Book Review: MILTON CANIFF'S MALE CALL: THE COMPLETE NEWSPAPER STRIPS 1942-46 (2011, Hermes Press)

Don't look back, IDW Publishing... in the realm of comic-strip reprintery, someone is in fact gaining on you (or, at the very least, maintaining a steady pace somewhere astern). Hermes Press has been publishing comic-strip reprint books and other pop culture treatises for some time now. While most of the stuff that Hermes has published has not been of particular interest to me, that state of affairs is quickly changing. Hermes plans to release the interminably delayed Walt Kelly biography sometime later this year, and a SMOKEY STOVER reprint collection was advertised in the latest PREVIEWS. Pride of "money-on-the-counter" place, however, goes to Miss Lace of Milton Caniff's MALE CALL. (I hope that came out sounding right.)

MALE CALL was 4-F cartoonist Caniff's morale- (and etc.-) boosting contribution to the war effort. These strips, printed in camp newspapers, originally starred the character Burma from TERRY AND THE PIRATES, but Caniff was forced to create a new starring siren after publishers of the real TERRY objected to the availability of an "alternative version" of the strip. Encounters with the sexy brunette Miss Lace (whose source of funds, "real" job, and so forth were a perpetual mystery) were the ultimate antidote to the loneliness and frustration experienced by Caniff's everyman GIs. A number of Caniff's gags have curled up and died of old age in the ensuing years, of course, but the panels are still great fun to look at, not least because Caniff had an unusual ability to draw both realistically and humorously at the same time. Miss Lace even quit the stage on occasion to make way for ruminations about adjustments to the postwar world or a series of "blackout-gag" drawings illustrating, say, new developments in ladies' homefront millinery. (I wonder whether Caniff, a well-known movie buff, was influenced in these latter strips by the "one-gag-on-a-theme-after-another" cartoons of "Tex" Avery.)

Despite my enjoyment of R.C. Harvey's biography of Caniff, I have previously had relatively little exposure to Caniff's actual work -- in particular, his way with words. I can see now why such respected critics as Coulton Waugh occasionally jabbed Milt for the heavy doses of "smart-aleck" in his dialogue. The fact that MISS LACE is chock-full of WWII-era military jargon only serves to emphasize Caniff's tendency to "overjazz" his dialogue here. Remember those later seasons of M*A*S*H, when characters refused to say a simple "Good Morning" when they could substitute something like "Salutations, Sleepy Sawbones!" instead? I felt like I got several full doses of that here. I'm not saying the dialogue is bad, mind you; the style simply takes some getting used to. It is also easy to see why the wisecracking approach that sustained Caniff so well during the 1930s and 1940s turned off so many people during the Vietnam era, when Caniff's STEVE CANYON began hemorrhaging readership.

Harvey's introduction cribs quite liberally from MEANWHILE..., but there are a number of choice goodies in the back of the volume: several "rejected" MALE CALL strips, plus a number of drawings of Miss Lace that Caniff did in the postwar years. (These later illos amply illustrate the literal "loosening" of censorial standards; in some of them, Miss L. comes perilously close to wearing bondage gear.) Hermes' production values do not reach the standards of IDW, at least not yet, but the content is quite definitely the thing in this case.

Comics Review: UNCLE $CROOGE #403 (May 2011, kaboom!)

It's a genuine shame that kaboom! fumbled the scripting credits on this issue's featured story, the 1968 Romano Scarpa/Giorgio Cavazzano Disney Studios romp "The Pelican Thief." As he loudly laments (with Donald's howling help) here, Joe Torcivia was responsible for the job... and, since this ranks as one of his best efforts on that score, I'm happy to draw my readers' attention to the "facts in the air." The plot line is pretty elementary -- a villainous master of impersonation (who is so good at what he does that he's forgotten HIS OWN name by this time) and The Beagle Boys commandeer a pack of trained pelicans to fly into Scrooge's Money Bin and remove the coins and bills, er, bill by bill. The birds just happen to be the stars of Scrooge's favorite TV show, Tex Aviary and his Pelican Prodigies (and, yes, Joe slips in a few references to the great cartoon director and his creations along the way). Aviary's original Italian name was Captain Feathers, which sounds like the name of a kiddie-show TV host of the era... could it be that Scrooge's second childhood is at hand? With the help of some Junior Woodchuck know-how and some timely villain-baiting, the bad guys' scheme nets only a few handfuls of cash before it is shut down. Not that it would have made much difference, as I calculate that it would have taken roughly 4,526 years for the pelicans to have removed all of Scrooge's money. Even the incredibly prolific Beagle line might have died out before the end of this caper.

Unlike last week's "To the Moon by Noon," there's nothing firmly tying this story to the era in which it was produced, so Joe quite properly feels free to indulge in a bunch of present-day pop-culture references. Indeed, he feels so liberated that he tosses in some political digs, as well. The "guy of many guises" originally introduces himself as "Alvin Greenspin" of the treasury department, come bearing a governmental gift for Scrooge in the form of TARP (Tangible Asset Repainting Program) funding. The Beagles (natch) turn out to be the "reformed government hirelings" assigned to repainting Scrooge's Money Bin. There's also some nice continuity with DuckTales in that blue-capped Dewey turns out to be the Nephew who comes up with the scheme to have the villains literally knock one another out. See "Duck in the Iron Mask," wherein Dewey is fingered as the Nephew who's "the best at coming up with escape plans." This bit doesn't exactly qualify as an escape, but it'll do in a pinch.

Daan Jippes provides a quick, refreshing "issue-cap" with the four-page story "Scrappy Mettle." This could be considered a "revisitation" of sorts of the central scenario of Carl Barks' "Back to the Klondike," "North of the Yukon," and "The Golden Nugget Boat", with Scrooge traveling back to the old Klondike boom town of Whitehorse to relive old memories (with or without medicinal assistance). Here, however, he literally explodes into action once he gets the idea that life in Whitehorse is getting "soft." Simply to prove that "I still have 'it'!" (and, come to think of it, he probably did meet Clara Bow at one point or another), Scrooge returns to the now-civilized city, determined to hit the wilderness and trap a bear for old clime's sake. The specimen of bearhood that greets him, however, exudes more of the hankering after creature comforts of Yogi than the menace of Glittering Goldie's Blackjack. This story's extreme shortness definitely works against it to a certain extent; Barks took his sweet time developing back stories and motivations for his brace of Yukon yarns, while Jippes has Scrooge transition to the trip in the span of five panels. This lends Scrooge's decision an air of desperate hysteria that makes for a funny sight gag (Scrooge jumping up from his desk and hitting a pillow nailed to the ceiling, a gag which first appeared in Barks' "The Strange Shipwrecks") but seems a little, well, over the top for him. It's not like a sea monster ate his ice cream, or anything like that. The final-panel payoff, however, is priceless, right down to Jippes' reuse of bit characters and Whitehorse settings that had appeared in an earlier panel. U$ #403 winds up as another "Boom! 2.0" issue with that old Gemstone feel... which I'm trying very hard not to mistake for impending Death's clammy grip.

DVD Review: ZIEGFELD FOLLIES (MGM, 1946)

What a nice DVD package this was -- giving the full flavor of a night out at a friendly neighborhood Loew's Theatre, circa 1946. In this case, the main feature fully complements the accompanying grab-bag of shorts and cartoons, since this is MGM's grand, brassy attempt to simulate the high-gloss vaudeville of Florenz Ziegfeld's famed stage productions. Ziegfeld Follies was actually the third in a series of MGM films celebrating the flamboyant showman: the first (The Great Ziegfeld {1936}) had bagged a Best Picture Oscar, while the second (Ziegfeld Girl {1941}) featured such stars as Judy Garland, Lana Turner, and Hedy Lamarr and did good b.o. business. Ziegfeld Follies, originally intended to celebrate MGM's 20th anniversary, was supposed to top them all... or doesn't the tag line "Greatest Production Since the Birth of Motion Pictures!" suggest a little something special? Actually, the movie is more famous for its troubled production history than anything else. Most of the acts were filmed in 1944 and early 1945, but the original three-hour version of the film didn't go over well in test previews, and MGM commenced to slicing and dicing, not releasing the svelter finished product until the Spring of 1946. In all, seven directors got some piece of credit for the activities herein, though Vincente Minnelli's name is by far the most prominently featured.

There is at least a feeble attempt to construct a premise for this hotch-potch: from his suite in Heaven, Ziegfeld (William Powell -- who played the character in The Great Ziegfeld but here appears to be a weird cross between a peeping Tom and Captain Kangaroo) maps out one final, ultimate Follies to be remembered by. His reminiscences of days gone by are acted out by a troupe of truly creepy-looking puppets. This is a fitting beginning to what is perhaps the "fakiest" movie I've ever seen. Literally everything in the movie is completely unreal and stylized -- which, I suppose, was the point. This is supposed to be pure escapist entertainment. As you might expect, things are hit-or-miss. Fred Astaire (the closest thing to a headliner; he is featured in four major pieces and three dance routines) exudes class whenever he's on stage, even when he plays a suave jewel thief in "This Heart of Mine." His memorable "Babbitt and the Bromide" duet with Gene Kelly is unquestionably the film's highlight and really should have been the final number. Instead, we get a rather leaden delivery of a ballad called "Beauty" by Kathryn Grayson, in a production number that notoriously turned into a near-disaster thanks to a hyperactive bubble machine. Think Lawrence Welk on steroids. I suppose that this number, with its bevy of beauties, was meant to be a bookend for the opening "Pink" number starring Lucille Ball and a cast of babes, but, given that part of that earlier bit involved pink-clad Lucy cracking a whip at women in cat costumes, it couldn't help but come up a bit short. The recently deceased Lena Horne's sassy delivery of "Love" should also be mentioned, though setting the performance in what contemporaries might have termed a "low Negro den" tended to undercut the very idea of featuring a woman of color at all.

The "old-time" comedy routines hold more historic interest than actual entertainment value. It is instructive to see such old Ziegfeld troupers as Victor Moore and Fanny Brice plying their trade, and watching a frustrated Keenan Wynn eat a telephone (!) is certainly memorable, but the most famous business shown here is Red Skelton's "Guzzler's Gin" routine, and, quite frankly, I wasn't impressed. This is strange, as I've always liked the equally broad humor of The Honeymooners. Actually, the best comedy bit of all herein is the strangely rap-anticipatory "The Great Lady Gives an Interview" starring Judy Garland, who plays a "Grande Dame" actress famous for her biographical roles. (This was apparently meant to be a poke of some sort at Greer Garson, who was originally slated for this role.) Pressed by the press to "give with the scoop" about her newest bio-pic, Judy basically starts to rap about the story of the female inventor of... the safety pin! It's very funny and well-choreographed, and Judy is, as always, excellent.

Oh... and Esther Williams swims around for a while, too. I guess that the phrase "you had to be there" applies equally well underwater.

Overall: a pleasant viewing experience, but certainly not a "new era in entertainment," much as MGM might have wished it were so.

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The extras include a brief documentary on Ziegfeld Follies' production history and the trailers for the three MGM Ziegfeld movies. Now, for the other subjects:

(1) A black-and-white Crime Does Not Pay short, The Luckiest Guy in the World (1947), starring Barry Nelson (the first actor ever to play James Bond, let's not forget). This series was not based on the famous comic-book series of the same name; the first CDNP film actually predated the comic books by some seven years. The Luckiest Guy is the classic tale of a guy who thinks he's gotten away with murder, BUT... This was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject.

(2) Tex Avery's The Hick Chick (1946) and Hanna and Barbera's Tom and Jerry joint, Solid Serenade (1946) (aka "The One Where Tom Sings and Talks More Than He Ever Did Before or Would Ever Do Again, At Least at MGM"). Both good, both completely representative of the vastly different styles of their creative "driving forces." Never having been much of an Avery fan, I prefer the classic H-B mayhem. The female cat (she actually has an official name: Toodles Galore [why not Pussy? Never mind...]) is a treat for the eyes, especially those that enjoy looking at Miss Ma'amselle Hepzibah.

If you ever run across this DVD, you could do much worse than renting it for an enjoyable night's entertainment in the grand MGM tradition. Buying it, now... that's probably another story, depending upon how much of an obsessive-compulsive MGM completist you are.

Book Review: THE COMPLETE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, VOLUME 6: PUNJAB THE WIZARD by Harold Gray (IDW Publishing, 2010)

Guess which canonical ORPHAN ANNIE regular debuts in this volume, which features strips from the period February 1935-September 1936? Hint: It isn't the funny-looking, white-bearded guy in the red bullseye. The massive, magic-mongering, vaguely sinister Punjab represents Harold Gray's first serious foray into the world of fantasy, and, as such, he presents some immediate continuity problems. For example, soon after Punjab meets Annie for the first time, he gives her a special whistle that she can use to summon him whenever she needs help. All well and good, but there's no clear indication that the whistle is a one-shot gimmick of the type featured in "Tex" Avery's famous short Bad Luck Blackie (1949), nor is there any apparent radial limit to the "penumbra" of the whistle's effectiveness. Why couldn't Annie use the device to call for Punjab in any and all circumstances? It seems to me that this actually undercuts one of the sources of Annie's appeal, namely, her self-reliance. In several adventures later in the book -- Annie's sojourn in Hollywood, her alliance with the elderly shoe repairman Jack Boot in the town of Butternut -- Annie could certainly have used the whistle, but she did not. It will be interesting to see whether the whistle ever appears again.

Punjab plays a tangential, but creepily decisive, role in this volume's most famous continuity, the "Eonite" story. In his introductory essay, Jeet Heer correctly notes that the idea of the perpetually cackling ("He! He! He!") inventor Eli Eon creating a substance with a seemingly infinite number of useful properties is every bit as much of a flight of fancy as a nine-foot-tall Indian mystic. Eon is a less interesting character than other oddball comic-strip inventors of the era, such as Floyd Gottfredson's Dr. Einmug ("Island in the Sky"), but his existence is strictly a means to several ends. Gray uses the fight over "Eonite" to lay bare the distinction between "good" capitalists ("Daddy" Warbucks, who wants to help Eon develop his idea for the good of America) and "bad" capitalists (the ruthless J. Gordon Slugg, who hires loudmouthed, business-bashing politicians and "Bolshie" rabble-rousers to portray Warbucks as a public enemy) and to illustrate, in lurid detail, his loathing of unions and the "class warfare" rhetoric frequently used by proponents of the New Deal. It was this storyline that prompted THE NEW REPUBLIC to famously brand Gray as a purveyor of "Fascism in the Funnies." This was definitely a case of overegging the critical pudding, yet I'm not surprised that the overwhelmingly sincere manner in which Gray staged this morality play led some to believe that he must have had some sinister "hidden agenda." The story is alarmingly modern in some ways, too. In portraying Slugg as a power-mad rich man who is willing to exploit dupes from both sides of the political spectrum to achieve his ends -- as opposed to simply running as profitable a business as possible -- was Gray somehow intuiting the future existence of a figure like George Soros?

The lengthy story "Annie in Hollywood," with its gleeful send-up of the Shirley Temple phenomenon, gives Gray ample opportunity to hop onto one of his other favorite hobbyhorses and bash hypocrisy. Tootsie Snoots, the "adorable" Temple placeholder for whom Annie doubles, is a spoiled brat with litigious, "enabling" parents, not unlike the nasty Darla Dimple in Cats Don't Dance (1997). The plucky Annie refuses to accept the status quo and eventually wangles a part as a blacked-up "native princess" who becomes an overnight (albeit anonymous) sensation. You might think that the blackface routine would be offensive, but it actually isn't; it simply looks as if Annie has a really, really, really nice tan. Annie takes time from her rise to sort-of-stardom to play inadvertent matchmaker for her mentor and ally, the struggling actress Janey Spangles, and risk-taking producer George Gamble. No politics here, just good, clean satire and another test of Annie's seemingly boundless optimism.

The lengthy "Jack Boot" storyline takes its cue from several continuities earlier in the 1930s, throwing Annie together with a kindly caretaker with more of a "past" than seems apparent on the surface. The "mystery" element of this story is expertly planned and executed, and Gray has a high old time taking pot shots at the two-faced townsfolk who swing back and forth in their opinions of Boot with comical suddenness. For the ability to lure readers back for more day after day, Gray's work of this period has rarely been equaled.

DVD Review: I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE (20th Century Fox, 1949)

I can just imagine what modern-day "film studies academics" have made out of this slight, yet winning, Howard Hawks comedy starring Cary Grant as a hapless French (!) officer who must pose as a "war bride" in order to circumvent the U.S. Army red tape of post-WWII Occupied Germany and, perhaps more to the point, consummate his marriage to a feisty American WAC (Ann Sheridan). Actually, I don't have to imagine -- in this case, the often-obscured "subtext" is right there on the surface for all to gawk at.

The film divides neatly -- perhaps too much so -- into two main sequences. In the first, Grant and Sheridan (say... shouldn't this be taking place during the Civil War, rather than WWII?) gradually overcome their long-standing dislike of each other while completing a faux pas-filled mission. Grant's "humiliation" begins here as he is subjected to all manner of embarrassments, some of which wouldn't be out of place in a Keystone Kops reel. Once G&S have fallen in love -- an event which, to be frank, happens a little too quickly to be completely believable, even in an era when hasty, war-fueled marriages were commonplace -- the roadblocks in front of the nuptial bed begin to pile up. These culminate in the now-notorious scene in which Grant must do a drag act in order to get aboard the Navy ship that's carrying Sheridan to America. The censors' acceptance of the somewhat risque movie in its final state probably owed a lot to the "hangover" of the somewhat more relaxed artistic standards of the war years (think of those wild "Tex" Avery wolf cartoons).

While Grant is obviously tough to buy as a French officer, I think that the movie gains a lot from the fact that Sheridan, while very attractive, isn't a bombshell, quite. Her Lt. Catherine Gates comes across as a competent, serious-minded, somewhat bossy woman of early middle age, who could certainly make her way in the world if she needed to, yet, under the surface, packs a great deal of potential passion for that "right man." Think TaleSpin's Rebecca Cunningham -- and, since I've long maintained that TaleSpin has a distinctly Hawksian flavor, I did almost immediately. The war of wills between Sheridan and Grant is not unlike the duel between Becky and Baloo, the differences being that (1) Grant ain't a lazy slob (well, except here), (2) there's an explicit promise of sex at the end of the road. (Baloo even went in drag for Becky's benefit in the episode "Feminine Air," without that tempting "carrot" in play, no less.)

The extras here aren't such a much, with the exception of some interesting silent Movietone footage showing Hawks and company shooting on location in Germany, as well as scenes from the movie's world premiere in Heidelberg. Hawks wasn't known for his willingness to attack "current issues," and there's a distinct element of creepiness lurking in those bomb-riddled backdrops -- the more so because the prostrate state of Germany at the time isn't touched on at all. Grant suffered a near-fatal illness during the shoot, and other members of the crew also had medical issues, so the lack of detailed behind-the-scenes info really hurts here.