REVIEW: "The Inner-Earth Adventure"

    Having read a lot of post-Barks pre-Rosa old Uncle Scrooge issues, I have discovered that the amount of Barks reprints was absolutely, ludicrously overwhelming for a period, at least for the main story. Then somewhere near the #190 mark, I suddenly had a chunk of fresh air in the form of main stories written by honored Disney comic author "?" and drawn by the creative if somewhat glitchy Pete Alvarado. Alvarado was no Rosa or Bottaro, but his work was still quite enjoyable. One of the more notable stories I found was this:

     In Uncle Scrooge #194 lies undiscovered The Inner-Earth Adventure, first published in February of 1982. As I said, the art is by Pete Alvarado, and it is kinda weak in places; however, you can't blame him too much — he was 62 at the time, and looking at older efforts of his, he had used to have a higher amount of details. Anyway.

     We open with this lovely little opening narration. I like the idea, really; and it unintentionally foreshadows Don Rosa's Attack of the Hideous Space Varmints, which also has a similar opening. If there is a downside, though, it is, as I said, with the art. The "outer space" background, no offense meant, looks like it was drawn by a toddler. And sure, you can't expect everyone to be Don Rosa, but I can't help but make the comparison with Hideous Space Varmint's own opening star-lit splash panel, since the two openings are so alike, and that comparison is jarring:

        But let's not forget ourselves and begin nitpicking already. We've got a whole zany plot to go. So Scrooge has, we're told, always postponed his space voyage because the cost was too off-putting. However, he suddenly realizes that Gyro could help him (come on, you've known the guy since 1952, and just now you think of it?). Never mind that Gyro has already built several spaceships for Scrooge in past stories; it is a thing I find a little hard to swallow, but I won't press that point too much, since Barks himself couldn't remain self-consistent on that point either.

    Gyro Gearloose, it turns out, already has a spaceship ready (albeit an untested one), which works with a super-hot fuel. The unforeseen problem is that as soon as the thing is switched on, the superheat melts the ground, leading the machine to sink into the Earth. Also, the third and fourth panels look very much like Don Rosa's Universal Solvent story. There might be influence there.

    Though the plot itself has little in common, I must admit that the titular Inner-Earth was most likely inspired by Barks's Land Beneath the Ground. Underground world, they're aware of the upper earth but only barely, and there are two similar but competing peoples. The Togs are the hard-working root farmers (I like that this story makes the effort to explain how the underground beings sustain themselves, unlike Barks's Terries and Fermies), and the Krogs are the evil robbers who just steal the product of their work. The Krogs are not especially fearsome (they're just Togs with masks on), but they have a better knowledge of the underground geography: they know passages to Upper-Earth, and also ways to get Freez gems, which are found much deeper into the Earth's crust, the light of which can freeze anyone who looks at it (except them, the light being filtered by their masks).

     They figure out that sunglasses will protect them from the Freez's ray (Huh… they took sunglasses on a space expedition? That's lucky indeed.) There are also “gushes” in Inner-Earth, spontaneous geysers of molten gold that spring from the ground at random times; which interests Scrooge, obviously.

      Ladies and gentlemen, this is a terrible burning stream of glowing molten gold that is going to engulf Scrooge and Gyro (just so you know). It's unfortunate that Alvarado can't seem to render the direness of the situation, because in theory, it makes for a pretty good climax, but the stream appears so small and escape so easy that you hardly get any feeling of danger. Have Marco Rota redraw that story someday, and it'll become a classic.

     Would the stone floor be cool if there's molten gold streaming underneath all the time? Ah well. What is weirder is the Tog's “One good thing: Freez gem gone in golden gush!”. No Togs were speaking in caveman language earlier.

    The ending twist is funny, but why does Scrooge “wak” repeatedly? Were it Donald doing this, I wouldn't look twice, but though Scrooge has been known to utter this kind of exclamative "Wak!"s at the beginning, never has he said: "wak! wak! wak!" in annoyance.

     So, that's The Inner-Earth Adventure, a pretty good little story, in spite of inconsistent artwork. It's neither Barks nor Rosa or Bottaro or Carpi, but for a late pre-Gladstone western story, it's much better than you'd expect. It won't take up much time to read it, so I say give it a go.

REVIEW: "Camping Out"

I gather that on Duck Comics Revue dwell some Li'l Bad Wolf fans, and GeoX, not finding the character all that interesting, never gave them such a treat as a Li'l Bad Wolf review. A quick stroll around the internet tells me that, actually, nobody ever did one, unless it was deleted. It was about time I filled this blank !

Camping Out. 1950. Drawn by Gil Turner. As for the writer ? Who knows.

The title is probably not familiar to you, and that's normal, because it was actually not titled when it was first published; it's only one of those "reprints" titles. And you have little chance of remembering the story, because it was published in the same book as Barks's iconic Vacation Time, and as good as Camping Out may be, all odds have it that the story the occasional reader of the book will go remembering will be Barks's. AND THAT'S A SHAME ! For Camping Out is far from being your average Li'l Bad Wolf story.

As for the story itself so far, I'd just like to point out how ridiculously and willingly stupid the concept of the Big Bad Wolf going camping in the wild is. He already lives in a cabin in the middle of the forest, doesn't he ? And he spends his time hunting wild critters, right ? What more does he expect ?

Notice again two things: #1 he's not even considering chasing the Little Pigs this time around, and #2 Li'l Bad Wolf doesn't object to his pop going fishing — of course he doesn't: for some reason, pigs are sentient but trouts aren't. Anyway, at the pond, Zeke encounters… this:

For those who didn't recognize him, that's the unique and delightful Louie the Lion, from a number of  early fifties Donald Duck and Goofy cartoons. I love Louie the Lion, but his career was cut short when Disney stopped producing theatrical shorts.  Most of his appeal, however, was in the way he was animated; he's not the type of character that translated well in comics, I said to myself, so it's easy to see why he didn't survive there…

Except this story just proves he almost did, and very well at that, Turner drawing him rather excellently.

I just love his blasé, almost diva-esque way of chasing Zeke away. Reminds you a little bit of Shere Khan in his memorable chat with Kaa in Disney's Jungle Book, I'd say, though it is most probably coincidental. 

Do note that Louie's anthropomorphism is upgraded here compared to the cartoons, where he seldom talks, and when he does, he "talks lion" (we see him moving his lips, but what we hear is deep, unintelligible grumbling). And he walks on all four, hardly being the kind of character you'd expect to use a fishing cane. Yet it works very well here, and it still feels like the same old Louie the Lion !

I'm going to retire in a small corner and sob over the arbitrary choices of fate, because this is sadly Louie the Lion's only comic appearance ever. And I do mean ever: he did not even appear on a cover or something, or even on a photogram of his cartoons that would have been published in a book, or anything really. NO. Four panels, and that's all ! Booh ! Sob ! Sigh !…

Don't let that bottom left panel fool you, as I told you, the Pigs are not in this story, it's just a continuity nod. Effective silhouette work on the right panel.  I give you a fair guess as to who that might be. (Answer "A random coyote" is not accepted). However, why on Earth did the colorist paint the sky light blue ? It's about midnight, and that big yellow stuff, you know, it's the Moon. And if that wasn't enough, the sky is black in the previous panel, indicating that Unknown Writer's and Gil Turner's intentions were always that the sky would be dark blue or dark purple. Bah. 

Here's a gag I find hilarious in spite of it possibly being unintentional:  Zeke is a wolf, right ? Like, a wolf that howls to the moon ? Like a coyote ? I suppose ?

Yet another couple of fifties cartoon characters. This time, those are Bent-Tail and his son Bent-Tail Junior, frequent rivals of Pluto at the time. This is also their only appearance in comics, but somehow I fell less revolted by that than for Louie, mostly because Bent-Tail and son still had a long career in cartoons, unlike Louie, even managing to get their own TV special, The Coyote's Lament, in 1958.  For that matter, the TV special was the first time they talked… well, outside of this comic, that is; because just like Louie the Lion, they are normally mute.

Still, there's distinct Furry Confusion at work here: Louie is apparently almost as anthropomorphic as Zeke, holding conversations with him, using tools, fishing, but he doesn't wear any clothes; Zeke treats him as a person. Bent-Tail and Bent-Tail Junior, however, walk on all four and Li'l Bad Wolf speaks of them as animals. Weird.

More Furry Confusion: the chicken is much more realistic than most chicken in Disney Comics (even  more than those that are not supposed to be anthropomorphic), but the wolf is a portrait of fully-anthro Zeke Wolf. Bent-Tail Junior is, however, very cute.

And sure enough, when Bent-Tail Junior comes across a chicken, it is a realistic one looking like the picture. But how and why is that chicken in the middle of the woods, for some reason sleeping on a tree log ? Aren't chickens supposed to live in farms ? And assuming this is a wild chicken, it ought to have built a nest instead of sleeping on a tree log ? I suppose ? 

Predictably enough, this happens. One is reminded of the Looney Tunes's Henry Hawk here, in a good way. The art on the Bent-Tail panels here is surprisingly good, compared to sometimes shaky renderings of Zeke Wolf I did not reproduce here.

Funny but forgettable mishaps happen, and there it ends, Camping Out: really decent art, a good plot,  excellent characters we'll never be seeing again (booh) and a few interesting occasions to reflect on the different levels of anthropomorphism in Disney comics; I think it's more than one can tell from a lot of those fifties stories.

REVIEW: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

So, as we know, it all started with a mouse. 

« A rabbit ! RABBIT ! »

Yes, I hear you, Oswald. See you next review. Anyway, they say it all started with a mouse, so despite my preference for Duck characters, let’s start with a mouse story, shall we ?

Here is 1953’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, written by God knows who and drawn by talented mouse artist Paul Murry. As the title implies, it’s an adaptation of sorts to the 1940 Fantasia segment, though it does take some liberties that I’m going to pin point as we see them. The first being, obviously, that the characters talk in this version, since Paul Dukas’s music can’t be there to fill the soundtrack.Another difference that you can see in this (beautiful) opening splash panel is that, in spite of all the talking, Yen Sid is never named: he’s just The Sorcerer. You can’t blame Unknown Writer, however, since Yen Sid’s name just started as a joke between the animators and never really caught on until Kingdom Hearts.

Second big difference is, here, we don’t begin with Mickey already working at Yen Sid’s: we witness the process of him suddenly thinking about the Sorcerer and getting the idea of postulating to be his apprentice. It’s executed rather well, though it does raise the question — where does Mickey come from ? Why is he randomly hanging around the Sorcerer’s castle when there’s no village or anything in sight, if it was not purposely to come to the castle ?… Yeah, I’m overthinking this. Globally this little intro is pretty enjoyable, and emphasizes Mickey’s mischievous, childlike nature rather well.

Ladies and gentleman, Yen Si… I mean the Sorcerer. The butterfly he creates is much more of, well, a butterfly than the glowing… thing we see in the movie, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing, since the time’s somewhat loose printing quality wouldn’t have allowed for the colorful nuances the movie’s butterfly was made of. Also, Murry's butterfly is very cute if nothing else.Also, notice that broom in the background. Foreshadowing, fellows. I don’t know if Unknown Writer or Paul Murry is responsible for it, but whoever it is, I congratulate him. You can actually enjoy some more foreshadowing  in the first splash panel, as you can see the well that Mickey’s going to use to fill the tub, later.

So anyway, Mickey’s hired and starts doing chores as he should (including chopping wood, a minor addition to the cartoon) and this happens. You know, you can always assume it happened offstage in the movie version, but I think that this scene was somewhat missing in said version. Yen Sid leaves his hat on the desk with no instruction, Mickey uses it… and Yen Sid blames Mickey for that ? Sure, he did not verbally allow Mickey to take it, nor had Mickey any reason to believe he had such right, but Yen Sid did not warn Mickey, either, or told him not to mess with his stuff. Here, the sorcerer gives Mickey a fair chance, making him more likable. When it comes to the art, still nice shadowing.

Did I mention the shadowing was awesome already ? Yes I did, but since it’s getting more and more awesome as the story progresses, I’m going to be repeating myself. And it’s nice that it is, since the artistic beauty of the thing was much of the original cartoon’s appeal; the exact same script, but drawn by a less talented artist, would have made a dull story that was trying to cash on a movie that it can’t rival, while this story is really trying. Also, Mickey’s thought balloon is totally right: why doesn’t he ? The cartoon doesn’t dive into this question at all and the comic doesn’t really make it the centre theme, but one could argue that the point is not to have the tub filled, but to have the apprentice deserve what he’s going to learn… to avoid having him feel that magic comes easy. This is supported by later changes.

So Yen Sid goes to the village, instead of going to sleep upstairs as in the original. I think this is a mistake of sorts: Yen Sid going to sleep emphasized his humanity in a way you rarely see in cartoons — ‘yes he’s got tremendous powers, but he’s still a physical living being with physical restrictions’ —.  Nice to learn there is a village though, must be where Mickey is from.

That’s still excellent art on the water, but here’s the second change I’m not please with: this narration box is all we get of Mickey’s iconic dream sequence where he commands to the skies and stars. It might not have rendered well in comic form, so I can understand why they cut it, but meh. It’s technically speaking the best-looking part in the short, and that was Walt Disney’s personal opinion, too !

WHACK ! BANG ! OUCH ! Contrary to the original version, Mickey « murdering » the Broom happens onscreen, like it was supposed to be before they cut the scene and redid it with the shadows. And I think they were right in deleting it the first time; it does look a bit disturbing to see Mickey Mouse actively hacking a walking, moving being in half, like that, whack.

Yen Sid is back, awesome art is awesome, « Aba-Ka-Zow-GOOM-Bah » sounds a bit silly a magic word in the mouth of a realistic character such as Yen Sid.

What was I saying earlier ? Yen Sid could have easily kept the tub filled instead of blasting its water away with the rest of the flood, if the point was to get the tub filled. But the point is to get the tub filled by Mickey, you see ?

Culmination of Yen Sid being made into a nice guy here: instead of spanking Mickey with the broom, we get this hope-filled ending that echoes Mickey’s wishes at the beginning.

Thus ends The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which I might call something of a hidden gem; hidden for two reasons. First, Paul Murry’s regular Mickey comics tended not to be all that exciting, as GeoX pointed out once or twice. Second, the cartoon’s popularity actually contributes to making the story more obscure, since it’s so much more famous than its comic adaptation; the poor thing really has no way to shine by itself. And that’s a shame. Hearing me at IDW ? Probably not, but if you are in spite of all probabilities, here’s a tip: reprint that presto.