So I thought I oughta become more au fait with the current crop of US Disney comics, and I am! And I’ll write about some of them, fairly soon, probably (yeah, I’m sure THAT list of qualifiers instills one with a great deal of confidence). But I decided to read the original story entitled…”Earth’s Mightiest Duck.” And I’ve gotta tell you folks: I have read many good Disney comics and many bad ones and many in between. And I’ve certainly started reading stories and just sorta stopped reading them due to lack of interest or general intertia (think long-ish Egmont digest stories, for the most part). But I don’t think I’ve ever had the such a vehement experience of giving up on a comic because I hated the entire premise and aesthetic, it was almost making my physically ill, and it DEFINITELY wasn’t going to ever be anything other than what it was. So, uh, don’t expect to see that here. Sorry, Aaron. I know I advisedly sorta-kinda liked your “Infinity Dime” story, but this is a bridge too far. And to be clear, I’m not even saying you’re a bad writer! Just that our visions of Duckdom are fundamentally incompatible. I’m all for more original American duck stories, but if we’re just doing stuff like this…well, make mine vanilla.
So instead, thought I, what’s a science-fiction-y story I can do that I LIKE, or at least don’t hate with the fury of a thousand suns? So I hit on THIS, from 1961. Now, I’m perfectly aware that this is only really “science fiction” to the extent that almost ANY story featuring Gyro is, but I don’t know how I planned to end this sentence. This is from 1961, which no one would probably call the high point of Barks’ career; it also produced my single least favorite story by the master, and I’m aware that that link doesn’t work currently; apparently inducks is currently down due to some randomware attack by some real pieces of shit, which makes me more angry than almost anything, but as you could determine if you tried, by looking at the url, it’s “That’s No Fable,” which maybe I should write about some day, but I dunno; that would make for one dispiriting blog entry.
So anyway. Is this a fantastic story? Wouldn’t go that far. But it’s worth examining for sure. Also, worth noting that this is a Barks…nine-pager? Now I’ve seen everything! Talk about science fiction!
And whatever else it has or doesn’t have going for it, it has this splash panel. If there’s anything I love more than pictures of ducks cozily reading as it rains out I don’t know what it is. Looks like they could play checkers, too, if they wanted!
Well, that didn’t last too long. Obviously the hypocrisy of Donald getting mad at the kids reading what at any rate looks like more highbrow literature than “Rip Roaring Comics” is intentional, but the problem is, that doesn’t really seem to inform the story in any way. He’s never called on it, and the ultimate outcome of the story doesn’t say anything about it. I’m not gonna lie; I do think it’s a bit of a mess.
Also “Mother Goose, Treasure Island, or Huckleberry Finn” does seem like a kind of bizarre tryptich of things they might be reading, notwithstanding that they would all (Huck Finn to a lesser extent) be vaguely categorized as “juvenile literature”).
“I’m so hot under the collar, I’ll have to go walk in the rain to keep my head from catching fire.” Even not as his best, Barks could turn out a decent line.
I have one question for you, Donald: have you ever, even once, seen anything that Gyro has ever done…like, ever? Because I feel like if you had, you would not imagine that, under these circumstances, he’d make a good agony aunt. That does point to a larger issue, though: okay, he can’t go to Gyro with this. But who CAN he go to? He doesn’t necessarily HAVE anyone else he could call a peer/friend. He’s certainly not going to Gladstone. Who else? Scrooge seems like a weird fit. Grandma would side with the kids. Gus would listen to him passively, nodding along, but wouldn’t necessarily provide much catharsis. And latter-day characters like Ludwig and Fethry? Forget about it! It’s rough, sometimes.
So Gyro it is, with predictable results. Why does he look so unenthused about what he’s doing? And, like, what scientific principles are we testing here, exactly? I mean, once we’re done with the proof of concept?
Who is “Spicer Willits?” It seemed like an odd name to see in a story like this, so I looked it up, and the answer is here. Man, imagine being immortalized in a Barks story. I’m jealous.
Alas, poor Donald. I mean, under the circumstances, my sympathy is limited, but I do enjoy the rain providing an objective correlative to his misery. Some more good lines, here also. It’s a little hard to suss out what exactly he hopes to accomplish here, though. “I got mad about them reading science fiction, so I’ll prove science fiction is real?” I dunno, man.
Gyro’s research seems to consist of just tossing all the random shit he can think of into the hopper.
I mean, okay, granted, you can freak out the kids like this. But how is this any kind of riposte to them reading science fiction? I suppose it’s more a vibe than a real concrete anything, but I keep getting caught up on it.
“Much, much too stern.” I feel like I didn’t recognize the wordplay there until RIGHT NOW. What a thing.
I like HDL’s confusion, is all I can say.
Well…yes, but also, and?
Whatever else, though, this is good–Donald freaking out, momentarily taking a break from that to yell at the kids, then going back to desperately trying to get out of this.
Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! Har! Har! Har! His previous ire had nothing to do with anyone’s hipness or lack thereof to science fiction, but I suppose we can just say he’s reframing the debate here. That’s psychologically realistic enough. I still don’t know, though.
Donald’s frantic raving is fun, and it would have been a good note to end the story on, I think. Buuuut…we don’t get that.
Instead, we get THIS arbitrary nonsense. Why should Donald get to act all smug there? I ask you! As you know, I’m generally in favor of Donald getting positive endings more often than he does, but here it REALLY doesn’t feel like he deserves one.
I do wonder what happened to the tenth page, if indeed there ever was such. If there were any information on that, it would surely be included in the old CBL in Color, but I have the relevant issue, and it’s not. Or who knows, maybe Carl just decided, nine is the RIGHT number of pages for this story! To hell with tradition! An eternal mystery?
Labels: Carl Barks
