Barks's Magica on a broom, and Gyro!
Daniel van Eijmeren
dve at kabelfoon.nl
Sun Aug 31 06:22:01 CEST 2003
In Barks's Bottled Battlers (JW 10 / H 94141), Magica flies on a
broom. A *motorized* broom to be exactly. On page 5, this results
in an (IMO) very funny scene of Magica polluting the air:
Police in helicopter: "Lady! Lady! What are you burning in that
AIR SMOGGING vehicle?"
Magica: "Pure lead-free concentrate of Vesuvian BRIMSTONE! What
did you think?"
Earlier, on page 3, Magica says while making a looping on the broom:
"Soon I, Magica De Spell, will be the world's RICHEST sorceress!
I feel like celebrating!"
And then she starts singing:
"I'll buy a jet with lots of room
and say goodbye to this drafty broom!"
So, according to this story, Magica is a sorceress on a motorized
broom, dreaming of a plane instead.
There's also a May 1995 watercolor called "Frequent Flyer", which
shows Magica on a broom. I've never seen this one, though. As far as
I know, it's unpublished and the buyer is unknown. So, I don't know
if the broom is motorized. (Can anybody tell me more about this?)
However, witch or sorceress, I do agree with Don Rosa that Barks's
Magica does her tricks in (more or less) explainable ways, and that
she's not supernatural herself. At least, I can't remember any
exceptions.
Barks's "Jet Witch" (WDC 254) contains another reference to flying
brooms and - this time - witches. During Halloween, Donald asks a
shortie where everybody is.
shortie: "I fink a old WITCH got 'em, mithter! I seed her fwy by a
minute ago!"
Donald: "A WITCH! If I didn't know such phenomena is imaginary, I'd
halfway believe the kid is right!"
(SWOOSH!)
silhouette: "Hee, hee, hee!"
Donald: "My stars and comets - a witch IS zooming around here!"
It turns out to be Gyro in a witch outfit, testing a new jet sky stick
he invented. It looks like a broom, but it's a "ionic ejector", and so
top secret that he had to wear a disguise. He figured nobody would notice
a witch flying around on Halloween. He's wrong, though. Next pages show
citizens in horrors when they see this witch disguise up in the air. They
believe it's a *real* witch. And a policeman falling from his horse says:
"A WITCH! Halt, witch! You have to have a LICENSE of some kind, I think!"
So, they're not very used to the idea of real witches, to say the least.
"Jet witch" is one of my favourites. It has a great mysterious atmosphere,
while there's in fact nothing really strange going on.
The only exception of a real flying broom in a Barks story, is "Trick
or treat" (DD 26). But that story is based on an animated cartoon.
I don't know if the broom is alive in the animated cartoon, though.
Maybe an explanation could be that the broom is in fact a person under
a spell, like the Ducks being turned into animals in "Oddball Odyssey"
(US 40). For me, the story works fine without an explanation. I would
find it strange to see (Barks's) *Magica* on a real broom, though.
So strange, that I'm almost getting curious to see her that way. :-)
BTW. Is Donald also sceptical towards witches in the animated "Trick or
Treat"? Or is it something that Barks put into his comic boom version?
--- Daniël (wondering what typos and errors will pop up after pushing
the send button)
"I've seen bottles with SHIPS inside - but kids! That took some doing!"
(Bottled Battlers, JW 10)
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