Sunday, June 16, 2013
Update...
Still without my laptop. Been stubbornly trying to write and oost a Man of Steel review via my cell phone, but the device's quirks have proven quite obstructive.
Gonna try to get to a library tomorrow to complete my review using a desktop PC. (Those tend to like Blogger. Androids do not.)
(Frustrated, 'cause I really want to discuss the movie. Bear with me.)
-- Ryan
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
"dah-dun-dah-dun-dahhhh dun-dah -- you know I'm not dead! ..."
Well, at times I feel dead inside, anyway, but rest assured,this blog is still alive ... or at least, so I intend it to be.
Anyway, here's the deal: I'm finishing up my final semester of grad school. (I've "earned" a Master of Fine Arts ... advice: do what my sister did, and go to law school.) For the past year or so, I've been (thanks to grad school being "a horrible life choice" -- thanks, The Simpsons) in a rut. This blog has suffered. But my intention is to soon have something resembling a normal life, and in theory, that will entail blogging on a more regular, steady basis.
I'm writing this from my phone, as my laptop is not working. So, minding said predicament, here's some hastily-written "assorted thoughts" as to what I've recently been reading:
Showcase Presents The Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 2 -- No shortage of Silver Age cheesiness, but as the stories become more and more melodramatic, with each successive issue, you can actually see Paul Levitz' psyche being formed. In the meantime, I'm learning how to distinguish Colossal Boy (when regular-sized) from Star Boy (when we can't see his giveaway chest emblem) sans any coloring. Also, hate to say it, but at least at this point in time (early `60's, Edmond Hamilton (who?) was > greater than Jerry Siegel.
UPDATE: In the first half of this volume, I found Hamilton's batting average to be higher than Siegel's ... but after reading the "Computo the Conqueror!"-"Weirdo Legionnaire!" slam-bang two-parter from Adventure Comics #340-341 (January-February 1966), it's apparent that in `66, he still had formidable chops.
Lieutenant Blueberry Vol. 1: The Iron Horse-- If you're curious about this lauded "Moebius" European guy, and like reading adventure comics (specifically, ones in the western genre, and with echoes of Barks' and Rosa's Klondike flashbacks, and especially the American frontier-set chapters of Rosa's "Life and Times"), and get nothing out of artsy-fartsy stuff, DON'T read Azarach and DO read every Blueberry comic "album". (That's what people into comics used to call high-grade editions of comics, printed as actual books ... before people not into comics -- or more aptly people who think that if they're going to be into comics, they should have something more pretentious to call them than "comics" -- started caling them "graphic novels", and the works, spanning several decades, of countless talented creative people were and remain unacceptably snubbed on a massive scale.)
Uncle Scrooge in Color -- NOT the eqivalent of Mickey Mouse in Color, and in retrosoect, a forerunner to how tacky Hamilton would get in catering to "collectors" during the Gladstone II era ... but still, it's nice to have high-quality reprintings of Barks' two Western picture books, and even if the included Geoffrey Blum articles are reworkings of several of his Carl Barks Library pieces, they're still authoritative and inspiring, doing Barks' justice as only Blum could.
-- Ryan
I'm writing this from my phone, as my laptop is not working. So, minding said predicament, here's some hastily-written "assorted thoughts" as to what I've recently been reading:
Showcase Presents The Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 2 -- No shortage of Silver Age cheesiness, but as the stories become more and more melodramatic, with each successive issue, you can actually see Paul Levitz' psyche being formed. In the meantime, I'm learning how to distinguish Colossal Boy (when regular-sized) from Star Boy (when we can't see his giveaway chest emblem) sans any coloring. Also, hate to say it, but at least at this point in time (early `60's, Edmond Hamilton (who?) was > greater than Jerry Siegel.
UPDATE: In the first half of this volume, I found Hamilton's batting average to be higher than Siegel's ... but after reading the "Computo the Conqueror!"-"Weirdo Legionnaire!" slam-bang two-parter from Adventure Comics #340-341 (January-February 1966), it's apparent that in `66, he still had formidable chops.
Lieutenant Blueberry Vol. 1: The Iron Horse-- If you're curious about this lauded "Moebius" European guy, and like reading adventure comics (specifically, ones in the western genre, and with echoes of Barks' and Rosa's Klondike flashbacks, and especially the American frontier-set chapters of Rosa's "Life and Times"), and get nothing out of artsy-fartsy stuff, DON'T read Azarach and DO read every Blueberry comic "album". (That's what people into comics used to call high-grade editions of comics, printed as actual books ... before people not into comics -- or more aptly people who think that if they're going to be into comics, they should have something more pretentious to call them than "comics" -- started caling them "graphic novels", and the works, spanning several decades, of countless talented creative people were and remain unacceptably snubbed on a massive scale.)
Uncle Scrooge in Color -- NOT the eqivalent of Mickey Mouse in Color, and in retrosoect, a forerunner to how tacky Hamilton would get in catering to "collectors" during the Gladstone II era ... but still, it's nice to have high-quality reprintings of Barks' two Western picture books, and even if the included Geoffrey Blum articles are reworkings of several of his Carl Barks Library pieces, they're still authoritative and inspiring, doing Barks' justice as only Blum could.
-- Ryan
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
(Some of) my (specific) thoughts on DC's Archives and Showcase volumes...
Lately, one of my various -- heh -- assorted thoughts has been, "Hmm, what keeps me from posting is that I expect myself to always write formal reviews. And that actually flies in the face of the blog's title."
So, I'm going to try something new: posting (some of) my assorted thoughts. I kind have a feeling that in doing so, this blog would become "what it's supposed to", you know what I mean? ;)
Anyway, I don't intend to have the thoughts that I'll share to be too assorted. I'll stick to specific subject matter, but casually. And the subject of today's post is ... well, see the subject line. That's what it's there for. :P
First off, I want to establish that, as someone with a strong interest in DC Comics continuity and history, and in comics history in general, I'm very grateful for DC's longstanding commitment to publishing multi-volume, complete, chronoligical collections of seemingly as many series from its 70+-year history as it can. It's not much of a surprise that that there's volume after volume of Superman and Batman material. But they've seen to give Doctor Fate, Rip Hunter, Blackhawk, and Enemy Ace their due, too. U.S. fans of duck and mouse comics can only d ream of such thoroughness and availability.I think they each have a relatively limited print run, but I would think that in the long run, that just results in fewer sales. (And, hell, Fantagrahics and IDW's newspaper strip collections use more paper and even more high-end production values, but they average $25-30 each!
But, that said, there is one snag to DC's approach to their archival publishing efforts that bothers me.
Instead of their being only the low-budget-but-bulky Showcase collections or only the lavish-but-scantier Archives publications, the co-existence of an ongoing output under both bannerheads (in many cases, duplicating the same content), I'd consider it really ideal if from the outset, they'd found a middle ground and stayed there. (Yes, all this material is available, but I'm complaining anyway -- I must be spoiled ...) What would be the nature of that middle ground? Mid-priced, color paperbacks ... like the Chronicles collections that DC has committed a select few of its "heavy hitters" to. (Some of these mirror the content of their Archives counterparts. But in the case of Green Lantern, there's an Archives version, a Showcase version, and a Chronicles version, each starting with 1959's debut of the Silver Age/Hal Jordan version of Green Lantern. And each project is officially still ongoing, awaiting subsequent volumes ... but, depending on various factors, having made it to completely different points in the series' run!)
If there were only a Chronicles-esque version of everything collected to date under any of these brands! Did DC actually have some studies conducted that determined that it'd be more profitable to do it in the market-clogging, content-witholding way they've been proceeding for years now? Hell, Fantagraphics and IDW's newspaper strip collections use more paper stock and are produced more lavishly produced than each of DC's Archives books. But the latter are $50 a pop, while the former average $25-30! I think that each entry in the Archives has a relatively limited print run ... but even then, I would think that in the long run, the way they're doing it would result in fewer sales than would the way I'm arguing that they should be doing it. (As if I know anything.)
Perhaps the operating philosophy is that DC's Golden Age material (which the majority of the Archives publications are devoted to) deserve such treatment. (And believe me, I agree! But not everyone can buy an original Picasso, either, if you follow me.) So, in the meantime, they're trying to compromise with two co-existing historically-documentative publishing programs. Admittedly, in certain ways, that's been a boon to fans and collectors, when you consider that to date, there's no shortage of material that's exclusive to either project. Without the Showcase compendiums, I would never have read the complete run of the original Doom Patrol, every Spectre story from the `60's and up through the early `80's, and wouldn't currently be working my way through Roy Thomas' innovative All-Star Squadron run. And there's no Showcase collection of the Golden Age adventures of the Justice Society of America, but one can own their comlete original run, spanning the first 57 issues of All-Star Comics, in an exquisite 12-volume component of the Archives output.
But, still, in all too many cases, one is faced with the choice between a badly -- sometimes inscrutably -- printed cheap version (upon flipping through my copy of the 500-plus-page Showcase Presents Superman Vol. 1, a friend commented, "It's like a giant coloring book!") or a vampiric-to-consumers deluxe edition. Really seems like a lose-lose situation.
But, at the same time, if The Complete Topolino Archives (English edition) Vol. 1 were released and its retail price was $49.99, I think that the rice is the last thing I'd be complaining about. Hmm ... so, does that mean that as a DC fan, I don't know how good I have it ... or that as a U.S. duck-and-mouse comics fan, I've been screwed over so many times, I have Stockholm Syndrome?
-- Ryan
So, I'm going to try something new: posting (some of) my assorted thoughts. I kind have a feeling that in doing so, this blog would become "what it's supposed to", you know what I mean? ;)
Anyway, I don't intend to have the thoughts that I'll share to be too assorted. I'll stick to specific subject matter, but casually. And the subject of today's post is ... well, see the subject line. That's what it's there for. :P
First off, I want to establish that, as someone with a strong interest in DC Comics continuity and history, and in comics history in general, I'm very grateful for DC's longstanding commitment to publishing multi-volume, complete, chronoligical collections of seemingly as many series from its 70+-year history as it can. It's not much of a surprise that that there's volume after volume of Superman and Batman material. But they've seen to give Doctor Fate, Rip Hunter, Blackhawk, and Enemy Ace their due, too. U.S. fans of duck and mouse comics can only d ream of such thoroughness and availability.I think they each have a relatively limited print run, but I would think that in the long run, that just results in fewer sales. (And, hell, Fantagrahics and IDW's newspaper strip collections use more paper and even more high-end production values, but they average $25-30 each!
But, that said, there is one snag to DC's approach to their archival publishing efforts that bothers me.
Instead of their being only the low-budget-but-bulky Showcase collections or only the lavish-but-scantier Archives publications, the co-existence of an ongoing output under both bannerheads (in many cases, duplicating the same content), I'd consider it really ideal if from the outset, they'd found a middle ground and stayed there. (Yes, all this material is available, but I'm complaining anyway -- I must be spoiled ...) What would be the nature of that middle ground? Mid-priced, color paperbacks ... like the Chronicles collections that DC has committed a select few of its "heavy hitters" to. (Some of these mirror the content of their Archives counterparts. But in the case of Green Lantern, there's an Archives version, a Showcase version, and a Chronicles version, each starting with 1959's debut of the Silver Age/Hal Jordan version of Green Lantern. And each project is officially still ongoing, awaiting subsequent volumes ... but, depending on various factors, having made it to completely different points in the series' run!)
If there were only a Chronicles-esque version of everything collected to date under any of these brands! Did DC actually have some studies conducted that determined that it'd be more profitable to do it in the market-clogging, content-witholding way they've been proceeding for years now? Hell, Fantagraphics and IDW's newspaper strip collections use more paper stock and are produced more lavishly produced than each of DC's Archives books. But the latter are $50 a pop, while the former average $25-30! I think that each entry in the Archives has a relatively limited print run ... but even then, I would think that in the long run, the way they're doing it would result in fewer sales than would the way I'm arguing that they should be doing it. (As if I know anything.)
Perhaps the operating philosophy is that DC's Golden Age material (which the majority of the Archives publications are devoted to) deserve such treatment. (And believe me, I agree! But not everyone can buy an original Picasso, either, if you follow me.) So, in the meantime, they're trying to compromise with two co-existing historically-documentative publishing programs. Admittedly, in certain ways, that's been a boon to fans and collectors, when you consider that to date, there's no shortage of material that's exclusive to either project. Without the Showcase compendiums, I would never have read the complete run of the original Doom Patrol, every Spectre story from the `60's and up through the early `80's, and wouldn't currently be working my way through Roy Thomas' innovative All-Star Squadron run. And there's no Showcase collection of the Golden Age adventures of the Justice Society of America, but one can own their comlete original run, spanning the first 57 issues of All-Star Comics, in an exquisite 12-volume component of the Archives output.
But, still, in all too many cases, one is faced with the choice between a badly -- sometimes inscrutably -- printed cheap version (upon flipping through my copy of the 500-plus-page Showcase Presents Superman Vol. 1, a friend commented, "It's like a giant coloring book!") or a vampiric-to-consumers deluxe edition. Really seems like a lose-lose situation.
But, at the same time, if The Complete Topolino Archives (English edition) Vol. 1 were released and its retail price was $49.99, I think that the rice is the last thing I'd be complaining about. Hmm ... so, does that mean that as a DC fan, I don't know how good I have it ... or that as a U.S. duck-and-mouse comics fan, I've been screwed over so many times, I have Stockholm Syndrome?
-- Ryan
Saturday, March 9, 2013
A personal reflection on Oz and popular culture; and, a review of Oz, the Great and Powerful (...on opening weekend, no less! For once, I'm timely!)
Although never before a subject of this blog, I am partial to -- and even protective of -- the Oz franchise. Of course, the foundation of said franchise is L. Frank Baum's 14 Oz novels. The first of these, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), was -- surprise, surprise -- adapted into the 1939 MGM screen musical that's incontestably one of the most well-known movies of all time. (A bit more soon on how disproportionately less well-known those subsequent 13 novels have long been...)
Like countless others, across multiple generations, I grew up with the MGM version.When (at some point in the mid-`80's) my father for the first time brought home a copy from the local VHS rental store (remember those?), he told me, "You'll like it -- it's like a cartoon." To me, that registered as, "It's identical to a cartoon" ... so when shortly thereafter I discovered first-hand that it was 100% live-action, I was nonplussed. But after a full viewing or two, I began to warm up to it. Overall, though, I wouldn't say that I ever more than simply liked it; I certainly was never head-over-heels for it.
It was during both the summer of `88 or `89 (or was it `87 or `88?) that I spent a couple of weeks attending a children's day camp program. One day toward the end of one or another of those two-week sessions, all of us kids were herded into the one pavilion on the grounds. A cart-on-wheels hosting a TV and a VCR was brought out. (Yes, there was an electrical outlet or two in the pavilion.) There was no confusion as to the situation: we were to sit on the cement floor and watch whatever videotape was about to be shown to us. . Word quickly spread: "We're watching Return to Oz."
I was startled and intrigued -- there was a Return to Oz?! From the moment the movie was underway, I was GLUED to the screen. At first, it was due to (unexpected but very welcomed) familiarity; I was very curious to see what was going to happen to Dorothy Gale and the land of Oz this time. Before long, I was absolutely riveted and transfixed by the movie, remaining on the figurative edge of my seat up until the the last frame. (My seat was the floor, so its literal edge was the building's walls.)
Rejoining Dorothy, her parents, and their farm again a few months after Wizard was a surefire hook, at least for me (even though neither any of the characters nor the setting looked as though they did in that other movie. But I quickly got over that, anyway.) But what made this new narrow so compellingly, fascinatingly, preciously harrowing was the learning that Dorothy hadn't lived so happily-ever-after, after all. We find that her parents have grown intolerant of her affection for this place called "Oz", which they're sure is nothing more than the product of a child's overactive imagination. So, they have her committed to an asylum, left under the "care" of a clearly malevolent, sadistic psychologist and head nurse. Woah ... and that's only for starters!
Within just a few minutes of screen time, circumstances have conspired so that Dorothy is back in Oz ... but she's instantly beset by an unrelenting series of perils. E.g., having survived crossing the Deadly Desert, she is then attacked by a murderous Lunch Pail Tree.
But, seconds later, she discovers a torn-up, destroyed Yellow Brick Road. Immediately distraught, horrified, and direly panicked (...or was that me?), she runs along the road's remnants until she reaches Emerald City ... only to find it, too, in ruins. Not only that, its inhabitants (including, heart-breakingly, some very familiar ones) having been turned to statues of stone.
Along her ensuing journey, one-by-one, Dorothy makes a small group of charming, quirky new friends. (She seems to have a knack for that.) Together, they evade being hunted down by sniveling, craven, scavenger-esque, bloodthirsty, genuinely creepy Wheelers. Then, they manage to overcome the wrath of Queen Mombi. This beheaded wretch keeps a room lined with display cases, which house scores of other women's severed heads; Mombi uses these one-at-time in place of her own missing noggin, switching them upon any whim. She sees fit to lock Dorothy and Co. up in a tower. But they narrowly escape by taking to the skies (courtesy of the latest addition to their motley band, the Gump). Without pause to so much as catch their collective breath, commence flight across the Deadly Desert. Their destination: the mountain stronghold of the Nome King, the tyrant responsible for Oz's devastation. He functions as the film's arch-villain; he's no lightweight, but in truth, Mombi leaves much more of a (possibly traumatizing) impression on a child's mind. (I've found that, if you bring up this movie in conversation, others of my generation will immediately respond, "Oh, yeah -- the movie with the lady who takes off her head!"; or, if their memory needs to be jogged, saying, "The movie with the lady who takes off her head" usually does the trick.)
I consider the film's only major fault to be abrupt transition from the Mombi sequence to the Nome King sequence, which is the story's climax -- it feels as though we skip the film's entire middle act, jumping right to the finale. Regardless, once Dorothy and Co. reached their destination, the film is as spirited, ingenious, and unique as its earlier scenes.
This final act includes:
1. upon reaching the mountain, the Gump's makeshift "body" collapses in midair, causing Dorothy and Co. to plunge to the rocks below.
2. The heroes taking their first, apprehensive into the Nome King's throne room -- the tension and suspense is of the you-could-hear-a-pin-drop, cold sweat-inducing variety. This buildup maximizes the Nome King's reveal, imparting his evil, imposing, calm and reserved but lethal essence.
3. The Nome King -- as a malevolent grin crosses his face and a mocking twinkle flashes in his eyes -- lifting his robe to show Dorothy that he's wearing her (iconic) ruby slippers. He relishes this blindside -- perhaps the peak of the psychologically torturous he subjects Dorothy and Co. (and the audience) to. He achieves this by drawing out the length of time that they're kept in the dark as to what ghastly fate he has in mind for them; his sardonic, taunting formalities as "host" to his "guests" betray an unspoken sinister intention. Barely suppressing a smirk and using evasive language, between the lines, he suggests that he indeed has some sort of unspeakable horror up his sleeve -- quite a feat of execution on the every level of this scene, from the writing to the acting to the production.
4. The Nome King's scheme revealed: a "game" in which, one-by-one, each of the heroes is transported to the Nome King's treasure room, given three guesses as to identifying the inanimate object that he's turned Dorothy's old friend the Scarecrow into. Each blows his three guesses (and thus joins Scarecrow in being transformed into an ornament), until there's only one left to take their turn: Dorothy. At first, she's absolutely stumped, and her despair is related all too strongly. Nail-bitingly, with only seconds to spare, she figures out the rhyme and reason as to how to identify which objects are her friends. One moment, our heart is racing; the next, we're absolutely overjoyed as Dorothy and Scarecrow are reunited. (They're overjoyed, too.)
5. No sooner has Dorothy "cracked the code" than the Nome King does a complete 180 and loses the exceedingly measured composure he'd maintained up until this point, somehow transforms his physical form to giant-sized proportions (I think he absorbs a lot of the rock that comprises the mountain, or something), goes on a furious rampage, and causes the mountain to start caving in on her heroes. (They make it out, of course.) As he's about to eat Jack Pumpkinhead (whom is barely a morsel to the Nome King, given his newly-adopted size), his Achilles' Heel is conveniently discovered, and he crumbles away to nothing.
Obviously, with the mountain caving inn, replete with lots of quaking and clouds of dust (I think the sky even becomes a searing red), and this King Kong-sized monster having gone absolutely ballistic, this is obviously supposed to the "Big" finale; the crown set piece. In that respect, it certainly does the job. (I would be remiss to not mention claymation maestro Will Vinton's superb work on this scene. The jagged, gaunt-featured, seething, spasmodic animation of the gargantuan, volcanic Nome King and the fiery, war-like, scorched-earth visual palette is so acutely attuned to the essence of the scene, it's as though Vinton works in high-res, while the rest of the world is low-res.)
In summation: I witnessed Dorothy, who was kind of like an old friend, being REALLY put through the ringer. It was a flooring experience. It hit with so hard a wallop, the rejuvenated, de-statue-ized populace rejoicing in a massive victory celebration in the now-restored-to-its-former-and-rightful-glory Emerald City at film's end was all the more elating to me for it.
In short, I loved every frame of the movie. As I have ever since.
As I've probably made self-evident, it means far more to me than the MGM movie. But the world at large feels differently: since that serendipitous summer camp viewing, I've learned that the movie did poorly at the box office and was panned by critics. (Return was a Disney production. There are interesting parallels between its troubled production and under=performing release and reception with that of -- on both counts -- The Black Cauldron. Both were very unfortunate victims of the much-touted identity crisis the studio went through in the `80's, and the intertwined shakeups in upper management.) And it's not hard to surmise that it's largely fallen into obscurity. Hence why I have a longstanding attitude of resent toward the MGM movie, and staunchly defend Return as though I take it personally (which, really, I do).
I've long believed my view is completely justifiable, no matter how atypical it is. (Many people don't even know that MGM's The Wizard of Oz was based on a book, let alone that he wrote 13 sequels.) For one thing, I can't imagine my first instinct -- and probably not even my last -- upon finishing reading the original novel (or almost any novel, for that matter) would never be, "Hey, I can just see the story as a movie, all in my head ... but it shouldn't just be a dramatic fantasy-adventure story; it should be a family musical, too!" Given that predisposition, you can imagine that I respect Return to Oz for countering the almost universally celebrated MGM movie's template and not being a musical. Compound that with the fact that the visages of Tic-Toc, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion are clearly based on John R. Neill (for all intents and purposes, canon) illustrations for most of Baum's Oz books; playing up Oz and its denizens as bizarre and colorful, as opposed to just colorful; and the commitment to taking the form of a dark fantasy-adventure, and you have a movie more suited to my tastes (it probably even had a part in shaping them), despite that it seems it was doomed to be overshadowed in the popular consciousness by its predecessor.
(In all fairness, Baum himself wrote the book for multiple Oz stage musicals. But I would contend that, not just in terms of Oz, but as an overall rule, theater is more appropriate a venue for "musicals" than is film. (But we have to consider cultural context: in 1939, a movie (mostly in color wasn't state of the art, but it'd only been several years since the prospect of a sound film was still new, amazing territory. So color and sound, together? It's not hard for me to imagine the MGM thingie being the Avatar of its day...)
Also, with Will Vinton's animation and the resourceful, inventive sets and costumes, the movie is a vital relic belonging to an `80's wave of children's fantasy films (which also included The Neverending Story and Jim Henson's Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal), the methods of which have sadly been considered obsolete since the advent of CGI. The Wheelers are particularly impressive: each foot secured in a single-wheeled shoe and eat hand gripping a wheel by a handle, the actors rode around on all fours, giving a magnificent acrobatic performance. (To hide the handles and footwear, their sleeves and pants were especially long -- but this was brilliantly incorporated into their costume designs and the modified physicality adopted by the actors. Not only was it so well-realized that not for a second does it appear that the extended sleeves and pants are only there to hide something ... even if you know that that's just what they're doing. It also augmented the Wheelers' unnervingly alien presence and sinewy, gnarled, worm-like appearance.)
And, lastly -- but importantly -- I commend Return, which was a hybrid of Baum's Land to Oz and Ozma of Oz, for not only acknowledging the existence of the rest of the series, but embracing it.
______________
It has always both bewildered and frustrated me that in the nearly-75 years since the MGM film, with the exception of Return, whenever some major production company, in whatever media, takes a whack at a new Oz offering, they invariably play entirely off and heavily allude to MGM's production, while ignoring Baum's canon beyond the first novel. At the same time, this state of affairs relieves me, because it ensures that none of 13 other books are ever tainted by association with a bad adaptation.
Though it defies what would be my intuition if I had any say in the making of a new Oz feature film, stage production, TV series -- or even video game or comic book (kudos to Eric Shanower -- I think I understand why each successive outfit that takes on the Oz brand falls into this mode: the MGM film is SO widely known, and Baum's books by comparison are so obscure, that they're playing to mass audience's familiarity -- and presumed fondness for -- a teenage Judy Garland playing a child, three guys with idiosyncratic costume fetishes (one of 'em's a fury; the other, dressed in all metal, I think is into BDSM, or something), and a woman with a green face and pointy nose whom, as she's melting, gets really histrionic in the way she repeatedly exclaims that she's melting.
Cases in point: Rankin-Bass' 1964 Return to Oz, which is a REALLY lackluster "sequel" -- its plot conceived entirely by Rankin-Bass -- limited in focus to the characters from the MGM flick; 1978's The Wiz live-action feature film, which was a remake of Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz/MGM's Wizard of Oz; DiC's 1990 ABC Saturday morning animated series, the characters designs and scenery being (actually very good) likenesses of the cast and imagery of that MGM thing, but to its credit consisted of original stories (and was, quite honestly, pretty good overall); and the 2003 Broadway musical Wicked, a new take on the backstory of the two Wicked Witches(*) and Glinda the Good Witch, so iconic in the public's mind because of that MGM shindig. [(*)Of course, in the movie, we only saw ONE of the two Wicked Witches' legs and feet.)
What's flooring is that Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz was only the start ... er, and not in the sense that it was the first book in his series, but that he went onto create scores more characters, Oz locales, and characters ... and yet it would seem that it's never occurred to anyone in a position to do anything about, "Hey, if we want to make more Oz movies, there's TONS of unused source material, and some of it has the potential to be REALLY COOL!" I suspect the stark reality is that if this has ever happened, some producer or executive has put their foot down and barked, "The audience isn't gonna know what the hell all that stuff is! Attract 'em with what they know -- it's much more sure a bet!" Saddest of all, Return to Oz's failure may even be seen as vindicating this belief.
______________
When I heard that Disney had some sort of new Oz movie in the works, I was wary, but not uninterested. When I first saw a trailer, I sighed at the heavy -- very deliberate and very cunning -- use of visual evocations of that old MGM whatchamacallit. But I still saw that there was the potential for a decent fantasy-adventure movie, so I wasn't completely repelled.
In the past couple months, I hadn't given the movie much thought. Earlier this week, a Yahoo! article I happened to come across on Disney's financial hopes for the film and addressing uncertainties as to how the movie will go over with the public, piqued my interest. Especially when it asserted, without mincing words, that the movie is NOT a musical and IS an original story, and that the studio had resisted the director's efforts to make it "dark" ... well, I couldn't help but conclude, "Okay, I wanna see this thing ... so I CAN'T WAIT 'til Friday!"
And, indeed, I DID see it today. (well, yesterday, at this point...it's 2:30 A.M., and I've been working on this since before midnight...) What'd I think? I certainly enjoyed it quite a bit. But not only did I enjoy it, I genuinely LIKED it ... and that's saying something, considering what a hard man to please I can be when it comes to new Oz stuff!
Some of my -- ahem -- assorted thoughts:
The Wizard's character arc was well-constructed, and James Franco's performance was endearing, delivering at every turn what was needed. (I could tell before I even knew it for a fact that they'd wanted to cast Johnny Depp, but I'm VERY glad they didn't, for not only would he have indulged in flamboyant, detached archetypal Tricksterish mannerisms, but he wouldn't be able to sell the Wizard's overcoming his arrogant, selfish asshole inclinations and ultimate full actualization of his innate good self ... because, well, Johnny Depp can't not reek of arrogant, selfish asshole.
Anyway, enough about the guy who butchered the characters of both Willy Wonka and Barnabas Collins. The movie was more preoccupied with frankly bitchy female siblings fighting than I would've opted (I'm dead certain that was Wicked's influence), but in truth, even though the Witches were such whole-cloth archetypes (jealous sister; scorned lover; the kind-hearted underdog), I was compelled by the conflict between them ... which wasn't merely between THEM, but was at the crux of the large-scale conflict that was the reason there was a story being told in the first place. So, bottom line, "chick" stuff like this isn't my thing, but their functions were integral as the Wizard's.
Getting back to the movie we're supposed to be talking about, the visual (in particular, in terms of technology) and referential (the Wizard's professed idolization of Thomas Edison) anchoring to the late 1800's-early 1900's era gave the movie a decided Baumian-appropriate period feel. (In a way, it even may have bordered on being "Steampunk"-ish.) The motif of the animated title sequence struck me as as being uncomfortably just a little too (speaking of Johnny Depp) Tim Burton-ish (especially given the accompanying Danny Elfman score!) ... but they were well-done (well, in a production at this level, they wouldn't not be, but still...), and the title and credit faunts WERE genuinely Baumian, and the visuals overall were appropriate to the era-specific Baumian feel.
As is, honestly, a given in this post-Avatarworld, the movie was replete with breathtaking, resplendent (digitally-rendered, of course) imagery of the fantastical landscape of Oz. Which is all well and good, but I would think there'd have been more of a temptation to incorporate Baum's numerous other Oz locales introduced over the course of those 13 other books (as well as some of the other characters and indigenuous populations) ... but instead, we largely got generic the-landscape-of-a-whimiscal-fantasy-realm imagery. The major exception, of course, was the China figurine people and the Chinaware structures of Chinatown ... based on a latter chapter of Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz that the MGM adaptation omitted. (And "China Girl" was very amusing and likable, despite her being the the foremost example of the movie being prone to snarky, "hip", modern lingo. This is a tendency that's plagued Disney since [at least as far back as] Robin Williams' Genie, and has spawned the likes of Shrek and its forgettable followers.)
So, yes, Chinatown and China Girl = awesome, even though they shouldn't have, given the sensibilities at play. But even so, there's SO much more untapped ideas of Baum's that were ignored for the sake of rehashing the antagonism between the Wicked Witches and Glinda. I can't complain too much, because the story and characters passed the "Is it solidly developed-and-executed?" test ... and the aforementioned panoramic CGI imagery was a viscerally pleasing ... but still, it's endemic of that old "When the hell is someone gonna realize there's tons of untouched OTHER Oz books?!" situation.
Spoilers begin creeping in as of the following paragraph, so I'm going to make a jump cut...
Like countless others, across multiple generations, I grew up with the MGM version.When (at some point in the mid-`80's) my father for the first time brought home a copy from the local VHS rental store (remember those?), he told me, "You'll like it -- it's like a cartoon." To me, that registered as, "It's identical to a cartoon" ... so when shortly thereafter I discovered first-hand that it was 100% live-action, I was nonplussed. But after a full viewing or two, I began to warm up to it. Overall, though, I wouldn't say that I ever more than simply liked it; I certainly was never head-over-heels for it.
It was during both the summer of `88 or `89 (or was it `87 or `88?) that I spent a couple of weeks attending a children's day camp program. One day toward the end of one or another of those two-week sessions, all of us kids were herded into the one pavilion on the grounds. A cart-on-wheels hosting a TV and a VCR was brought out. (Yes, there was an electrical outlet or two in the pavilion.) There was no confusion as to the situation: we were to sit on the cement floor and watch whatever videotape was about to be shown to us. . Word quickly spread: "We're watching Return to Oz."
(I believe this image made upthe original theatrical poster, but obviously, this is a DVD cover scan.)
I was startled and intrigued -- there was a Return to Oz?! From the moment the movie was underway, I was GLUED to the screen. At first, it was due to (unexpected but very welcomed) familiarity; I was very curious to see what was going to happen to Dorothy Gale and the land of Oz this time. Before long, I was absolutely riveted and transfixed by the movie, remaining on the figurative edge of my seat up until the the last frame. (My seat was the floor, so its literal edge was the building's walls.)
Rejoining Dorothy, her parents, and their farm again a few months after Wizard was a surefire hook, at least for me (even though neither any of the characters nor the setting looked as though they did in that other movie. But I quickly got over that, anyway.) But what made this new narrow so compellingly, fascinatingly, preciously harrowing was the learning that Dorothy hadn't lived so happily-ever-after, after all. We find that her parents have grown intolerant of her affection for this place called "Oz", which they're sure is nothing more than the product of a child's overactive imagination. So, they have her committed to an asylum, left under the "care" of a clearly malevolent, sadistic psychologist and head nurse. Woah ... and that's only for starters!
Within just a few minutes of screen time, circumstances have conspired so that Dorothy is back in Oz ... but she's instantly beset by an unrelenting series of perils. E.g., having survived crossing the Deadly Desert, she is then attacked by a murderous Lunch Pail Tree.
But, seconds later, she discovers a torn-up, destroyed Yellow Brick Road. Immediately distraught, horrified, and direly panicked (...or was that me?), she runs along the road's remnants until she reaches Emerald City ... only to find it, too, in ruins. Not only that, its inhabitants (including, heart-breakingly, some very familiar ones) having been turned to statues of stone.
Along her ensuing journey, one-by-one, Dorothy makes a small group of charming, quirky new friends. (She seems to have a knack for that.) Together, they evade being hunted down by sniveling, craven, scavenger-esque, bloodthirsty, genuinely creepy Wheelers. Then, they manage to overcome the wrath of Queen Mombi. This beheaded wretch keeps a room lined with display cases, which house scores of other women's severed heads; Mombi uses these one-at-time in place of her own missing noggin, switching them upon any whim. She sees fit to lock Dorothy and Co. up in a tower. But they narrowly escape by taking to the skies (courtesy of the latest addition to their motley band, the Gump). Without pause to so much as catch their collective breath, commence flight across the Deadly Desert. Their destination: the mountain stronghold of the Nome King, the tyrant responsible for Oz's devastation. He functions as the film's arch-villain; he's no lightweight, but in truth, Mombi leaves much more of a (possibly traumatizing) impression on a child's mind. (I've found that, if you bring up this movie in conversation, others of my generation will immediately respond, "Oh, yeah -- the movie with the lady who takes off her head!"; or, if their memory needs to be jogged, saying, "The movie with the lady who takes off her head" usually does the trick.)
I consider the film's only major fault to be abrupt transition from the Mombi sequence to the Nome King sequence, which is the story's climax -- it feels as though we skip the film's entire middle act, jumping right to the finale. Regardless, once Dorothy and Co. reached their destination, the film is as spirited, ingenious, and unique as its earlier scenes.
This final act includes:
1. upon reaching the mountain, the Gump's makeshift "body" collapses in midair, causing Dorothy and Co. to plunge to the rocks below.
2. The heroes taking their first, apprehensive into the Nome King's throne room -- the tension and suspense is of the you-could-hear-a-pin-drop, cold sweat-inducing variety. This buildup maximizes the Nome King's reveal, imparting his evil, imposing, calm and reserved but lethal essence.
3. The Nome King -- as a malevolent grin crosses his face and a mocking twinkle flashes in his eyes -- lifting his robe to show Dorothy that he's wearing her (iconic) ruby slippers. He relishes this blindside -- perhaps the peak of the psychologically torturous he subjects Dorothy and Co. (and the audience) to. He achieves this by drawing out the length of time that they're kept in the dark as to what ghastly fate he has in mind for them; his sardonic, taunting formalities as "host" to his "guests" betray an unspoken sinister intention. Barely suppressing a smirk and using evasive language, between the lines, he suggests that he indeed has some sort of unspeakable horror up his sleeve -- quite a feat of execution on the every level of this scene, from the writing to the acting to the production.
4. The Nome King's scheme revealed: a "game" in which, one-by-one, each of the heroes is transported to the Nome King's treasure room, given three guesses as to identifying the inanimate object that he's turned Dorothy's old friend the Scarecrow into. Each blows his three guesses (and thus joins Scarecrow in being transformed into an ornament), until there's only one left to take their turn: Dorothy. At first, she's absolutely stumped, and her despair is related all too strongly. Nail-bitingly, with only seconds to spare, she figures out the rhyme and reason as to how to identify which objects are her friends. One moment, our heart is racing; the next, we're absolutely overjoyed as Dorothy and Scarecrow are reunited. (They're overjoyed, too.)
5. No sooner has Dorothy "cracked the code" than the Nome King does a complete 180 and loses the exceedingly measured composure he'd maintained up until this point, somehow transforms his physical form to giant-sized proportions (I think he absorbs a lot of the rock that comprises the mountain, or something), goes on a furious rampage, and causes the mountain to start caving in on her heroes. (They make it out, of course.) As he's about to eat Jack Pumpkinhead (whom is barely a morsel to the Nome King, given his newly-adopted size), his Achilles' Heel is conveniently discovered, and he crumbles away to nothing.
Obviously, with the mountain caving inn, replete with lots of quaking and clouds of dust (I think the sky even becomes a searing red), and this King Kong-sized monster having gone absolutely ballistic, this is obviously supposed to the "Big" finale; the crown set piece. In that respect, it certainly does the job. (I would be remiss to not mention claymation maestro Will Vinton's superb work on this scene. The jagged, gaunt-featured, seething, spasmodic animation of the gargantuan, volcanic Nome King and the fiery, war-like, scorched-earth visual palette is so acutely attuned to the essence of the scene, it's as though Vinton works in high-res, while the rest of the world is low-res.)
In summation: I witnessed Dorothy, who was kind of like an old friend, being REALLY put through the ringer. It was a flooring experience. It hit with so hard a wallop, the rejuvenated, de-statue-ized populace rejoicing in a massive victory celebration in the now-restored-to-its-former-and-rightful-glory Emerald City at film's end was all the more elating to me for it.
In short, I loved every frame of the movie. As I have ever since.
As I've probably made self-evident, it means far more to me than the MGM movie. But the world at large feels differently: since that serendipitous summer camp viewing, I've learned that the movie did poorly at the box office and was panned by critics. (Return was a Disney production. There are interesting parallels between its troubled production and under=performing release and reception with that of -- on both counts -- The Black Cauldron. Both were very unfortunate victims of the much-touted identity crisis the studio went through in the `80's, and the intertwined shakeups in upper management.) And it's not hard to surmise that it's largely fallen into obscurity. Hence why I have a longstanding attitude of resent toward the MGM movie, and staunchly defend Return as though I take it personally (which, really, I do).
I've long believed my view is completely justifiable, no matter how atypical it is. (Many people don't even know that MGM's The Wizard of Oz was based on a book, let alone that he wrote 13 sequels.) For one thing, I can't imagine my first instinct -- and probably not even my last -- upon finishing reading the original novel (or almost any novel, for that matter) would never be, "Hey, I can just see the story as a movie, all in my head ... but it shouldn't just be a dramatic fantasy-adventure story; it should be a family musical, too!" Given that predisposition, you can imagine that I respect Return to Oz for countering the almost universally celebrated MGM movie's template and not being a musical. Compound that with the fact that the visages of Tic-Toc, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion are clearly based on John R. Neill (for all intents and purposes, canon) illustrations for most of Baum's Oz books; playing up Oz and its denizens as bizarre and colorful, as opposed to just colorful; and the commitment to taking the form of a dark fantasy-adventure, and you have a movie more suited to my tastes (it probably even had a part in shaping them), despite that it seems it was doomed to be overshadowed in the popular consciousness by its predecessor.
(In all fairness, Baum himself wrote the book for multiple Oz stage musicals. But I would contend that, not just in terms of Oz, but as an overall rule, theater is more appropriate a venue for "musicals" than is film. (But we have to consider cultural context: in 1939, a movie (mostly in color wasn't state of the art, but it'd only been several years since the prospect of a sound film was still new, amazing territory. So color and sound, together? It's not hard for me to imagine the MGM thingie being the Avatar of its day...)
Also, with Will Vinton's animation and the resourceful, inventive sets and costumes, the movie is a vital relic belonging to an `80's wave of children's fantasy films (which also included The Neverending Story and Jim Henson's Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal), the methods of which have sadly been considered obsolete since the advent of CGI. The Wheelers are particularly impressive: each foot secured in a single-wheeled shoe and eat hand gripping a wheel by a handle, the actors rode around on all fours, giving a magnificent acrobatic performance. (To hide the handles and footwear, their sleeves and pants were especially long -- but this was brilliantly incorporated into their costume designs and the modified physicality adopted by the actors. Not only was it so well-realized that not for a second does it appear that the extended sleeves and pants are only there to hide something ... even if you know that that's just what they're doing. It also augmented the Wheelers' unnervingly alien presence and sinewy, gnarled, worm-like appearance.)
And, lastly -- but importantly -- I commend Return, which was a hybrid of Baum's Land to Oz and Ozma of Oz, for not only acknowledging the existence of the rest of the series, but embracing it.
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It has always both bewildered and frustrated me that in the nearly-75 years since the MGM film, with the exception of Return, whenever some major production company, in whatever media, takes a whack at a new Oz offering, they invariably play entirely off and heavily allude to MGM's production, while ignoring Baum's canon beyond the first novel. At the same time, this state of affairs relieves me, because it ensures that none of 13 other books are ever tainted by association with a bad adaptation.
Though it defies what would be my intuition if I had any say in the making of a new Oz feature film, stage production, TV series -- or even video game or comic book (kudos to Eric Shanower -- I think I understand why each successive outfit that takes on the Oz brand falls into this mode: the MGM film is SO widely known, and Baum's books by comparison are so obscure, that they're playing to mass audience's familiarity -- and presumed fondness for -- a teenage Judy Garland playing a child, three guys with idiosyncratic costume fetishes (one of 'em's a fury; the other, dressed in all metal, I think is into BDSM, or something), and a woman with a green face and pointy nose whom, as she's melting, gets really histrionic in the way she repeatedly exclaims that she's melting.
Cases in point: Rankin-Bass' 1964 Return to Oz, which is a REALLY lackluster "sequel" -- its plot conceived entirely by Rankin-Bass -- limited in focus to the characters from the MGM flick; 1978's The Wiz live-action feature film, which was a remake of Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz/MGM's Wizard of Oz; DiC's 1990 ABC Saturday morning animated series, the characters designs and scenery being (actually very good) likenesses of the cast and imagery of that MGM thing, but to its credit consisted of original stories (and was, quite honestly, pretty good overall); and the 2003 Broadway musical Wicked, a new take on the backstory of the two Wicked Witches(*) and Glinda the Good Witch, so iconic in the public's mind because of that MGM shindig. [(*)Of course, in the movie, we only saw ONE of the two Wicked Witches' legs and feet.)
What's flooring is that Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz was only the start ... er, and not in the sense that it was the first book in his series, but that he went onto create scores more characters, Oz locales, and characters ... and yet it would seem that it's never occurred to anyone in a position to do anything about, "Hey, if we want to make more Oz movies, there's TONS of unused source material, and some of it has the potential to be REALLY COOL!" I suspect the stark reality is that if this has ever happened, some producer or executive has put their foot down and barked, "The audience isn't gonna know what the hell all that stuff is! Attract 'em with what they know -- it's much more sure a bet!" Saddest of all, Return to Oz's failure may even be seen as vindicating this belief.
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When I heard that Disney had some sort of new Oz movie in the works, I was wary, but not uninterested. When I first saw a trailer, I sighed at the heavy -- very deliberate and very cunning -- use of visual evocations of that old MGM whatchamacallit. But I still saw that there was the potential for a decent fantasy-adventure movie, so I wasn't completely repelled.
In the past couple months, I hadn't given the movie much thought. Earlier this week, a Yahoo! article I happened to come across on Disney's financial hopes for the film and addressing uncertainties as to how the movie will go over with the public, piqued my interest. Especially when it asserted, without mincing words, that the movie is NOT a musical and IS an original story, and that the studio had resisted the director's efforts to make it "dark" ... well, I couldn't help but conclude, "Okay, I wanna see this thing ... so I CAN'T WAIT 'til Friday!"
And, indeed, I DID see it today. (well, yesterday, at this point...it's 2:30 A.M., and I've been working on this since before midnight...) What'd I think? I certainly enjoyed it quite a bit. But not only did I enjoy it, I genuinely LIKED it ... and that's saying something, considering what a hard man to please I can be when it comes to new Oz stuff!
Some of my -- ahem -- assorted thoughts:
The Wizard's character arc was well-constructed, and James Franco's performance was endearing, delivering at every turn what was needed. (I could tell before I even knew it for a fact that they'd wanted to cast Johnny Depp, but I'm VERY glad they didn't, for not only would he have indulged in flamboyant, detached archetypal Tricksterish mannerisms, but he wouldn't be able to sell the Wizard's overcoming his arrogant, selfish asshole inclinations and ultimate full actualization of his innate good self ... because, well, Johnny Depp can't not reek of arrogant, selfish asshole.
Anyway, enough about the guy who butchered the characters of both Willy Wonka and Barnabas Collins. The movie was more preoccupied with frankly bitchy female siblings fighting than I would've opted (I'm dead certain that was Wicked's influence), but in truth, even though the Witches were such whole-cloth archetypes (jealous sister; scorned lover; the kind-hearted underdog), I was compelled by the conflict between them ... which wasn't merely between THEM, but was at the crux of the large-scale conflict that was the reason there was a story being told in the first place. So, bottom line, "chick" stuff like this isn't my thing, but their functions were integral as the Wizard's.
Getting back to the movie we're supposed to be talking about, the visual (in particular, in terms of technology) and referential (the Wizard's professed idolization of Thomas Edison) anchoring to the late 1800's-early 1900's era gave the movie a decided Baumian-appropriate period feel. (In a way, it even may have bordered on being "Steampunk"-ish.) The motif of the animated title sequence struck me as as being uncomfortably just a little too (speaking of Johnny Depp) Tim Burton-ish (especially given the accompanying Danny Elfman score!) ... but they were well-done (well, in a production at this level, they wouldn't not be, but still...), and the title and credit faunts WERE genuinely Baumian, and the visuals overall were appropriate to the era-specific Baumian feel.
As is, honestly, a given in this post-Avatarworld, the movie was replete with breathtaking, resplendent (digitally-rendered, of course) imagery of the fantastical landscape of Oz. Which is all well and good, but I would think there'd have been more of a temptation to incorporate Baum's numerous other Oz locales introduced over the course of those 13 other books (as well as some of the other characters and indigenuous populations) ... but instead, we largely got generic the-landscape-of-a-whimiscal-fantasy-realm imagery. The major exception, of course, was the China figurine people and the Chinaware structures of Chinatown ... based on a latter chapter of Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz that the MGM adaptation omitted. (And "China Girl" was very amusing and likable, despite her being the the foremost example of the movie being prone to snarky, "hip", modern lingo. This is a tendency that's plagued Disney since [at least as far back as] Robin Williams' Genie, and has spawned the likes of Shrek and its forgettable followers.)
So, yes, Chinatown and China Girl = awesome, even though they shouldn't have, given the sensibilities at play. But even so, there's SO much more untapped ideas of Baum's that were ignored for the sake of rehashing the antagonism between the Wicked Witches and Glinda. I can't complain too much, because the story and characters passed the "Is it solidly developed-and-executed?" test ... and the aforementioned panoramic CGI imagery was a viscerally pleasing ... but still, it's endemic of that old "When the hell is someone gonna realize there's tons of untouched OTHER Oz books?!" situation.
Spoilers begin creeping in as of the following paragraph, so I'm going to make a jump cut...
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Capping off the year of DuckTales' 25th anniversary...
Througout 2012, Joseph Adorno, Chris Barat, and Pete Fernbaugh each did an excellent job of composing their own series of blog entries commemorating DuckTales' two-and-a-half-decade birthday. I'm remiss that, during the relevant calendar year, I never got around to creating at least one post honoring said milestone in my own way.
I never planned on doing an ongoing series on the subject as have the above-named friends, but I'd had the notion that I'd select a couple of favorite episodes from the first season and post a review and/or reflection on each on the respective anniversary of its original airdate. Obviously, I missed the boat, the first 64 times over...the only remaining opportunity being the first season's finale, "Till (sic) Nephews Do Us Part", which premiered on January 1st, 1988...as of this posting, 25 years ago to the date.
...but, frankly, I'm not overly fond of it. I don't particularly dislike it...but it's just not on in my Top Five. I'll have far more of a sense of satisfaction if I salute the passing of DT's 25th anniversary year by spotlighting a couple of my favorites.
...so why not do just that? ...in fact...hey, "my Top Five" -- sounds good! In no particular order (and strictly first-season, and indvidual, self-contained episodes only...or else my Top Five would just be every installment of "Treasure of the Golden Suns"![*]):
"Raiders of the Lost Harp":
"Matser of the Djinni":
"Bermuda Triangle Tangle":
"Much Ado About Scrooge":
[*] Speaking of "Treasure of the Golden Suns", it won't hurt to throw this out there again: ANYONE, ANYWHERE have a recording (whether on VHS or a digital transfer) of the original two-hour TV movie version, preferably with all original commercials and "bumpers" intact? I've felt nostaligic toward it, pining to see it again, since three or four years after it'd premiered (so, for the past 21 or 22 or years...)
...anyway, welcome to 2013, everyone! :)
-- Ryan
I never planned on doing an ongoing series on the subject as have the above-named friends, but I'd had the notion that I'd select a couple of favorite episodes from the first season and post a review and/or reflection on each on the respective anniversary of its original airdate. Obviously, I missed the boat, the first 64 times over...the only remaining opportunity being the first season's finale, "Till (sic) Nephews Do Us Part", which premiered on January 1st, 1988...as of this posting, 25 years ago to the date.
...but, frankly, I'm not overly fond of it. I don't particularly dislike it...but it's just not on in my Top Five. I'll have far more of a sense of satisfaction if I salute the passing of DT's 25th anniversary year by spotlighting a couple of my favorites.
...so why not do just that? ...in fact...hey, "my Top Five" -- sounds good! In no particular order (and strictly first-season, and indvidual, self-contained episodes only...or else my Top Five would just be every installment of "Treasure of the Golden Suns"![*]):
"Raiders of the Lost Harp":
"Matser of the Djinni":
"Home Sweet Homer":
"Bermuda Triangle Tangle":
"Much Ado About Scrooge":
[*] Speaking of "Treasure of the Golden Suns", it won't hurt to throw this out there again: ANYONE, ANYWHERE have a recording (whether on VHS or a digital transfer) of the original two-hour TV movie version, preferably with all original commercials and "bumpers" intact? I've felt nostaligic toward it, pining to see it again, since three or four years after it'd premiered (so, for the past 21 or 22 or years...)
...anyway, welcome to 2013, everyone! :)
-- Ryan
Monday, December 31, 2012
A History of DuckTales Comic Books, Part Five: The Short-Lived 2010-11 Revival
To expedite the creation of this post, I'm going to quote (and modify) an older post of my own:
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[From late 2009 through early 2010], for better or for worse, my regular visits to the comic shop and many of the Internet-based discussions that I followed (and sometimes participated in) centered around [publisher] BOOM!'s Disney comics. At first, I boycotted most of the line during Wizards of Mickey/Ultraheroes/Double Duck phase, (or the "Yeah, THIS is the kinda thing kids'll think is WAY COOL!!!!" phase...)
I was floored when, in March of 2010 -- still mired in the "Yeah, THIS is the kinda thing kids'll think is WAY COOL!!!!" level of Hell -- it was announced that, a), BOOM! would begin publishing a Darkwing Duck series, and that, b) starting with #392, they'd devote the pages of Uncle Scrooge to DuckTales content. It's an understatement to say that this news was unexpected. I reiterate: this was 2010. Neither DuckTales nor Darkwing had been in contemporary productions for close to 20 years, and were completely nonexistent in the public eye. Of course, we now know that it was a gentleman by the name of Aaron Sparrow who was responsible for conceiving of these projects and getting them off of the ground Darkwing was an instant success -- yet for some reason, Sparrow was fired by BOOM! even before issue #4 was released...
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Thus, Uncle Scrooge #392-399 consisted entirely of European DuckTales stories from the `90's. A couple of these were average, a couple more were mediocre, and there was one pretty darn good one (in no small part due to the dialogue penned by David Gerstein for American readers), the 44-page "The Curse of Flabbergé", split between #394-395 (and which I've previously given attention to -- see: here.)
While this seven-issue stretch of DuckTales issues of Uncle Scrooge overall found a lukewarm reception, BOOM!'s Darkwing drew a considerable amount of favorable buzz and even acclaim (and, from what I understand, sales were impressive...for an American Disney comic released in 2010...) It was considered enough of a hit so that several months later after DW's debut came the advent of a new Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers (intended-to-be-)ongoing comic...and then, another few months later (May 2011), the occassion of a new DuckTales (intended-to-be-)ongoing comic... (Okay, here's where things start to get hairy...)
The innaugural four-issue story arc, "Rightful Owners", indicated earnest, well-meaning enthusiasm and ambition...that was undermined by a rushed production schedule and, consequently, not only an under-developed story, but an ill-defined internal "world", or "universe".
On the one hand, the plot conceit was incredibly simple...not that it was devoid of potential, but by the time Part Four/issue #4 -- the pre-designated "arc" "conclusion" -- came around, it seemed as though we were still in what Robert McKee would call Act One, and then were abruptly plunged ahead to (what resembled) the last couple of sequences of Act Three (which, as McKee would insist, is innately the final act of any "proper" story).
And then there were the rotating (even within the course of a single issue!) artists (and the infamous "Photoshop job" of a page in #3, which has been given enough -- but fully warranted! -- attention eslewhere...); the blatant inconsistency could only sour whatever optimism one had that the comic was being produced under the best of circumstances.
Well, as "Rightful Owners" was wrapping up (...I really use the term "wrapping up" lightly, because I can only think of it with a lingering sense of unresolvedness...), I was struck by a word exiting the grapevine that the final two issues of BOOM!'s Darkwing (#17-18) and the final two issues of BOOM!'s DuckTales (#5-6) would present to the world a full-blown DuckTales/Darkwing Duck crossover. Needless to say, not only was I intrigued, but I was giddily enthralled at the prospect...even despite reservations that it would be handled satisfactorily...
I was wise to at least be aware that my enthusiasm would best be curbed (heheh...)...for, in the end, I suffered the sickliness of an embarrassingly mischaracterized Negaduck, multiple pages wasted (starting with the sequence's very first panel) on the inanity of the nephews being mutated into a rampaging, city-trampling, three-headed, King Ghidorah-proportioned giant monster, and a bizarrely-cast (and peculiarly forgettable) incorporation of the Phantom Blot.
But those were actually but the lesser offenses. The major sins:
1. Why are the nephews, Launchpad, and Webby characterized as having long known of Fenton/Gizmoduck's dual identity? On the show, they never were privy to this secret; only Scrooge and Ma Crackshell were...and here, the latter is shown, in present tense, just learning that her son is Gizmoduck! ("...you mean it's been YOU galavanting around in that suit all this time?!")
2. Since when is Donald an outspoken rabble-rousing activist demagogue, and what the #!*!!#* does "find your inner Donald" mean?
_____________
Returning to my older post...having just read the story's concluding installment, I wrote:
Anyway, for all of the writing's flaws, as "Dangerous Currency" was winding down, I found myself once again thinking, "Well, this is it. I guess I should just be glad someone made these comics at all!" Silvani's double-page spread of various DuckTales cameos was largely the impetus for this...Bubba!? Genie from DuckTales: The Movie?! Coming full-circle [back to when BOOM!'s DuckTales and Darkwing endeavors were first announced] , I marveled, "This is 2011?!!" Never thought I'd get to see a full-blown DuckTales-Darkwing Duck crossover. In spite of the MAJOR continuity gaffes, in spite of the inane-ness of the nephews and Honkers being transformed into giant monsters, I've relished it as much as I can.
_____________
...oh, would you look at that: I also used "inane" in describing the "nephews/Honker-mutated-into-giant-monster-abberations-of-themselves" gimmick last time I wrote about it! (I hadn't yet reread the passage quoted immediately above this paragraph when, a few paragraphs further yet above, I newly wrote of the scene in question.) Telling, eh?
And by the way, I wish that in the long run, "relishing" the uniqueness of the crossover is what stuck with me...
... but here's the thing(s):
1. I still have a printout of the prose story I began writing early in the fall of `91, while I was in fourth grade, using the word processor program on my family's primitive `80's Epson computer in which Fenton decided to "investigate" Launchpad's "disappearance" from Duckburg, leading to a Gizmoduck-Darkwing Duck teamup. However, my intentions were soon eclipsed by the premier of "Just Us Justice Ducks"...and while I was enthralled by Gizmoduck guest-starring, it irritated me that his upper armwear was white instead of black. A couple of weeks later, when ABC premiered "Tiff of the Titans" (even though it SHOULD have been premiered BEFORE "Justice Ducks" was), I was no less compelled and enthralled...though I was immediately (and still am) irked by Scrooge's face inexplicably beaming at passerbys from the face of the "Welcome to Duckburg" billboard (what, is he a movie start) and the question of when Fenton and Launchpad had become such close friends (or more than passing acquaintances, for starters!) so as to have developed an elaborate secret handshake. But I managed to cope with these incongruities. ;)
2. A few years later, I ecstaticly followed the DT-DW crossover that spawned the last two installment of Bobbi JG Weiss and Cosme Quartieri's the "Legend of the Chaos God", which was faithful to the spirit of both shows and accounted for a post-DT, "Launchpad's now in St. Canard" continuity in a perfectly logical, common sense, no-fuss-no-muss, seamless manner.
Afterwards, it wasn't long before DT and DW comics were completely phased out of DA...and when BOOM!'s reincarnations came along, I'd long since written both franchises off as having whithered away to dust (to use a cliché). In that light, you'd think I'd have low expectations of a DT-DW crossover...but I couldn't help but let my inner (...er, perpetually outer? :D ) 10-year-old self get the better of me. Admittedly, I should've been more protective of him...because totally botching the matter of who are Fenton's confidantes in his secret identity and unleashing upon the world the all-time most bogus, delusion-addled conception of Donald Duck has left him forever traumatized. ;)
-- Ryan
_____________
[From late 2009 through early 2010], for better or for worse, my regular visits to the comic shop and many of the Internet-based discussions that I followed (and sometimes participated in) centered around [publisher] BOOM!'s Disney comics. At first, I boycotted most of the line during Wizards of Mickey/Ultraheroes/Double Duck phase, (or the "Yeah, THIS is the kinda thing kids'll think is WAY COOL!!!!" phase...)
I was floored when, in March of 2010 -- still mired in the "Yeah, THIS is the kinda thing kids'll think is WAY COOL!!!!" level of Hell -- it was announced that, a), BOOM! would begin publishing a Darkwing Duck series, and that, b) starting with #392, they'd devote the pages of Uncle Scrooge to DuckTales content. It's an understatement to say that this news was unexpected. I reiterate: this was 2010. Neither DuckTales nor Darkwing had been in contemporary productions for close to 20 years, and were completely nonexistent in the public eye. Of course, we now know that it was a gentleman by the name of Aaron Sparrow who was responsible for conceiving of these projects and getting them off of the ground Darkwing was an instant success -- yet for some reason, Sparrow was fired by BOOM! even before issue #4 was released...
_____________
Thus, Uncle Scrooge #392-399 consisted entirely of European DuckTales stories from the `90's. A couple of these were average, a couple more were mediocre, and there was one pretty darn good one (in no small part due to the dialogue penned by David Gerstein for American readers), the 44-page "The Curse of Flabbergé", split between #394-395 (and which I've previously given attention to -- see: here.)
While this seven-issue stretch of DuckTales issues of Uncle Scrooge overall found a lukewarm reception, BOOM!'s Darkwing drew a considerable amount of favorable buzz and even acclaim (and, from what I understand, sales were impressive...for an American Disney comic released in 2010...) It was considered enough of a hit so that several months later after DW's debut came the advent of a new Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers (intended-to-be-)ongoing comic...and then, another few months later (May 2011), the occassion of a new DuckTales (intended-to-be-)ongoing comic... (Okay, here's where things start to get hairy...)
The innaugural four-issue story arc, "Rightful Owners", indicated earnest, well-meaning enthusiasm and ambition...that was undermined by a rushed production schedule and, consequently, not only an under-developed story, but an ill-defined internal "world", or "universe".
On the one hand, the plot conceit was incredibly simple...not that it was devoid of potential, but by the time Part Four/issue #4 -- the pre-designated "arc" "conclusion" -- came around, it seemed as though we were still in what Robert McKee would call Act One, and then were abruptly plunged ahead to (what resembled) the last couple of sequences of Act Three (which, as McKee would insist, is innately the final act of any "proper" story).
And then there were the rotating (even within the course of a single issue!) artists (and the infamous "Photoshop job" of a page in #3, which has been given enough -- but fully warranted! -- attention eslewhere...); the blatant inconsistency could only sour whatever optimism one had that the comic was being produced under the best of circumstances.
Well, as "Rightful Owners" was wrapping up (...I really use the term "wrapping up" lightly, because I can only think of it with a lingering sense of unresolvedness...), I was struck by a word exiting the grapevine that the final two issues of BOOM!'s Darkwing (#17-18) and the final two issues of BOOM!'s DuckTales (#5-6) would present to the world a full-blown DuckTales/Darkwing Duck crossover. Needless to say, not only was I intrigued, but I was giddily enthralled at the prospect...even despite reservations that it would be handled satisfactorily...
I was wise to at least be aware that my enthusiasm would best be curbed (heheh...)...for, in the end, I suffered the sickliness of an embarrassingly mischaracterized Negaduck, multiple pages wasted (starting with the sequence's very first panel) on the inanity of the nephews being mutated into a rampaging, city-trampling, three-headed, King Ghidorah-proportioned giant monster, and a bizarrely-cast (and peculiarly forgettable) incorporation of the Phantom Blot.
But those were actually but the lesser offenses. The major sins:
1. Why are the nephews, Launchpad, and Webby characterized as having long known of Fenton/Gizmoduck's dual identity? On the show, they never were privy to this secret; only Scrooge and Ma Crackshell were...and here, the latter is shown, in present tense, just learning that her son is Gizmoduck! ("...you mean it's been YOU galavanting around in that suit all this time?!")
2. Since when is Donald an outspoken rabble-rousing activist demagogue, and what the #!*!!#* does "find your inner Donald" mean?
_____________
Returning to my older post...having just read the story's concluding installment, I wrote:
Anyway, for all of the writing's flaws, as "Dangerous Currency" was winding down, I found myself once again thinking, "Well, this is it. I guess I should just be glad someone made these comics at all!" Silvani's double-page spread of various DuckTales cameos was largely the impetus for this...Bubba!? Genie from DuckTales: The Movie?! Coming full-circle [back to when BOOM!'s DuckTales and Darkwing endeavors were first announced] , I marveled, "This is 2011?!!" Never thought I'd get to see a full-blown DuckTales-Darkwing Duck crossover. In spite of the MAJOR continuity gaffes, in spite of the inane-ness of the nephews and Honkers being transformed into giant monsters, I've relished it as much as I can.
_____________
...oh, would you look at that: I also used "inane" in describing the "nephews/Honker-mutated-into-giant-monster-abberations-of-themselves" gimmick last time I wrote about it! (I hadn't yet reread the passage quoted immediately above this paragraph when, a few paragraphs further yet above, I newly wrote of the scene in question.) Telling, eh?
And by the way, I wish that in the long run, "relishing" the uniqueness of the crossover is what stuck with me...
... but here's the thing(s):
1. I still have a printout of the prose story I began writing early in the fall of `91, while I was in fourth grade, using the word processor program on my family's primitive `80's Epson computer in which Fenton decided to "investigate" Launchpad's "disappearance" from Duckburg, leading to a Gizmoduck-Darkwing Duck teamup. However, my intentions were soon eclipsed by the premier of "Just Us Justice Ducks"...and while I was enthralled by Gizmoduck guest-starring, it irritated me that his upper armwear was white instead of black. A couple of weeks later, when ABC premiered "Tiff of the Titans" (even though it SHOULD have been premiered BEFORE "Justice Ducks" was), I was no less compelled and enthralled...though I was immediately (and still am) irked by Scrooge's face inexplicably beaming at passerbys from the face of the "Welcome to Duckburg" billboard (what, is he a movie start) and the question of when Fenton and Launchpad had become such close friends (or more than passing acquaintances, for starters!) so as to have developed an elaborate secret handshake. But I managed to cope with these incongruities. ;)
2. A few years later, I ecstaticly followed the DT-DW crossover that spawned the last two installment of Bobbi JG Weiss and Cosme Quartieri's the "Legend of the Chaos God", which was faithful to the spirit of both shows and accounted for a post-DT, "Launchpad's now in St. Canard" continuity in a perfectly logical, common sense, no-fuss-no-muss, seamless manner.
Afterwards, it wasn't long before DT and DW comics were completely phased out of DA...and when BOOM!'s reincarnations came along, I'd long since written both franchises off as having whithered away to dust (to use a cliché). In that light, you'd think I'd have low expectations of a DT-DW crossover...but I couldn't help but let my inner (...er, perpetually outer? :D ) 10-year-old self get the better of me. Admittedly, I should've been more protective of him...because totally botching the matter of who are Fenton's confidantes in his secret identity and unleashing upon the world the all-time most bogus, delusion-addled conception of Donald Duck has left him forever traumatized. ;)
-- Ryan
A History of DuckTales Comic Books, Part Four: Marvel's Disney Afternoon
...anyone even remember my History of DuckTales Comic Books series? Well, whether or not you do, it's been left hanging since...(yikes!) September 19th, 2011! Well, with only a few hours to go, I'm now determined to enter 2013 having seen this project through, dagnabbit!
_________
Some time ago, in a blog comment, Joseph Adorno mentioned to me Marvel's 1994-95 Disney Afternoon comic, which had a 10-issue run. By way of what's perhaps been selective memory (Disney Comics' pre-Implosion DuckTales, Rescue Rangers, and TaleSpin comics had left much more of a lasting impression...), then if not for Joseph, I don't think that it ever would've occurred to me to account for that title in this series...
...and as most issues were devoted to Darkwing Duck and Rescue Rangers content, it's very easy to disregard that comic when operating from a DuckTales-oriented frame of mind...as the entirety of DT's representation in those 10 issues was in the form of two one-page gags (...only one of which I'd actually remembered, until skimming just now through the Inducks entries for each issue!)
Anyway, a little background: approximately a year and a half after Disney Comics had closed up shop and the "Gladstone II" era began, Marvel began publishing a separate line Disney comics, having been granted the "modern characters" license, as opposed to Gladstone's "classic characters" license. (Now, I always knew the difference between, say, "The Band Concert" and The Little Mermaid, but this was the first time in the U.S. that, as far as I understand it, an unmistakeable was drawn between the corresponding two types of comics.)
(While it made sense for branding reasons, I always thought it was awkward to title a comic book The [something] Afternoon... Also, by the time the first issue hit the stands, Darkwing and Rangers had long been in reruns, so the comic wasn't as "with the times" as you'd expect of Marvel's (presumed) marketing geniuses...)
So, here's Inducks' scans of the first of the two gags, "Fins Ain't What They Seem", from The Disney Afternoon #4 (Feb. 1995):
Basically, Scrooge is enjoying a swim in the money bin, he spots what appear to be four shark fins "swimming along the surface" ... and we're then shown that it's the Beagle Boys wearing shark fins on their heads, and they momentarily revel in thinking that they've fooled Scrooge and scared him off ... but then they're "sent packing" when Scrooge bores down over them in a battle ship "asail" on the sea of money...
For a one-page gag, this bit is...eh, well, it's okay. Swimming in the money bin and defending his money bin from a Beagle Boys raid is pretty Scrooge-esque, and attempetd said raid is pretty Beagles-esque, on their part. But it strikesm e as this was written by someone newly wrestling with the concept of Scrooge swimming in his money (...but that may just me being snobbish...)
And here's Inducks' scan of the other gag, "Cinematic Cycling", from The Disney Afternoon #6 (Apr. 1995):
*yawn* ...Gyro appears to be riding a bicycle through vastly diffent settings, but in the last panel, it's "revealed" (if you've avoided looking at the bottom of the page until you'd reached the last panel...) that he's been riding a stationary "exercise" bike in front of movie projections.
As a wordless, purely visual sequential gag (it's interesting to note that both this and "Fins" were exclusively pantomime), the construction is decent. It's just that...well, the gag isn't that much of a knockout...and how is using an exercise bike and a home movie projector at the same time at all Gearloose-ian?
I find it very curious that, besides Gyro and the Beagles having been rendered employing their DuckTales character designs, despite this ostensibly being a product of Marvel having the "modern" license, these two gags only included "classic" Barks characters, and no "modern" DT-exclusive creations like Launchpad or Webby!
Next up: Part Five (of Five), followed by a supplemental entry... Stay tuned...
-- Ryan
_________
Some time ago, in a blog comment, Joseph Adorno mentioned to me Marvel's 1994-95 Disney Afternoon comic, which had a 10-issue run. By way of what's perhaps been selective memory (Disney Comics' pre-Implosion DuckTales, Rescue Rangers, and TaleSpin comics had left much more of a lasting impression...), then if not for Joseph, I don't think that it ever would've occurred to me to account for that title in this series...
...and as most issues were devoted to Darkwing Duck and Rescue Rangers content, it's very easy to disregard that comic when operating from a DuckTales-oriented frame of mind...as the entirety of DT's representation in those 10 issues was in the form of two one-page gags (...only one of which I'd actually remembered, until skimming just now through the Inducks entries for each issue!)
Anyway, a little background: approximately a year and a half after Disney Comics had closed up shop and the "Gladstone II" era began, Marvel began publishing a separate line Disney comics, having been granted the "modern characters" license, as opposed to Gladstone's "classic characters" license. (Now, I always knew the difference between, say, "The Band Concert" and The Little Mermaid, but this was the first time in the U.S. that, as far as I understand it, an unmistakeable was drawn between the corresponding two types of comics.)
(While it made sense for branding reasons, I always thought it was awkward to title a comic book The [something] Afternoon... Also, by the time the first issue hit the stands, Darkwing and Rangers had long been in reruns, so the comic wasn't as "with the times" as you'd expect of Marvel's (presumed) marketing geniuses...)
So, here's Inducks' scans of the first of the two gags, "Fins Ain't What They Seem", from The Disney Afternoon #4 (Feb. 1995):
Basically, Scrooge is enjoying a swim in the money bin, he spots what appear to be four shark fins "swimming along the surface" ... and we're then shown that it's the Beagle Boys wearing shark fins on their heads, and they momentarily revel in thinking that they've fooled Scrooge and scared him off ... but then they're "sent packing" when Scrooge bores down over them in a battle ship "asail" on the sea of money...
For a one-page gag, this bit is...eh, well, it's okay. Swimming in the money bin and defending his money bin from a Beagle Boys raid is pretty Scrooge-esque, and attempetd said raid is pretty Beagles-esque, on their part. But it strikesm e as this was written by someone newly wrestling with the concept of Scrooge swimming in his money (...but that may just me being snobbish...)
And here's Inducks' scan of the other gag, "Cinematic Cycling", from The Disney Afternoon #6 (Apr. 1995):
*yawn* ...Gyro appears to be riding a bicycle through vastly diffent settings, but in the last panel, it's "revealed" (if you've avoided looking at the bottom of the page until you'd reached the last panel...) that he's been riding a stationary "exercise" bike in front of movie projections.
As a wordless, purely visual sequential gag (it's interesting to note that both this and "Fins" were exclusively pantomime), the construction is decent. It's just that...well, the gag isn't that much of a knockout...and how is using an exercise bike and a home movie projector at the same time at all Gearloose-ian?
I find it very curious that, besides Gyro and the Beagles having been rendered employing their DuckTales character designs, despite this ostensibly being a product of Marvel having the "modern" license, these two gags only included "classic" Barks characters, and no "modern" DT-exclusive creations like Launchpad or Webby!
Next up: Part Five (of Five), followed by a supplemental entry... Stay tuned...
-- Ryan
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