New comic review: Donald Duck #371 (IDW, August 2015)

Receiving top billing in this issue is "The Perfect Calm", a 1974 story written by Rodolfo Cimino and drawn by Romano Scarpa. I haven't seen very much of Scarpa's work from this era, but there's a decided contrast between Dave Alvarez' cover representing "Calm" (above), which nearly could be a still from a fully-animated Disney production, and the 40-years-older story's art, which looks more UPA-esque (especially some of the incidental and background characters). Oh, and in a couple of panels, I would have taken Donald for being Al Hubbard's.

The story itself actually reminds me of the more satiric episodes of DuckTales' second season, such as "The Big Flub" and "My Mother the Psychic", specifically because of the shared motif (with Flub) of Donald/Fenton introducing a mega-popular, incredibly lucrative new craze of some sort to society that runs away with itself to the point of evolving into a mass catastrophe ("Flub") and the shared premise of Scrooge exploiting a "mystic" individual for profit ("Psychic"). Also, the lighthearted spoofing of Eastern mysticism evokes the satiric quality of those episodes and the second season in general. In fact, the way that the adventure scenes are played in a more farcical (and here, very silly) way and are used as a means to set up the major events of the story involving calamity at home in Duckburg brings season two to mind, "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Webby" in particular.

My only real criticism of the story is that it would have been thematically stronger to pave the way for Donald's introduction to the Perfect Calm with a series of increasingly and extremely unfortunate events that push him to brink of rage, rather than the mopey "Woe is me" Donald who meets his mentor in jail after merely one little pedestrian sidewalk accident. Perhaps Joe Torcivia -- who peppered the nephews' dialogue with a lot of wry asides and zingers at the expense of their uncle, and I suspect is wholly responsible for the non sequitur (briefly) running joke about, er jokes (of the goat variety) -- could fill us in as to whether there was a "Day of Gifts" in the original story, or if there was some other reason everyone was walking around at the beginning of the story holding wrapped gifts!

[Update: See Joe Torcivia's comment below -- he confirms that the "Day of Gifts" was in the original version, urging, "Give that proper credit to Cimino (and perhaps Scarpa?)"]

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Speaking of presents, another ancient British relic by Wilfred Haughton is presented to us, in the form of 1937's"Hampered!"  As crude as they are and as off as the characterizations can be, I love seeing these, and find them quite interesting historically. Case in point re: characterization, here, Mickey is indifferent, even callous, to Morty and Ferdie in a way that I would only expect of the early Donald toward his nephews. As Mickey is in fact in cohort with the early Donald himself for the duration of this strip, perhaps his belly ache-prone pal had rubbed off on him for the moment. 

Don Christensen and Paul Murry's very nice "Chore Chump" (1962) features a rare comic book appearance by Ludwig Von Drake in which his erudite, elitist tendencies are apparent. Though it may seem more like Scrooge's department to disapprove of Gus Goose's aversion to working, period (not just harder than hardies), it makes sense that Ludwig would frown upon Gus' atrophy as a whole, not just intellectual (Ludwig's prerogative). Of course, Grandma is sharp-witted, too, but doesn't flaunt it, and so her getting the best of Ludwig in the end, unofficially punishing him for basically inducing in him via hypnotism a permanent state akin to the effects of Adderall at their peak (until he undid it), hits an especially sweet, wry, and understated final note.

-- Ryan

New comic review: Mickey Mouse #311 (IDW, July 2015)

When a few months ago I first saw Dave Alvarez' delicious, delectable cover prominently displaying the Phantom Blot in all his glory, Mickey Mouse #311 immediately became one of my most eagerly anticipated of the issues of IDW's first summer of Disney.

For a 33-page story, which is on the long side by Disney comics standards, it's surprising how little of a plot there is to it: the primary conflict is Mickey's altered (in fact, enhanced, but in a way that often seems more like a hindrance) hearing. Though his condition is caused at the story's beginning during a scuffle with the Blot, it's by complete accident, not at all intended by the "black-cloaked blaggard". (Kudos, Torcivia!) Later, the Blot takes advantage of the situation, making things hairier for Mickey... but by not showing what the Blot is doing and how, and the ambiguity about whether or not any of it is in fact the Blot's doing, holding off on the big reveal -- via a gloating Blot soliloquy that precipitates the hero and villain's final showdown -- makes the story read confusingly and disjointedly. The specs of said soliloquy of revelation illustrate a scheme contrived and cobbled together on a "winging it" level never before attained (or stooped down to?) by the Blot. There's so little to it, the story doesn't even ever build to that much of a climax; Mickey just all of the sudden puts everything together and we make a clean break in cutting right to the aforementioned final showdown. The way that Mickey surprises the Blot by nonchalantly strutting into his hideout as he delivers his aforementioned soliloquy is funny, but Mickey's explanation as to how he seemingly magically found the hideout is another one of the story's forced, head-scratching-inducing shortcuts that you kind of have to just put out of mind to go on reading.

All that said, I actually like the story(!) After all, hey, it's the Phantom Blot! Thanks in large part to Cavazzano, the story is a whole lot of fun, with the hyperactivity of his art engendering a bold, sweeping dynamics and the illusion of rapid pacing. Also, I'm getting to really like Cavazzano's Mickey, drawn with certain quirks and details that make him one of the most attractive pupil-eyed Mickeys I've ever seen. The deftness of Cavazzano's dazzling dynamics especially enhance the bookend pair of Mickey-Blot slug-fests, which are presented as archetypal confrontations between our staunch detective hero and his most formidable arch-nemesis. The laboratory setting of the first battle and especially the clock tower setting of the one at the climax take things over the top aesthetically, really playing up the whole arch-villain thing. I've taken issue in the past with how all non-Gottfredson takes on the Blot have forgotten that he was a foreign spy with a very specific mission and cast him as an all-purpose super-villain, but as I'm several decades too late with that complaint, showing him without the hood through the whole story and playing up his penchant for disguises (besides his usual one, that is) and for building things (it's not just death traps anymore!) is a good consolation prize. Torcivia's several references to the death traps sweeten the deal, too. 

Like the original Blot story, this one is heavy on Mickey working with Chief O'Hara, much to the (though he won't admit it) envy of Detective Casey, story choices that to me go a long way in creating the "feel" of a Phantom Blot story. Casey's reassignment to traffic cop is a legitimately funny new spin on his comic relief role in the original, where, repeatedly, his bravado only made the embarrassment of his bungling all the worse. Casey's hooting and hollering over Mickey and the Blot's brawl brought to mind Sgt. Bullock's emphatic ravings as he witnessed Azrael-as-Batman take down Bane in the "Knightfall" story line. This brought me a certain satisfaction, as I've always considered that as Bullock is to Gordon, Casey is to O'Hara, and I've always considered Gottfredson's original Blot story the closest a Mickey Mouse story ever got to being a Batman story.

With these characterizations (the Blot, O'Hara, Casey) and with the emphasis on Mickey's friendships with "the ol' gang", writer Bruno Enna plays into and with the audience's familiarity with the respective cast, playing a fresh, new variation of an old song, so to speak. Though the Mickey denunciations that Mickey himself overhears -- that are in fact faked by the Blot -- have the story for a few seconds approaching (sort of inverted) It's a Wonderful Life territory, the "quintessential" characterizations give the story a sort of This Is Your Life "tour" feel akin to "A Little Something Special" (but although "Sound-Blot Plot" is special, it's not quite that special). In the plot's casual coincidences and the atypical story momentum that comes from Mickey just trying to have a normal day, except weird things are happening to him, and as they appear incidental rather than the result of a scheme or (if you will) plot (in fact, they are in part incidental),, for a good while there's no particular goal or objective driving the narrative; it reflects Mickey's confusion, and that's not bad writing; it's wildly appropriate. There's actually a certain kind of quasi-realism (kind of like with "The Duckburg 100", now that I think of it), with Mickey and his pals feeling like they have one or two more added dimensions just because we see them in something (weirdly) resembling "real time".

Goofy's sweetness was a nice touch, and his harmless but eccentric "hoarder"-esque habits was a fresh take. (In fact, with his bird fostering and silent, mimed communication that he prolongs much longer than Mickey needed, he actually comes off as lighter version of Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia!) His intervention at the climax was perfectly timed, as well as both funny and touching.

Once again, the backup features satisfy one's "classic rarities" needs: another Walsh-Gonzalez Sunday featuring Ellsworth, and a crude but historically interesting British gag from the early '30's(!) in which Mickey performs physical comedy that back in the States, via Gottfredson, he was already well evolved beyond (for which I'm grateful).

-- Ryan

New comic review: Uncle Scrooge #3 (#407) (IDW, June 2015)

IDWs Marco Rota "A" cover for Uncle Scrooge #407, which originally graced an Italian 2008 reprint of the 1961 Romano Scarpa story that Scrooge #407 presents using Joe Torcivia's newly-Americanized title "The Duckburg 100":

In contrast with his other stories presented by IDW thus far, Scarpa's "The Duckburg 100" is a relatively humble, down-to-earth, domestic, Duckburg-based story. Almost a pure character piece, its lack of big set pieces shouldn't be mistaken for a lackluster read -- its execution is more complex than the premise might suggest. (The most "adventurous" thing that happens is a Beagle Boy robbery during which they accidentally kidnap Donald, and it's mostly played for laughs: the Beagles are just doing what they can't help themselves from doing, and Donald's stumbled into quite a jam, ho-ho!) While the hook -- the bank's contest -- is frankly dry, to the point that it can only be relayed via dialogue, the closest to a  visual representation being promotional posters that Scrooge is pleased to see as he nears the bank... really, just more text! In many modern duck and mouse comics, the MacGuffin is something visual and wacky, which can make a story seem contrived and gimmicky. "100"'s more conscientious (and real-world plausible) situational (rather than conceptual, i.e. gimmicky) premise triggers reactions and an ensuing series of event that make Duckburg more believable than usual. Of course, this illusion hinges upon Scarpa's grasp of these characters, which here is wildly apparent. The end result is a quasi-social satire that isn't acidic and vitriolic, but certainly acute.

It's completely logical and in-character for Scrooge to be anxious to the point of obsession, allowing Scarpa to show us -- and amuse us with -- Scrooge in one of his panicked, skittish, somewhat neurotic modes. But Scarpa's Scrooge, like Barks', has varied moods, and so once he's processed the situation, Scrooge quickly turns energized, driven, and determined in taking efforts to ensure that the three contestants each a prove winning bet (on his end of the deal, of course). To pull off such a drastic transition in temperament as part of staggering a character's reaction to a plot development, keeping the character so true to what makes him tick, is testimony to Scarpa's talent and intuition. And I've almost overlooked how at first, Scrooge was all in favor of the contest and personally commending the bank's manager, only freaking out when he realizes that he owns the bank -- a variation, I believe, of a gag I'm pretty sure Barks used at least once, here executed with a quick setup and then, bam, a blunt turned-on-its head reveal so stark in its irony and so precisely "acted" as to be worth of Laurel and Hardy.

While I would qualify "100" as a character-oriented story before I would a social satire I would say that there is an element of social satire at play. It's predominantly character-driven in that the entire premise is a juxtaposition of the frugal, disciplined, finance-literate Scrooge against three, count 'em, THREE foil types: Jubal, the con artist; the Beagle Boys, who are no-muss, base-level thieves; and Donald, who is (at least in this portrayal) a pure fool. The pop culture-infatuated, financially inept, adult responsibility-oblivious, completely infantile Donald in this story doesn't exactly contradict his general comic book characterization; these traits have been shown, but here, it's just that he's been so completely consumed by these tendencies. I suppose we can chalk it up his obsession with Captain Retro-Duck being a relatively new phenomenon. In other words, a case of, "Oh, it's just a phase -- he'll move on, eventually."

...oh, but I was trying to make a point about the satirical aspects of the story. Basically, Scrooge and his three foils each represent an archetypal human trait/tendency. And each is used to show how money, and moreover, the institution of banking, rules our material existence. Now, I'm not sure if any point is made about this societal situation, which is why ultimately, this is an exercise in showing how these characters each react to a given situation (Scrooge from a different perspective than the other three). But there's at least the framework of a social satire built in to the story.

There is, of course, Scarpa's stab at modern art... which is an easy target, admittedly, but when an actual artist curmudgeonly vents about it in his own work, it has a particularly relishable sting to it. (And evidently, Scarpa and Barks were fellow curmudgeons, sharing a similar view on this "medium"!)

Is there a moral? Since Donald in the end gets as a reward the very thing the very thing he wanted in the first place, perhaps the moral is, "It's okay to be a fool; just don't be a con man or a low-rent thief." How does Scrooge make out? With all of the angst and obsessive effort he goes through, you might think that there might be some ultimate message about Scrooge being too whatever... but in the end, he gets what he wants, too: he hasn't lost anything. Are Scarpa's sympathies actually with Scrooge? Is he actually endorsing Scrooge's ways? I'm not sure, but I wonder.

One of Scarpa's many clever accomplishments in his plotting is the way that each of the three contest participants' efforts "cross over" with and impact each other, leading to the outcome of the story. These scenarios are fully developed enough to not feel contrived; in fact, they play a major part in the story having a tone of tasteful and thoughtful whimsical farce. (However THAT is conceivable!) Jubal's storyline is actually phased out, wrapped up prematurely in dialogue between Scrooge and the bank manager -- during which Jubal is off-screen, and after which he remains so. But even that kind of just falls away in the flow of things. The only plot turn that I found abrupt was how easily and quickly things were wrapped up once the nephews got the info via walkie-talkie from Donald, hiding in the Beagles' midst. I expected Donald getting discovered and the Beagles getting the upper hand again, resulting in one last major obstacle to overcome. I commend Scarpa for using what at first seemed like a lark,  Donald's being enraptured by his new  toy, as an integral plot device, in the dramatic tension afforded by the nephews turning off the walkie-talkie Donald left at home and in how its ultimately the ironic means by which the day is saved. But once Donald finally gets through to the nephews, it's a matter of about three panels before the Beagles have been apprehended (off-screen!), Donald is rescued, and Scrooge has regained the contents of Jewel Vault #3. Nothing to it, easy as pie! Anticlimactic, yes, but at least not as ludicrous and un-sellable as the ending of "Gigabeagle". And not even half as abrupt.

Now, I could pick on Scarpa for the Beagles' giant suction hose thing being a shortcut intended to expedite the vault robbery scene, and for the awkward, clumsy design he came up with for it... but in the former respect, he actually made the right call, because the story beats felt just right. In fact, I'm surprised by now that I haven't brought up how it's easy to imagine this story's premise as a Barks or Barksian ten-pager.  Though it's longer, I guess between the pacing of 10 Barks pages with four tiers each and 33 Scarpa pages with three tiers each, things somehow more or less even out.

For his first turn at a lead story in an IDW Disney comic, Joe Torcivia's dialogue is actually less archaic than that of some of his other recent Americanized scripts... but that's not to say that it's ever dry or straightforward. Take page 8, panel 2: "Hey, you punks! I want my gold nibs!" "Oops! Old stealing habits die hard!" Straightforward in comparison to, say, the daunting alliteration that opened "Meteor Rights", but imagine what the panel in question could have been: "Hey! You stole my gold nib!" "Oh, sorry! We didn't know it was yours!" Or the last panel on the same page: "Gadzooks! The hundred's here! In one lump sum!" What if that had just been, "Wow! Just what I needed, a check for $100!" It really can be the little things that make one's reading experience with these considerably smarter than could easily be the case.

A significant but necessary amendment to the story that Torcivia has made is the entire "Captain Retro-Duck" angle. Until just now, when flipping to the relevant pages, I hadn't put together that there was no superhero or action TV star of any type shown on Donald's TV screen even once during the story. Thus, if I deduce correctly, Captain Retro-Duck, who is referenced in Torcivia's version of the voiceovers for the walkie-talkie promo spots Donald salivates over, was conceived to justify for contemporary American readers why in the age of Google and iPhones Donald or anyone would get so excited in the first place about a walkie-talkie set. It's not that Captain Retro-Duck is a retooling of the TV action star in the original version; there was no TV action star in the original version! In that case, when Donald wanders off from home lost in "playing" Captain Retro-Duck, does that mean in the original, he was just playing some sort of generic make-believe spy game? I can't help but think that his frivolities seem more justified in Torcivia's version. And the nods to TV/comic book/superhero/sci-fi etc. fandom that he worked in are an added bonus, as are all the punny variations of the prefix "retro". Exemplifying both, we have "Sinister storage tanks! Just like the dreaded Eviloid in Episode 213: 'Captain Retro-Duck and the Retro-gressive Gas!'"

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Scrooge #407 wraps up with a two-page Tony Strobl gag created for the Disney Studios program. In contrast with the nephews' chastisising and being considerably wiser than Donald in the lead story, here, they're shown as being completely on the same page and virtually standing as one with Donald against Scrooge. The gag boils down to Scrooge "programming" a parrot to say a series of things to "brainwash" his nephews, and in retaliation, they "reprogram" it to say the things that Scrooge decidedly doesn't want to hear. It reduces the characters to one-note roles... but that's sort of the nature of gag pieces. And as far as gags go, it's decently constructuted, as crass as it makes the characters seem. And I am glad that it's finally be printed in the States, for better or worse.

(Hmm, it just occurred to me... with Strobl, it's kind of as if the characters had been done by Hanna-Barbera. Or the Disney characters done by the artists who drew Western's Hanna-Barbera titles... one of whom I'm sure was Strobl. But he was also a product of his era. I can see some commonalities between him and even the original animation featuring the classic Disney cartoon characters produced for framing sequences of the Walt Disney Presents/Wonderful World of Disney episodes that were made up of select theatrical shorts. But I digress... )

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Though I definitely think of Marco Rota's "A" cover, above (at the start of this post), as the "definitive" cover of this issue (for its "classic" duck comic look), I couldn't help but also purchase a copy with James Silvani's "sub" cover variant. It hit me in a soft spot for evoking DuckTales (i.e. due to the dynamic of Scrooge and the nephews sans Donald, and how, rather than their shirts being "blacked in", the nephews are sporting their DT-canonized red, blue, and green shirts), and "Treasure of the Golden Suns" in particular. The Junior Woodchuck coonskins were prominent in that serial, which may have been the first time the nephews were seen wearing them in conjunction with their non-blacked-in, then-newly-canonized-color scheme-complying shirts. So the aesthetic of their being so attired has a distinctly DT air to it.

-- Ryan

New comic review: Uncle Scrooge #2 (#406) (IDW, May 2015)

With its first issue of Uncle Scrooge, IDW brought us to Italy. Our current stop is the resplendent Netherlands.

With pirates, a haunted ship, a treasure hunt, “Shivers Me Timbers!” sounds like stuff of a classic Carl Barks adventure, right? And being over 20 pages in length and using the Dell-standardized four-tiers-per-page format (as opposed to the three-tiers-per-page, overall splashier approach used for last issue's Italian lead), it's easy to quickly form certain expectations. But Jan Kruse' plot also involves an immortal wizard, an eternal curse, and a rainbow bridge between two uncharted islands, one of which the wizard has populated with anything his whims fancy, including King Arthur and the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Shades of the “Shambor” stories or World of the Dragonlords. One could say it’s a fusion of different duck genres… but, really, it’s a duck adventure story, pure and simple.  

 "Shiver Me Timbers"

The first act sees the ducks trapped aboard the aforementioned ship, operated by an unseen force, in the eerie, mysterious tradition of “Ghost of the Grotto”, “The Old Castle’s Secret”, or “The Flying Dutchman”. But just when it looks like things have reverted to “standard” treasure hunt/captured-by-pirates fare, the mystery surrounding the ship, its unnatural crew, and how the pirates and the island factor in is blown wide open, and all of the fantastical elements take over in full force. It may sound disparate, but it’s actually constructed pretty artfully, so that every element is integral… even the disembodied, autonomous, gravity-immune eye, arm, and leg that turn out to have been the ship’s elusive crew! I’m not quite sure what duck comic precedent to compare that kind of kookiness and whimsy to!

The ducks are well-characterized: Scrooge’s profit-seeking, treasure-coveting m.o. is spot-on. It proves his undoing when his coin-pawing zealousness is what gets the gang in trouble with the pirates, and a joke in the first scene about a business plan for a restaurant is brought back and underscored at the ending, giving a nice sense of closure. A tried-and-true narrative device is used at the end: the ducks are suddenly cut off from inner (or outer, given the supernatural nature of the circumstances) world of the adventure they’d just had, disquietingly casting doubt on whether they’d actually “ascended” to that “higher plane”. Barks used this trope (and I use that term meaning it to be free of its negative connotations) at the closing of “Mythic Mystery”, which similarly transported the ducks to a fantasy world in which they were inundated with myths and legends come to life.

Donald, of course, repeatedly expresses the wish that he’d stay home, best exemplified when takes advantage of the idle time while being transported to the wizard’s island by catching a nap – he actually shines in this moment, I guess because he’s actually getting some relief, for once … but of course, it’s all too fleeting. (Sigh.) And the nephews are the most proactive, resourceful members of the bunch, but they also wish they were home fishing, like Donald – a nice balance between their child-like and more industrious characterizations.

Bas Heymans' art strikes me as being inspired by ‘40’s Barks but filtered through Ben Verhagen and Marco Rota. The artist’s evident versatility is seen in the more realistic style in which the ship, the island, and the plain ol’ fishing docks back in Duckburg are drawn; the grander, bolder, highly-charged sequences spotlighting the wizard and the knights; as well as the (very) cartoonish “liberated”, self-propelled body parts. In the latter category we can include Grizzlebeard’s bizarre conception of “one of many Loch Ness monsters”, this member of the Clan Nessie afflicted with a grossly disproportionate pea-sized head. It’s not clear, though, if he’s also distant family to the sleek sea serpent with the mirthful gleam in his eyes and licentious grin that attacks Donald and the nephews on their way to Grizzlebeard’s island. However, because of this exaggerated facial personification, making the serpent look menacing while paradoxically looking cartoonishly silly, it fits somewhere between the “epic myth” elements of the story and the more whimsical ones. 

Jonathan Gray’s dialogue is so richly and intricately written, multilayered, and erudite, some of the dialogue struck me as being at least one-half as archaic as Krazy Kat! (For the record, that quantifies as still pretty damn archaic!) More on his work on the story below.

 "Meteor Rights"

Frank Jonker and Paul Hoogma's plot for "Meteor Rights" could be an official textbook example of a Scrooge-versus-Glomgold story: the world's two richest ducks are racing to be the first to reach and claim something. Each hoping to obstruct the other from reaching their destination, there's an escalating series of affronts and retaliations exchanged between them, culminating in an unforeseen change in circumstances that leaves neither duck the winner and proves that their obsessive carried-to-its-utmost-extremes one-upmanship was destined to be futile.

In a twist that's unique to this story, and is amittedly a major break from the standard Scrooge-versus-Glomgold high-stakes race subgenre that this story otherwise so well exemplifies, the ducks find out that being in close proximity to the meteor subjects them to some sort of neurological chemical alteration that causes them to feel nothing but warm fuzziness toward everyone and everything, whether present or that ust happens to cross their mind. The whole "the hero and villain's minds become possessed by something that makes them into unabashed goody-goody saps weeping over the beauty of each other's souls and precious humanity" bit is a bit of a cliché and sort of a way of cheating at character development, yes. But by relegating it to the final act of a story that's brief to begin with, the joke's potential is maximized by being told once, straight and to the point, rather than being dragged out. (Donald mentions his newfound affection for the off-screen Gladstone and Neighbor Jones. I suspect that U.S. scripter Joe Torcivia thought to reference them, and a more perfect crystallization of Donald’s altered state of mind there couldn’t be.)

But despite the bare-bones plot and inherently contrived "sworn lifelong enemies are abruptly and for no reason gaga-eyed over each other" gimmick, the execution is largely faultless. Maximino Tortajada Aguilar's art is in keeping with the Barks-progenied Danish duck comic house style, but of course, like any artist, he draws with his own hand, which proves to be inclined toward smooth, lush but modest work. His "action" is vivacious and fluid, bringing out the brisk, assured momentum of Jonker and Hoogma's narrative. And with the new English-language dialogue written for the U.S. audience, Joe Torcivia demonstrates that he has the chops to riff toe-to-toe with the original band members.

I'm not keeping score, but both Gray and Torcivia seem to be working their way to some kind of "most alliteration written for Disney comics" award. Just as select examples, Gray has tallied points with "manic myriad of countless cod", "Ten-thousand thundering typhoons", "another amazing adventure", "Jumpin' jacksnipes!", and (doubling as pun) "Fore-alarm at four o'clock!" Torcivia, meanwhile, remains firmly in the game with "beautiful boulder of benevolence", "Nosh my Newmans into nothingness, eh?", and "Deducedly disquieting!" to name the few. But special recognition should go to the caption box in the half-page splash that the story begins with. "The Billionaires' Club! Where two titans of tightwad-ism tally their tangibles -- tauntingly!" has got to be an absolutely singular achievement in how at first its density confuses the reader right as they're going in cold (or at least this reader -- give me a dunce cap for having to read it two or three times before it registered), and yet is an uncannily accurate and comprehensive description of what's shown in the accompanying panel, and yet (yup, again! Three-fold, even!) is delightfully absurd in how detailed it is while adhering to a self-imposed alliterative scheme. Or, in other words, it shamelessly shows a sublime sort of silliness while successfully somehow satisfying the stipulation to seriously set the scene with specificity, signaling the start of the story.

And how could I have waited this long to praise Torcivia's gem of a title? When the pun actually clicked for me (having at first having glossed over and plunging right into the story), it was a moment of both considerable amusement and amazement at how clever and apt it is.

Torcivia's numerous Barks references -- to "The Twenty-Four-Carat Moon" and "Swamp of No Return", and a variation of Scrooge's iconic mantra from the first page of "Only a Poor Old Man" describing his"money swim" techniques -- are not just a wink at the fans, but a celebration and affirmation of these comics' history and heritage. And by designating the story's bog-or-marsh setting as Dismal Swamp from "The Swamp of No Return" and developing a running joke out of mentioning the string contest from the very first Flintheart Glomgold story, Torcivia isn't just casually tossing in Barks references, but integrating elements from specific Barks stories, reinforcing the singularity of the ducks' world.

For his part, Gray incorporates a Barks homage that I'll admit having to double-check on to make sure I hadn't misidentified it. (Thus, I don't feel it's my place to spoil it here.) Besides Scrooge name-dropping the patriarch of the Beagle Boy clan, Gray slips in a couple of slick non-Barks Disney ducks references: 1. Scrooge recites his personalized version of the lyrics to a certain theme song from the days of the studio's theatrical animated shorts. 2. Donald alludes to a relative hailing from the Gold Key era. 3. In a case of astoundingly perfect irony, an incidental character is named after a well-known Disney comics creator -- perfect because this story is NOT a product of said creator's "branch" of the family, yet said incidental character displays surface traits that coincidentally could be conflabulated with mild stereoty associated with that other branch. It's a pretty low-brow joke, but the joke knows that about itself and so embraces it, and so the real joke becomes the absurdity that the joke actually gets made at all. At least, that's how I'm reading it, but admittedly, I'm projecting a lot between the lines, and only because I caught the reference, whereas a casual reader would probably never suspect that there's any significance to this throwaway character's name.

Regarding Gray's aforementioned archaic writing, I cannot stress enough (and this applies to Torcivia’s formidable opening line, too) that I mean that as a commendation – I’m all for these comics being intelligent and substantive. And both writers' output is just that; the words in any given panel are never dull or predictable.. Gray keeps us on our toes with the bewilderingly unfamiliar and obscure: "Imbroglio"? "Double-jabbered"? And just when I was starting to get "gibber" down, now I have to remember the difference between it and "jabber"? ...and, hey, where does "jibber-jabber" fit in? (But the recurring theme of Donald being told that he's "gibbering", which actually came off more like a prolonged non sequitur than a mere running joke, was actually very funny, both for the nonchalant emphasis on it when it "has nothing to do with anything", and for Donald's meek, almost cute protests. ...or is it a comics tradition-defying joke about the animated film Donald's voice?)  But not only is he fluent in pirate-ese, medieval/Arthurian-ese, ‘30’s gangster-ese (…oops, that’s next review), and the dialect I suspect of just about any other period and culture, he also plays the occasional wild card, making far more contemporary, "hip" references: 1. Scrooge actually says "make bank"?! HA! :D 2. It took 40-50 years for western fans of Japanese monster movies to codify distinguishing Japanese movie monsters by the Japanese word for "monster", even though it just means "monster", not "monster in Japanese movies", and another 10 to 15 years or so, give or take, for the term to be used in an American Disney duck comic. These throw me for a loop, and I love it! 

And lest you think Torcivia doesn't keep up with the times, he makes a reference to one of the biggest pop music stars of the past years. But I got more of a kick out of the parody of the lyrics of David Bowie's most famous song, as a couple of my all-time favorite albums are by Bowie, and it was strange to have the worlds of two separate interests of mine fleetingly collide.

And, Joe, I immediately wanted to inquire, are Fig Newmans in fact a new soft cookie-with-a-gelatinous-core thing from the Newman's Own line? ;)

-- Ryan

P.S. The first IDW issue of Donald Duck came out yesterday. I plan to review it soon.

New comic review: Uncle Scrooge #1 (#405) (IDW, April 2015)

Despite the four-year interim and the change in licensee, Uncle Scrooge #405 is pretty consistent with #404: the spotlight is on a Romano Scarpa-drawn story from 1996, represented with a new cover by Giorgio Cavazzano. David Gerstein was working on the book then, as he is again, but he's reclaimed his archival editor title from the Gemstone days. He's accompanied by Jonathan Gray and Joe Torcivia, two of his teammates from the "classics"-branded aspects of the 2009-11 licensee (though not US #404 in particular), further closing the gap, and bringing a certain level of reassurance to fellow fans who know them.

Rodolfo Cimino and Scarpa's "Gigabeagle: King of the Giant Robot Robbers" (its new American title, paying homage to Barks' own Beagle Boys-giant robot story from only a year earlier, and I suspect that the "Giga" prefix is a reference to some of sort pop culture giant robot that that I don't know about) definitely has a gargantuan Beagle Boy robot stomping across Duckburg and making off with the money bin, but there's not much of a plot facilitating those events. The setup is arbitrary on multiple fronts: we open on Scrooge freaking out arbitrarily over the general existence of the Beagle Boys ... not because of a specific recent  threat from them, and not from news of a prison break or intel on their latest scheme, but from the lack of any news about them. The nephews arbitrarily decide that they will set Scrooge at ease by bringing him to Donald and their house, where for some reason he wolfs down all of the food they can pile on his plate (Scrooge has a binge eating disorder? Or does he just normally starve because he's so cheap?), and then arbitrarily decide that the ultimate solution to his anxiety is to take him camping. The actual plot reason for this camping trip is for the ducks to discover the robot ... because that only could happen if they went camping, right?

But this fast-and-loose, half-assed plotting has nothing on the story's resolution: "Gigabeagle" has gotten away free and clear with the bin, and so it would appear time for the final act of the story, in which the ducks will figure out a way to take down (or take control of, as Scrooge did in this story's Barks precedent) the marauding skyscraper-sized motorized machine with the visage of a Beagle Boy and regain possession of the money bin. Suddenly, in one fell swoop, "Gigsie" is destroyed and the money bin is back on Killmotor Hill. Gigsie's explosive end delivers on some clever foreshadowing. I'm not sure if the "he was programmed to think like the Beagles, and so it was their greed that in the end brought about their defeat" angle was in the raw translation, but kudos to Jonathan Gray if he layered it in. However, I have a nagging suspicion that Gray saved the restoration of the money bin from being a jaw-droppingly absurd, improbable coincidence. Going by the art alone, it would appear that the explosion hurls the money bin over Duckburg and right back into its original position. This is only justified by the "big underground magnets [that] hold [the] bin to its foundation" mentioned by one of the nephews on pg. 3. Since these magnets, as far as I know, have never existed in any other story, and because they're only mentioned in passing in this new English dialogue but never shown, yet, at least as we Americans are reading it, are so crucial to the story's resolution, it seems to me that Gray salvaged an atrocious ending. However, if the mentions of the magnets are in fact mirroring the original Italian dialogue, I'll stand corrected.

(There's also the matter of the nephews for some reason signaling the police with the tiny flame of a common wax candle, but I'm gonna chalk that up as just some Italian thing.)

Nonetheless, Scarpa's art, which has a lot of busy, frantic, exaggerated, comedic hijinks, is a lot of fun. His big, bold, sweeping style certainly works well for giant robot action. Between that and all of the electrified panels of the ducks scrambling to stave off Gigsie's attack on the bin, things move with a rollicking momentum, ensuring that IDW has made a big splash in bringing back to the States not just Uncle Scrooge but the whole classic Disney comics line.

The best of Scarpa's art, with all its zest and zing, is brought out by the zing and zest of Gray's dialogue, which demonstrates that he knows duck comics inside and out, and not just because of the many references to the medium's past ("Wak!" is never exclaimed in this particular story, but the radio station that Scrooge tunes into uses the call letters "K-WAK"; when Scrooge bashes his own head against the wall to get ideas, he acknowledges that a similar technique is used by a certain inventor; the Beagle Boy love of prunes comes up, as is only right; and even a reference to the title of Barks' first Uncle Scrooge adventure), but due to the Barksian dialogue -- and by that, I don't just mean particular phrases like "Good work, infants!", but the cadence and rhythms, and the way tone and timbre signifies characterization, which is perfectly consistent with the characters that we know. And though there are some modern quirks (a reference to a Red Bull advertising slogan and terminology like "A.I."), there's a lot more absolutely delightful eccentricities that would seem to belong to Barks' or even Gottfredson's era but as far as I can tell, are original: "GREAT HOWLIN' CRASHWAGONS!", "Hot crawdads, Unca Donald was right!", "We need that salty codger alert!"  Gray also does a fine job continuing the tradition of comic book tradition onomatopoeia, both in the expressions used and the way they're puncuated.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention Gray's DuckTales references: there's a variation on Scrooge's "Jumpstart my heart!" and a pun on the name of the Beagle Boy who most of often led the gang on the show. It should go without saying that I appreciated these!

The original Italian title of #405's backup story translates to "The Secret of the Coat", a dry title that evokes the mystery-adventure genre, when the story is actually more in the sitcom vein. So Joe Torcivia's new, comedic title, "Stinker, Tailor, Scrooge and Sly" (I just figured out what that's a pun on -- it's something I'd never heard of; I won't give it away, so that if you have, you can relish it; and if you haven't, do your own damn Googling!) is more fitting for this light-hearted romp with the mismatched "odd trio" of Scrooge, Brigitta, and Jubal Pomp built around a cliché: finding a treasure map drawn on one's own piece of property and unraveling its mystery while clashing with a mysterious villian who who has shown up out of nowhere and we learn is connected to the map's past. Now, this is the stuff of countless exciting, full-developed stories in feature film, pulp novel, and duck comic, but this particular narrative offers little more than a couple chase sequences, with the good guys and the bad guy sparring in a game of "hot potato" (or football) with Scrooge's coat, and the villains' anticlimactic surrender to the police ... for which Scrooge and Co. are basically just bystanders!

On top of the banal narrative, this is recent, slicker, more on-model Scarpa, which I find duller than his squashier '50's and '60's work. By far the most vital, entertaining part of the story is the dynamic between Scrooge, Brigitta, and Jubal, with Scrooge having an aversion to both (but for different reasons), Jubal making no secret of his distaste for (and envy of) Scrooge, Brigitta's crush being tempered by her indignance at Scrooge's stinginess and his contempt for her, Brigitta and Jubal agreeing to suck upand  pander to Scrooge in the hopes of cajoling him into investing in their business, and Scrooge tolerating their scheming so as to use them for his own ends -- first for a complementary coat mend, then the use of Jubal's car when chasing the villain, which Jubal and Brigitta join Scrooge in, hoping to get a cut of the treasure. In the last panel, it appears, via the illustrated thought balloons, that all three parties have played each other and made the right compromises so that each is (at least anticipating) getting what they want. If it weren't for these visuals, the Scrooge-Brigitta-Jubal dynamic would have been out of play at the end of the tailor shop scene, for their tagging along for the arrest and subsequent finding of the treasure would be, as Scrooge describes Jubal in my favorite of Torcivia's jokes in story, "superfluous" to the plot.

Torcivia steadily delivers puns and various other types of wordplay, references (including ripping on Minnie Mouse -- more the Minnie Mouse of mass merchandising than anything -- and her taste in clothing design), and irreverent goofs on everything from "mall cops" to the fashion industry, giving American readers a feisty read. As Gray fixed what I was suspect was a massive hole in the lead story, Torcivia not only ties Barks' Brutopia into the villain's back story, but with said back story, assures us that the map has only been a part of Scrooge's coat for 10 years and not since he acquired it, avoiding any flirtation with dicey continuity. Based on the characters' poses and instructions, the characterizations of the "odd trio" were very much part of the original story, but with all of the insults, jabs, and acerbic sarcasm thrown between them, Torcivia maximizes the potential. I'm not sure why this unexceptional story (though Torcivia has added a lot of tasty seasoning for flavor) was selected for this issue. But if the idea was to begin IDW's run by establishing to the readership Brigitta and Jubal as characters, and moreover their entrepreneurial partnership (for we've seen a fair amount of Brigitta here over the years here, and not too much of Jubal), then it's a very suitable choice.

Gerstein closes the issue with an editorial reviving the "Crosstalk" banner, which definitely made this fan feel at home. After giving some background info on the Beagle Boys, Brigitta, and Jubal, Gerstein closes by sharing a sentiment that affirms that these comics are in expert, loving hands.

-- Ryan