a gruesome form of murder all compete for attention in this story.

Several "this could only have happened in the 50s" moments are scattered about.  Tracy and his partner Sam Catchem get crew cuts, and Tracy gets involved in a young men's organization that wants to combat the JD plague by having its members "dress like men," as opposed to outfitting themselves in leather jackets and skintight jeans.  Collins sniffs at the idea, joking that he "must have missed" the day when that was discussed in school.  But now that we have college students routinely coming to class wearing baggy pants and pajama bottoms... who's to say that Gould wasn't onto something?

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This volume is dedicated to NEW YORK DAILY NEWS columnist Jay Maeder, who died in July of cancer.  If any of you are wondering about the origins of my interest in DICK TRACY, you have a combination of Maeder and the first (sort of) incarnation of Gladstone Comics to blame.  Back in the early Summer of 1990, as stores filled up with chatchkas of all sorts touting the Disney-Touchstone Dick Tracy movie and various local TV stations unwittingly set themselves up for various ethnic protests by planning a rerelease UPA's old Dick Tracy Show, Maeder published a paperback biography of the jut-jawed flatfoot.  As fate would have it, Gladstone, trying to keep its hand in the comics game after Disney had stepped in and given the Disney comics license to its own comics subsidiary, had recently started publishing a DICK TRACY reprint title.  Wanting to continue my support of Gladstone, I bought the reprint comics, liked them, saw the Maeder book in a local library, bought it, and thoroughly enjoyed Maeder's virtually year-by-year examination of the progress of Gould's strip.  Having read all of the IDW volumes, I now know that Maeder simplified some things and got some other things wrong, but it was his enthusiasm for the strip and its milieu that grabbed me.  I've maintained that level of interest ever since. 

Some years after writing the TRACY bio, Maeder took over the writing chores on the near-moribund LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE strip and boldly "reimagined" it for the 21st century -- changing Annie's dress and appearance, giving her a female adventuress for a companion, etc.  That didn't prevent ANNIE from ultimately being "orphaned" for good and all, but it was Maeder's devotion to the idea of the classic newspaper adventure strip that should, and hopefully will, be remembered.  Thanks, Mr. Maeder, for fighting the good fight.

Disney Comics: NEXT PUBLISHER UP!

While he was attending the New York Comic Con, Joe Torcivia passed word along to me that "classic" American Disney comics are finally on their way back.  So, did Disney finally grow a brain and realize that, hey, it now owns one of the world's biggest comics outfits (Marvel), so Disney should oblige it to get cracking?  Well, um, no.  The publisher is actually going to be IDW.  Surprise, surprise!

Let's look at IDW's official announcement of what it terms "a monumental collaboration" and see what we can glean from it:

This monumental collaboration kicks off with multiple monthly series featuring some of the most iconic characters of all time: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and many more! Re-presenting acclaimed comics from the past and today, these series will highlight the best and brightest of Disney’s impressive comic catalogue.

Looks as if the old standby titles -- MICKEY MOUSE, DONALD DUCK, UNCLE $CROOGE, and WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES -- have some life left in them yet.  Hopefully, IDW will know who to consult regarding identification of the "best and brightest," starting with those people who made the final few months of Boom!'s Disney comics line so enjoyable.  Given IDW's interest in publishing adaptations of animated series (MY LITTLE PONY, ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE, and various CARTOON NETWORK series, just to name a few), could some Disney Afternoon-related titles also be in our future? 

The award-winning Artist’s Edition line, pioneered by IDW, that showcases original artwork, will feature collections from the immense talents who have contributed to many beloved Disney comics over the years. Artist’s Editions featuring the legendary Carl Barks and Don Rosa will receive the spotlight in these gorgeous over-sized collections of original art reproduced at full size.

Sounds good, too.  Given the collector-focused nature of the Artist's Edition line, it is likely that the regular comics will be pitched at both collectors and new readers.  American Disney comics MUST do something to increase the pool of potential patrons, or we all are simply going to die out! 

Launched in 2014, Micro Comic Fun Packs have enjoyed immense success with highly recognizable franchises, and will expand its line with multiple Disney properties. Packed with a mini-comic, stickers, posters, and more, the Micro-Comic Fun Pack has been captivating new comic audiences on a mass-market scale.

OK, as long as IDW doesn't try to stuff comics material into boxes of ice-cream treats.  (A few of you will know what I am referring to there.) 

Celebrating the rich history of the many facets of comics, the Library of American Comics offers detailed and insightful looks at specific comics and creators. Beginning in 2015, the LOAC will begin collecting the various newspaper strips that have featured iconic Disney characters.

Given that Fantagraphics is releasing the Barks and Gottfredson collections even as we read, what could IDW have planned here?  Collections of the SILLY SYMPHONIES strips, perhaps?  I can't see them simply taking over from Fantagraphics.

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Back to personal musings... If IDW's handling of the MY LITTLE PONY franchise is any indication of how the Disney characters will fare in the company's hands, then there is every reason to believe that IDW will be good stewards.  Management of American Disney comics has been so erratic, whimsical, and downright perverse over the decades that I, for one, could stand for a spell of honest, reliable craftsmanship.  One open question at the moment is how "hands-on" Disney will be with IDW.  Actually, I'm inclined to believe at this point that Disney couldn't care less.  If Disney found it easy enough to ignore its alliance with Marvel, then Disney clearly saying that it's perfectly willing to let IDW take the comics off its hands (or somewhere near there), just as long as they don't have to deal with the issue any longer.  "Ignorance is bliss," Disney style?  It might actually be a blessing.

Book Review: THE COMPLETE PEANUTS, VOLUME 21: 1991-92 by Charles M. Schulz (Fantagraphics Press, 2014)

In this latest collection, Schulz continues to consolidate the aesthetic ground he had regained during 1989 and 1990, when he started to fully exploit the potential that had been opened up by his decision to change to a variable panel format.  This time, however, most of the innovations center on the Sunday strips.  Schulz seems to have realized at some point that the Sunday format was every bit as much a candidate for a shakeup as the dailies.  He subsequently begins to employ far larger Sunday panels than he had ever used before (e.g. the crashing ocean wave of 4/21/91, the Victoria Falls panorama of 4/19/92).  In an even more radical departure, he begins to assume the virtually unprecedented role of an OMYUN (Omniscient Yet Unseen Narrator; (c) Joe Torcivia) and use narrative captions, an early example of which appears in the Victoria Falls Sunday strip.  A daily caption duly follows in the one-panel strip of 8/22/92.  Clearly, an old dog can learn new tricks, whether you feed him cookies (which Snoopy continues to guzzle here as if they're going out of style) or not.

Only one new character is included herein: Cormac, a little boy who meets Charlie Brown at summer camp and subsequently shows up in Sally's class, where he, not very artfully, contrives to interpose himself between Sally and her supposed "Sweet Babboo," Linus.  If subsequent appearances by Cormac will help to drive the by-now-tiresome "I'm not your Sweet Babboo!" six feet underground for good and all, then I'll be eternally grateful to Schulz.  Old routines, such as Snoopy's assaults on Linus' blanket, maintain their position in Schulz' arsenal, while Rerun, who will play a much more significant role later in the decade, begins to pop up once again in late '92.

Book Review: WALT DISNEY'S MICKEY MOUSE, VOLUME 5: OUTWITS THE PHANTOM BLOT by Floyd Gottfredson (Fantagraphics Press, 2014)

By the time we run out of space in this latest Gottfredson collection, we're bumping up against what I consider to be THE ABSOLUTE prime period of the strip -- roughly, from 1940 to 1942.  Every single story during this period is a winner in every way, and, as fate would have it, we're going to get just about the whole schlemozzle in Volume 6.  Before that, however, we're obliged to crawl over a fair amount of the panelological equivalent of "broken glass."  Despite the presence of the single most famous MICKEY story of them all, "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot," the 1938-1940 dailies reproduced here vary dramatically in quality and force the reader to choke down a carload of racial stereotypes, mostly of the black persuasion.  (Even the appearance of the Blot himself was partially inspired by the looks of two Negro children called "The Blots" in the old comic strip JERRY ON THE JOB.)  Some of the early reviews of Volume 5 have made quite a bit of this unfortunate coincidence.  It doesn't really spoil a context-conscious reader's enjoyment of this collection, of course, but those who are made overly squeamish by "unacceptable" pop-culture conventions past are advised to proceed with some caution.

One of the problems here is that some of the worst examples of stereotyping are married to stories that are unusually weak by Gottfredson's standards.  "Mickey Mouse Meets Robinson Crusoe" marks a significant turning point in Mickey's history, as the strip of December 22, 1938 suddenly finds The Mouse sporting pupiled eyes for the first time.  The context, confusingly, is the start of filming of a new MICKEY cartoon, an adaptation of the Daniel Defoe classic.  Not that Gottfredson hadn't tried framing gambits like this before -- see this volume for two such efforts -- but, given that the daily strip, unlike the Sunday page, had long since been dedicated to lengthy, real-world adventure narratives, using it here seems awkward.  Gottfredson's use of the "make-believe" cordon sanitaire becomes more understandable once we bite into the heart of the story: a messy slumgullion featuring an irritatingly nebbishy, "pink-tea" version of Crusoe and "island natives" who talk like Stepin Fetchit.  It's every bit as embarrassing as it sounds.  Remarkably enough, Gottfredson did a sequel of sorts to "Crusoe" in "An Education for Thursday," wherein friendly (and lazy, and hungry) native Friday sends his "almost twin brother" Thursday to Mickey to acquire some "edumcation."  IMHO, "Thursday" wears a bit better than "Crusoe" only because Thursday is a primitive savage, as opposed to a deep-Southern knockoff, and it's not hard to mentally replace Thursday with DuckTales' Bubba Duck and interpret Gottfredson's three months' worth of "fish out of water" gags as a sort of "early director's cut" version of "Bubba Trubba."

"The Miracle Master" and "The Plumber's Helper", while far more satisfying than "Crusoe" and "Thursday," suffer from another problem that seems to have been bothering Gottfredson during this period: an inability to wrap up his stories in a reasonable amount of time.  "Master" takes a reasonably short time to make its basic cynical point about the futility of well-meaning reforms (even magical ones) in a fallen world, but taking the show to "Genieland" to make exactly the same point seems like overkill.  The inadvisability of the double-dip becomes apparent when Mickey's visit to "Genieland" quickly devolves into a series of gags.  Granted, many of the gags are pretty amusing, but you're ready for the story to be over long before it actually is, a rare experience for a Gottfredson reader.  "Helper" is a cleverly written mystery featuring one of Gottfredson's more intriguing visiting characters, but, given that it lasts almost 40 strips longer than "Phantom Blot" and has almost no action, it's not hard to imagine that Gottfredson could have sped up the story a little and sharpened its impact.

Aside from "Phantom Blot," the quality of which goes without saying, the best story in the book is "Mickey Mouse, Mighty Whale Hunter," the last great "true adventure" of the "pie-eyed Mickey" era.  It's got all the classic whaling tropes -- including, of course, a couple of ethnic stereotypes among the crew -- but Gottfredson doesn't fall into the trap of concluding the tale with the capture or destruction of the legendary whale "Ol' Barney."  His solution to the problem is far more subtle and gives Mickey one of his more memorable "compassionate moments."

Ancillaries include reproduced pages from the "softened" 1955 reprinting of "Phantom Blot" in WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES, in which the Blot's notorious deathtraps are redrawn by Paul Murry as considerably less perilous perils; a first-rate essay by Joe Torcivia on the history of the Blot; and a fascinating "Heirs of Gottfredson" piece detailing just how heavily the early works of Osamu Tezuka were influenced by "Phantom Blot."  It ain't subtle, gaijin.

Book Review: THE COMPLETE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, Vol. 10: 1941-43 by Harold Gray (IDW Publishing, 2014)

** SPOILERS **

For LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, World War II can be said to have "begun" in May 1942, when "Daddy" Warbucks, supposedly killed after leading a "mysterious" (and non-American) army aboard, suddenly returns stateside (albeit only temporarily).  The mere fact that Harold Gray doesn't perform any sort of buildup to the Prodigal Tycoon's latest comeback is the signal for a quickening of the strip's pace, as if Gray were trying to match America's rapid buildup for war.  Soon, "Colonel" Annie is performing her most noteworthy homefront service by organizing neighborhood children into the Junior Commandos.  The idea quickly spread to the real world and inspired thousands of children to mimic Annie and her compadres in collecting scrap metal and fats, keeping the perimeters around the homes of sleeping war workers quiet, and performing similar useful tasks.  While developing the JC's activities, Gray struck a brief but noteworthy blow for equal rights by devoting a Sunday page to a young black child's acceptance into the organization.  Jeet Heer's introduction to this latest collection of strips details the reader blowback -- both positive and negative -- that resulted from this departure.  Gray never used the black character again, which seems a shame.

Heer points out that making Annie the head of the Junior Commandos helped Gray get around the dilemma that, as a young girl, she couldn't imitate other comic-strip heroes of the era and join the armed forces.  Still, he couldn't help giving Annie opportunities to blow up the occasional marauding U-boat, culminating in a lengthy -- entirely too lengthy, to be honest -- early-1943 continuity in which Annie and her friends trap dozens of Nazis in a creepy, trap-ridden castle that wouldn't have seemed out of place in an episode of Scooby-Doo.  The similarity to Scooby is more than superficial, as the plot peters out into a series of repetitive confrontations with the Nazis.  (Thankfully, these are not accompanied by forced group laughs.)  The sag in storytelling acumen is matched by a sudden decline in the quality of the strip's art.  Heer speculates that Gray might have been feeling the emotional aftereffects of his father's death in a car crash.  Just as significant may have been a slight change in the dimensions of the daily strip, with panels elongating vertically and narrowing horizontally.  Suddenly, Gray shifts from his usual practice of drawing figures from the waist up to drawing full figures, and the change is not a fruitful one, especially since many of the new drawings are "shot from a distance."  Gray seems to have had problems with this perspective, as far too many of the adult human full figures frequently resemble peas awkwardly perched atop open ladders.

Gray's inability to corral the unwieldy castle sequence, coupled with renewed irritation at the inconveniences of wartime life, seem to have goaded him into doing a rethink.  The immediate future will see the return of more nakedly partisan material to the strip, culminating with the notorious "FDR is dead, so 'Daddy' Warbucks is alive" incident of 1945.  It can't be said that the cartoonist hadn't already done his bits for the war effort, though.