Of faux Ducks and Wolves

[DAVID.A.GERSTEIN]

      Today's trip down to the comic shop included a browse-through 
of Marvel's own distribution catalog.  Apparently their Disney 
cutdown didn't affect the first month of their solo distribution, 
because all the titles they've been publishing are listed there.
      THE DISNEY AFTERNOON #10 contains a Ducktales/Scrooge story as 
the lead-off.  Magica enchants Scrooge so he falls in love with Mrs. 
Beakley, and the only way for HDL to undo the dubious blessing is to 
give Magica the dime (presumably).  Personally, if one must make 
DuckTales stories, I'd rather just see traditional-style Duck 
adventures with Launchpad added to the crew, like Egmont usually 
makes (and like Lustig and Van Horn once did so well, many moons 
ago).  But Marvel embraces the new, not the old... so I don't think 
there's going to be much debt to Barks in this story.
      A much better story along these lines was one Santanach (I 
think) did for Egmont a few years ago:  Magica had a spell which 
would put Scrooge in love with HER -- then he'd give her the dime as 
a gift, or so she thought until SHE got doused with the potion she'd 
created.
      TDA #10's Scrooge story was actually illustrated in the 
catalog.  IMHO, no matter how good the story itself might be, I can't 
imagine the writer is going to be satisfied with this artist's work.  
The art makes Giuseppe Perego look like Barks by comparison.

      With a nod to Barks' old MGM-cartoon stories, I picked up WOLF 
AND RED #1 from Dark Horse, as well.  The stories are well-drawn, but 
with huge panels and very cartoon-like action (they have the same 
very simple feeling of Barks' earliest stories -- even more, because 
these Wolf tales have very few words and even more slapstick 
pratfalls).
      It seems that some feel that funny animal comics must simulate 
cartoons to the point of basically functioning as storyboards.  I 
think that the comic medium, as Disney comics have shown us, can 
offer more than that.
      Dark Horse would seem to hold the Barney Bear license now -- he 
puts in a cameo in one panel of W&R #1.  I have a hunch Dark Horse 
wouldn't mind doing some collections of the Barks MGM stuff;  if 
nothing else, perhaps a color reprint of the second Happy Hound story 
with its original text intact.
      The new Dark Horse project looks like it's waiting to find its 
potential, but it's not a poor comic, either.  (10 pages of ads, 
though.  For this I paid the equivalent of $2.50?)

      David Gerstein
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>