KOMIX #158

Kriton Kyrimis kyrimis at cti.gr
Mon Jul 30 07:32:15 CEST 2001


Here's what's in this month's issue of Komix:

* Cover by Carl Barks. I have put a scan at
  http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis/pics/komix158.jpg
* A two-page letters column. In an inset titled "a year without Carl Barks"
  they remind us of the sad anniversary, and they show a drawing by Albert
  Uderzo, showing Asterix, "who did not bow to Caesar himself", bowing in
  front of a golden statue of uncle Scrooge. I've put a copy of that in
  http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis/pics/komix158a.jpg
* A two-page "news of Komix" article.
* Don's "The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff". This is a strange printing: The
  top half of page nine seems to have been produced from a low resolution
  scan, and there is a footnote saying that "The first five panels of
  this page had been removed to divide the story into two parts. We put
  them back in."  Then, page 17 begins with what is obviously a recap
  from the multi-part version, missing the five panels that are present
  in the Gladstone version, and make the story make a lot more sense at
  that point. I know that Komix is in constant touch with Don, who keeps
  sending them tips on how to best print his stories, because he knows
  they care, so *why* do they keep making these horrible mistakes? Is
  it so difficult to get the single-part version from Egmont, rather
  than having to doctor the multi-part version?
* A three-page article titled "history, spectacle, and fairy tale",
  subtitled "the heroes who created the myth of the Wild West". This
  article makes up for the previous mix-up, as it gives all the historical
  information required to understand Don's story.
* A two-page article titled "Scrooge in the Wild West", subtitled "Don Rosa
  presents the vigilante of Pizen Bluff".
* Barks' "Swimming Swindlers".
* A three-page article titled "Mark and Sergio meet uncle Carl, subtitled "the
  meeting of three great creators". This article talks about Mark Evanier and
  Sergio Aragones' meeting with Carl Barks, using extracts from an article
  from the September 2000 issue of the Comic Buyer's Guide, and acts as a link
  between Disney comics and the next item, which is:
* The first installment of Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones' "Space Circus".

Until today, I was only aware of Aragones' work for MAD magazine. The
first time I saw his work was in a book published by MAD magazine titled
"Viva MAD", which I found extremely hilarious, leaving me wanting
for more, which I found in the margins of MAD magazine. Despite
my reservations about the inappropriateness of Komix as a medium
for printing the Space Circus, I was looking forward to reading it.
Unfortunately, despite my prejudice in favor of the story, I found it
a BIG disappointment. There was none of the humor found in Aragones'
drawings for MAD magazine, and very little of any other kind of humor. As
for the plot, I found it as interesting as the Italian space adventures
with the Ducks, i.e., none at all. This stuff is simply filler material
for a Disney comic book. Perhaps the extra indication, "padded", on the
cover, was referring to that. What's worse, despite the padding of the
issue to 84 pages, there was substantially less Disney material than in
regular, 64-page, all-Disney issues. :(

	Kriton	(e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
	      	(WWW:    http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
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"Blowing the occasional chunk out of the earth keeps them amused."
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