New comic review: Darkwing Duck #2 (Joe Books, May 2016)

"Orange Is the New Purple" Part 2 
written by Aaron Sparrow
drawn by James Silvani
(Well, technically, the way they're credited is jointly, as just the "storytellers".)

The majority of Part 2 of the new Darkwing Duck comic's first story arc is preoccupied with DW, flying by the seat of his (non-)pants, scrapping it up with one of his distinguished foes after another -- it appears that the idea is to have 'em just keep comin'. Elsewhere, in the cutaways to Negaduck watching DW from afar and Gosalyn trying to maker her way undetected to her dad, several additional villains show up, as the super-villain prison setting affords. (Hmm, maybe that was even the whole point...?) ;) 

The succession of specially selected and spotlit showdowns that DW is subject to, averaging two pages per villain, is so busy, dense, varied, and fast-paced that it not only doesn't feel too long, but feels shorter than it is, page count-wise. Honestly, on paper (...er, wait, it is...well, you know what I...never mind...), if I read an outline of this installment, I'd think, "So the story is put on hold for a long string of gratuitous villain cameos, and when we finally get to the next story beat, it's cliffhanger time?" But in execution, the comic eschews any such attempt at quantifying it structurally and functionally. Each of the scenarios that DW is thrown into -- and most importantly, the solution that he finds for each -- is fully and thoroughly developed, and genuinely original, distinguished, and clever. Along the way, every single pun, gag, and moment of comedic levity reinforcing DW as flawed hero (...yeah, he'd resent that) hits the mark. '70's Gold Key or Charlton this ain't. Sparrow and Silvani know what they're doing, so if it's it's gonna be something as structurally cut-and-dry and repetitive as "DW gets in the ring with one familiar villain after another", it's 'cause they realize the potential that such an outing has to rock, and they're gonna go all in and all out to ensure that it does.

...and not to mention that the "villains' revolving door" sequence is comparable to the immortal Looney Tunes "blackout gag" structure, which DW's TV show emulated and paid homage to on countless occasions. So Sparrow and Silvani's riffing is wildly appropriate.

Thus, when two or three (or four) major plot developments pretty much simultaneously "go down" on the last couple pages, they don't feel belated but "organic", even after such rampant frivolousness. For one thing, we were having fun the whole time anyway.  The build-up to Cat-Tankerous' return was concisely and lucidly broken down into very short bits interspersed throughout the story starting with the field trip/prison opening ceremony scene (and conveyed a considerable amount of understated pathos, actually), so we're good there. The reveal Suff-rage's Mistressterious is, on the other hand, totally out of the blue (unless there were hints I'm too dense to have picked up on) but intriguing, given how in "Campaign Carnage", her identity was tauntingly hinted at with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the skull and the significance this would have to Darkwing Duck "'shippers", if there are in fact any fans who that designation would apply to. (Wait a minute, since I even get how this particular relationship of DW's can be taken as a big deal, I think I might be a 'shipper... NNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!) But then there's the fact that it appears that she's running her own hijacking of the prison independent and under the radar of Negaduck's -- definitely a wrench thrown into the works that adds a whole new angle to the story that heretofore we hadn't realized even existed, raising all kinds of questions. But in the Darkwing Duck pantheon, Negaduck trumps all, and thus the villainess with the confounding headgear making her big entrance is only part of the run-up to the more calculated blow that follows and that really leaves us dazed and staggered...

The figurative bomb that Negaduck drops on us and DW at the very last moment, that he's holding Gosalyn hostage, is no mere falling back on the damsel-in-distress trope. The fear and hurt in Darkwing's reaction is palpable, and right on target, hearkening all the way back to the bond paternal bond formed in "Darkly Dawns the Duck". That in one sense Negaduck actually is Drake (think in terms of the theory that ostensibly parallel universes are actually the same universe, sharing the same physical space but existing on different frequencies, of sorst), given the malevolence that rules every fiber of his being, and given his abusive history with his universe's Gosalyn, then for him to have her at his mercy -- as Negs is all too keenly aware -- hits Drake where he's absolutelymost vulnerable, and is the cruelest, most tragic -- but astoundingly apt -- irony. Sparrow and Silvani get these characters, and they drive home how visceral and potentially emotionally nuclear it is to have their deep-seated (and trans-dimensionally destined) rivalry -- and Gosalyn's inextricable part in it -- come to a head like this.

[And though she wasn't actually mentioned, Part 2's final scene certainly evoked the Negaverse Gosalyn... at least to me, if just because seeing "regular" Gosalyn in Negaduck's clutches reminded me of her parallel timeline counterpart.) And so, on a related note, I think I'll finally throw out to Aaron and James a question that's long eaten at me: How come Negaduck never thought to check out who lives in the "Prime" universe who might live at the address that belonged to him in the Negaverse?]

The gel-haired, vapidity-exuding two TV news anchors with names that have a ring similar to that of "derp derp" are fast on their way to becoming a staple of the comic. They work well as a framing device, given the "public" nature of DW's career of confronting and foiling "public menaces", and are a vehicle for some nice world-building, fleshing out and reinforcing St. Canard almost as a character unto itself.

Launchpad really shone in his one-page appearance (on the first page, in fact), eagerly, earnestly, and heedlessly doing what he can in hopes of coming to the aid of his "buddy". Oddly, faux-Launchpad in his later appearance was similarly likable... and DW accounting for how he souced out the imposter made for a particularly priceless particular line. (Not a typo -- I mean a particular line that's particularly priceless.) ;)

-- Ryan

New comic review: Darkwing Duck #1 (Joe Books, April 2016)

 As Joe Books' Darkwing Duck #2 is due out tomorrow, it's high time for this blog to honor and review #1, as it was in the truest sense, a glorious, triumphant return to comics for Darkwing Duck... and I can't overstate enough, a glorious, triumphant return to Darkwing Duck comics for the creative team of Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani. It's the latter two men, respectively, who in 2009 launched DW's last comics return, but due to subsequent unfortunate, er, managerial decisions, were not kept together for the duration of that run (at least officially... wink, wink...!) Now, however, ideal circumstances (as such they appear from this observer's distant coordinates) at a different (*coughvastlysuperiorcoughcough*) publisher have enabled the reunion of Aaron, James, and Darkwing & Co. And we, the fans/readers, are reaping the benefits (though maybe not as much as the creators, who get paid for being obsessed with this stuff!)

Given that fans have been awaiting this occasion for nearly five years (man,it's been already been that long? GTFO!), and moreover, given how long its creators have fought for the victory that is this comic's existence, the occasion is treated perfectly with the colorful, joyful, festive.. and inevitably calamitous opening scene portraying the "St. Canard Main Street Lit-Up Electrical Parade" (That's not just a classic but a classy Disney in-reference!) 

If you'll excuse  my presumptuousness, I believe that the the intent behind the parade scene is precisely as I've characterized it: to declare, "WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!  Darkwing's BACK!!!!!!" in a blazing torrent of zany, over-the-top, slam-bang-zoom-smash action. My evidence? The only bearing that the parade and the destruction left in its wake on the plot that's underway by issue's end is the matter of how Megavolt gets from Point A to Point B... as if we really need a backstory for his or any super-villain's latest incarceration. However, if there's ever a third instance of a Darkwing Duck #1 in which an identity-withheld figure of intrigue abducts Megavolt, it will have officially become a tradition. ;) 

If you've ever been subjected to the decrees from on high as to how a screenplay (particularly, but other storytelling mediums are applicable) must be written, then you know that a writer shall never depict their character just hangin' 'round and chillin' like they would on any other ordinary day and move on to the next scene without a quantifiable change that advances the plot having taken place. If the  "parade disaster" opener loosely makes the grade, well, as  far as I can see, the "dinner at the Muddlefoots'" bit that follows eschews the so-called conventional wisdom of the gurus of pop culture formula. Nothing that transpires during it is of any trackable consequence on anything that happens afterwards -- it's just Drake reluctantly attending a cookout (and TV marathon) hosted by Herb Muddlefoot and squirming through it, as we'd expect him to. Oh, but that's what's so great about this scene. The characterizations and dialogue -- from Herb hilariously experiencing no cognitive whatsoever from his contention that the addition of tofu makes bacon and blue cheese "healthy"; to Gosalyn decidedly "cucking" Tank; to Tank slickly hustling cash out of Drake in exchange for his freedom by sabotaging by sabotaging Herb's TV satellite dish -- are not only spot-on, but delightfully original and exponentially amusing. It's like a jazz musician who will riffing comes up with a glorious melody that's completely and utterly new but yet rather than altering the song, reminds us what it sounds like.

Moreover, I'd argue that this sequence does serve a higher purpose. "The Duck Knight Returns" found circumstances in St. Canard having drastically, even antithetically, changed from those that we knew. The comic was never intended to be fan-fiction dwelling exclusively on intimacy between select characters, and therefore the heroes had to be the heroes and the villains had to be the villains, and so the status quo waos quickly restored... almost too quickly, as things remained so high-gear, several issues passed before it hit me, "W-w-w-wait, sso Drake and Gos DO still live in that same house? ...oh, you mean, Binky DIDN'T succumb to the temptations posited by some Fabio-like male model, leaving Herb, who was only saved by Quackwerks hiring him for, er, "TV viewer market research"? (Imagine Herb forcibly watching TV 24/7 Clockwork Orange-style but LOVING every second of it.) Ummm, hey, so we've been told that SHUSH is defunct, but have Sara Bellum's skills been co-opted by Quackwerks, or did the Crime-Bots execute her in cold blood based on algorithm determing her erratic, unpredictable, unreliable nature?" The Muddlefoots scene and certainly the subsequent satellite visit check-in with J. Gander and Gryzlikoff reaffirm that this is the Darkwing Duck universe we know and love from the show, and they have a grounding, reassuring effect that admittedly was somewhat missing last time 'round.

Back on Earth, we find Gosalyn off to school for the day, and what at first appears to be just some daily-mundane-suburban-routine stuff  within a couple panels is eclipsed by a vital piece of information that ("Finally!", I can hear Messrs. McKee and Ball harrumphing) gives way to the plot formally being continuously advanced. The insistent stream of jokes about the idiocy of hosting children as guests in an operational maximum-security prison and the steady flow of snarky asides (from Gosalyn) about this ironic scenario and Boober Fraggle-worthy fretting (from Honker) re: anticipating that "somethng BAD!!!" is about to happen reinforce that we're not merely being treated to a living museum tour of DW's rogues gallery, but that... well, that "something BAD!!!" is about to happen.

That something being Negaduck (newly-and-finely-filed teeth and all) springing his latest malevolent scheme to put his reviled cross-universe doppelganger through Hell and back infinite times over. Under the (non-)stewardship of the 2009-2011 publisher, Silvani's art at times felt somewhat constricted, as if he was up against unreasonable deadlines... and Aaron was exceptionally vocal in relating to the public how those enforced by that publisher (the name of which shall NOT be uttered within this realm) indeed were. And after Aaron was let go, the comic was depleted of humor (when originally, its humor had been in stylistic keeping with the TV show and surged with real lifeblood); grasp of characterization and dialogue became tenuous at best; and whoever's influence won out in terms of plot and story, their sensibilities were higher-level-aimed but too rigid and dry in operation.

And while the Definitely Dangerous collected, "remastered" volume by and large rectifies the 2010-2012 run, Joe Books' April 2016 Darkwing Duck #1 is the first time we're seeing -- no-holds-barred, unfettered, and un-fucked-with -- the Sparrow-Silvani team blasting full-bore out the gate with an original Darkwing Duck comic book issue that is fully developed and realized, brimming and bursting with razor-sharp wit and life-loving energy on each and every imperative count: story, art, characterization, and dialogue. These guys have wholly internalized he original series and now radiate it back at the universe hematically, stylistically, and spiritually. And as my default mode is to write about the writing, I'll take this opportunity to note that whereas later in the 2010-2012, Silvani presumably out of necessity was at times working in a stiffer, more utilitarian way than he'd probably like to, at Joe Books, his every page and panel is final draft/director's cut-level. Remember that two-page splash at the beginning of 2010's #1? Here, every panel has that kind of dynamics. And while, say, there were Disney Adventures artists of old who could certainly draw Disney Afternoon characters on model, Silvani not only has on-model in spades, but he's a virtuoso with anatomy, physicality, posing, and nuances in expression and countenance. In other words, the comic looks great. And it looks just like the TV show, too boot -- just look at the background/crowd characters/extras.

"Okay, soooooooooo... Negaduck shows up. And?" Well, yes, technically, all that happens is, indeed, Negaduck shows up, brawls some with DW, and then gloats, in so many words, "Oh, by the way, you're trapped, and things are about to get a lot less than pleasant for you." That's a pretty vague, non-committal cliffhanger, right? Ah, but this is a case of form over content. With every unbridled smash of a giant-sized mallet; wildly indiscriminate lashing and whipping about of a (fully powered and grinding away at full force) chainsaw; every vain, flamboyant flaunting his bristling bragging of the mirth, merriment, jubilation, and joy that he takes in misanthropy, malevolence, sadism, and savagery; and every sardonic, acerbic, contemptuous (but with relish) jibe at the expense of his "Regularverse" equivalent, this isn't some over-hyped, fan-ingratiating, obligatory "Negaduck  Returns, and with His Biggest Scheme Yet" affair. Rather, this IS Negaduck, period. The cliffhanger intrigues and entices despite that things are only just starting, as, frankly, not only are we still riding high on the sorely awaited reveal of Everyone's Favorite Villain that transpired a moment ago, but the stakes -- both physical and interpersonal/emotional -- have just been related so lucidly and resoundingly as to have fully substantiated themselves. In other words, we're sold.

Good thing #2 is out tomor-...today! :D ;)

P.S. I greatly appreciate the running joke incorporating Launchpad's DuckTales-based inclination toward "crashing", which I believe -- but I may be wrong -- was never in play or alluded to on Darkwing Duck.

-- Ryan

European Disney Afternoon Comics

This is a post I've been intending to create for a while.  And will there ever be more of a prime opportunity to sort-of tie-in with Geo's new review of "The Curse of Flabbergé"?  More importantly...could there conceivably ever be a better opportunity?  Why, of course not!  :D  (Though perhaps it's not so appropriate, as Geo might not be too big on the heavy Disney Afternoon orientation of this post...)

The Inducks page for "Flabbergé" cites "Disney Europe" as the story's "origin", and "1992" as its "Date of first publication".  Scroll down to its publication history, which is divided up by country, and you'll see that it was printed in Finland, France, and Italy in 1992.  So, which was first?

In Finland's case, we see that the story was printed in Disney waltit #3.  Note that the only publication date given is a generic "1992".

On the other hand, it first appeared in France in Disney Club #6, and the entry gives a much more specific date: February 1992.

Finally, Inducks dates its premiere Italian printing, in Fumetti Disney Club #2, to September 1992. 

So, nless I'm misinformed about February preceding September during the course of a calendar year, we can ascertain that France beat Italy to the punch.  ;)

And presuming that Disney waltit #3 wasn't released in January or February, (not likely, given that #1 and 2 are also generically dated "1992"), then I'd wager that the French printing was the first. 

Now, note the similiarity in the titles of the French and Italian publications, and that all three used the same cover art for the issue featuring "Curse of Flabbergé"; it would seem that these were regional versions of the same periodical, yes?

Indeed, if you peruse the Inducks pages for Disney waltit #3 and France's Disney Club #6 and play around by clicking on, each in their turn, "Previous" and "Next", you'll find that both periodicals printed the same stories, but in a different order.  (Judging by the contents of its two issues, it looks like the same was intended for Italy's Fumetti Disney Club, but Inducks turns up no further issues.)

What I'm getting at is... for a hardcore vintage-era Disney Afternoon fan like me, a glimpse of these series is like a peek into a long-lost, long-sought treasure trove.

Let's take stock, shall we.  We'll stick with the French Disney Club, since that entails a couple curiosities that the Finnish version doesn't.

Ready?

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Disney Club #1 (France, January 1991) features a 44-page Rescue Rangers story, "L'ombre du croisé".  Inducks says that the stories "origin" is the mysterious Disney Europe. 

Inducks' scan of the first page of a version printed in Spain:

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Disney Club #2 (France, September 1992) featured a second 44-page Rescue Rangers story, "La légende du Silverhorn".  This one also "originates" with Disney Europe...as do the stories featured in all successive issues, except where I'll note.  (Spoiler: #5 and 7 didn't use Disney Europe-"originating" material.)

Inducks' scan of the first page of ""La légende du Silverhorn" is from Sweden:

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Disney Club #3 (France, September 1993...wait, huh?!  That's later than the date for #6!  This is completely out-of-whack...okay, scratch everything I've said about dates so far!!!) stayed true to tradition, offering yet another 44-page Rescue Rangers story, "Le sommeil hanté".

(At this point, for efficiency's sake, I'll attribute all of the scans in this post to Inducks.  I'd be lost without them.)  The scan of the first page of "La légende du Silverhorn" is actually procured from the French version, and so, for once, the cover that we're showing is unified with the interior page that we're showing:

A note of more contemporary relevance: I am betting that one of these three Rescue Rangers stories is the one "that had never been printed in the U.S." and qualified as "a fun story with great art" that when he was still at BOOM!, Aaron Sparrow had wanted and tried hsi damnedest to serialize in four issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories -- as he recounts in the second post in this thread at The Old Haunt.  (He's awesome for sharing such behind-the-scenes stories.  And it's even greater that he's promised to one day, possibly in the near-future, tell even more!)

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Disney Club #4 (September 1991...er, so #4 pre-dates #2 and 3?  *commence screenplay mode*  Possessed Little Girl: Something's not right here... *end screenplay mode*) featured a 41-page TaleSpin story, "The Volcano of Gold".

I actually know what the title translates to, because this story was, until "Curse of Flabbergé", the only one of these stories to have been imported to the U.S., appearing in (and even represented on the cover of) Disney's Colossal Comics Collection #5 (September 1992):

In light of me actually being acquainted with this story, its fitting for this post that Inducks' scan of the first page is from this U.S. version.  (Squint real hard, and you can read the credits in the margin.  Bobbi J.G. Weiss provided the English dialogue -- in those days, she'd claimed TaleSpin as her domain!  Rightfully so -- without the least bit of strain, you can hear the show's voice actors delivering  these sharply-written "lines"!)



I'd always thought "Volcano" was a fantastic, high-flying (no pun intended) adventure story with exquisite art that nailed the aesthetic of the TV show (enhanced  by the rich coloring).  (However, on the occassion of recently re-reading it, I found the ending to be more than a tad silly and far-fetched...but overall, it still stands as an impressive effort!)  I'd pined for more like it, anguishing over the fact that, wherever it'd come from, there very well might've been!  (Okay, I'm exaggerating in my use of words like "pining" and "anguishing"...for[melo]dramatic effect!)

Thus, I was very excited to find these Inducks pages.  And I made a special point of re-reading Uncle Scrooge #394 and 395 (thanks, David!) when I realized that "Curse of Flabbergé" was part of this lineage.  (Which the other DuckTales stories featured in Uncle Scrooge #392-399 are not.)

It turns out that "Volcano of Gold" was the only TaleSpin story that the shadowy "Disney Europe" entity produced for the Disney Club franchise.  (Thus, there weren't "more like that" after all -- at least in terms of TaleSpin.)  (The quality of "Volcano of Gold" is a big part of what inclines me to think that it was one of Disney Europe's three 44-page Rescue Rangers stories that Sparrow was referring to in the above-linked Old Haunt thread.) 

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Nonetheless, Disney Club #5 (July 1992...er, should I even bother citing Inducks' dates at this point?) was also devoted to TaleSpin, but the story featured was a translation of Bobbi J.G. Weiss and Oscar F. Saavedra's "Flight of the Sky-Raker" two-parter from Disney Comics' TaleSpin ("ongoing" series) #1 and 2).

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#6, of course, we've already covered.  (It was comprised by "The Curse of Flabbergé", remember?)

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Disney Club #7 (July 1992...and #6 was February 1992 -- finally, something that makes linear sense!) appropriated another story of Disney Comics/U.S. origin -- John Blaire Moore's adaptation of "Darkly Dawns the Duck", which had comprised Disney Comics' Darkwing Duck four-issue mini-series (November 1991-February 1992).

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Disney Club #8 (November 1993...consistency!  We're on a roll, folks!) resumed the use of content produced by Disney Europe, presenting, in contrast to #7, an original Darkwing Duck story, "Mystermask règle l'addition".  (From the covers, have you picked up on that "Mystermask" is what they call DW in France?) 

Page one.  Spain again.

It's a moot point now, but I'd meant to urge BOOM! to commission a good translation and sharp English-language dialogue for this story, and include the results in a second volume of Darkwing Duck Classics.

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#9 and 11 eschewed The Disney Afternoon, opting for material based on two of Disney's "blockbuster hit" animated feature films (that I won't name, so that my blog will never come up in searches for them!).  (Or, taking a cue from Geo and employing, er, conversational language: fuck that shit.)  #10, however, gave the spotlight to Goof Troop.  Like its predecessors, I'm not going to include any images, just because I don't want people to come to my blog and see Goof Troop...but I will state that I'm really curious to know what someone did in the course of a Goof Troop story that long!

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If while at Inducks' entry for #11 (I emphasize: one of those issues that doesn't concern us...), you're to click "Next", you're brought to their entry for the first issue of a different French anthology series, which Inducks denotes as being entitled Hors Collection.  Interestingly, #1 showcased another energized forty-plus-page romp that we Americans were treated to in Disney's Colossal Comics Collection (in #9, to be exact): the Romano Scarpa-drawn Uncle Scrooge story "The Euro Disneyland Adventure".  Which was presumably created -- quite possibly commissioned -- as a tie-in with the opening of...well, come on, I think you can guess...  ;)



Is there a reason Inducks favor the Colossal Comics Collection versions, when applicable?  Page one:

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I really would like to read those three Rescue Rangers stories and that Darkwing story.  Hell, the Goof Troop story, too.  Finding and purchasing them online might be tricky (dealing with international shipping would be near-inevitable, but not insurmountable.  Acquiring the relevant [insert language here]-to-English dictionaries and Beginner's Guide to [insert language here]-type books would be the easy part.