Donald Duck & Co # 9 - 2000

["Jørgen Andreas Bangor"]

Donald Duck & Co # 9 - 2000

Egmont front cover, showing Donald as a pizza delivery man. He's 
chased into a tree by an angry dog, and Donald is getting back at 
the dog by giving it pieces of chili pepper from the pizza. The 
picture is mostly matching the Dutch story H 9542 appearing in the 
issue. This is rare, but not unique.

Story number one is about Huey, Louie and Dewey (D 99143, 12 pages), 
written by Paul Halas, and drawn by Vicar.

There's a new boy at school, and he's making a hell for the other 
kids, beating them up and threatening them. Donald tries to be 
understanding, and suggests that he's surely had a tough life. He 
predicts that his nephews in short time will have the boy as a good 
friend.
The troubles continues, and the nephews decide to get back at him. The 
experiment blows back at them, and they are chased into a swamp. Now 
the boy switches to another mode, and rescues them. He explains
that he was treated badly at another school because he had problems 
with math, and this time he had decided that if not he could do things 
well, neither should anyone else. The nephews say they will help him
whenever he needs it.

Now, this is exactly the kind of story I feared that the 
Carol & Pat McGreal story from # 7 (the one with the arrow heads) 
would turn into. For a time it was quite entertaining, and then it 
ends up with everyone being kind to each other. Of course this is what 
we want to happen in reality, and often it works exactly that way, but 
reading a short story like this about it, I find boring.

Story number two is an old one-pager (KF 10-05-52).

Story number three is the Dutch Donald Duck story (H 9542, 4 pages), 
written by Remco Polman, and drawn by Hans van Oudenaarden.

Donald has started working as a pizza delivery man, driving around on 
a small scooter. He hates the job, and wants to quit. His last customer 
before he has decided to quit is Uncle Scrooge. He has a lot of trouble
getting the pizza into the house, and when he at last arrives, the pizza 
is so destroyed that Scrooge won't pay full price for it. Before the 
day ends, Donald has one more job to do. He must deliver the day's 
earnings to the owner - Scrooge.

A lot of pages needed to illustrate one point...

Story number four is a one-page criminal mystery (D 98366) without 
credits.

Story number five is about the Beagle Boys (D 98337, 8 pages), written 
by Pat and Carol McGreal, and drawn by Nunez.

The Beagle Boys plans to steal the incomes from a musical. But there's 
a problem. They realize that they will themselves be automatically 
suspected. To get a secure alibi, they steal a purse from an old woman, 
and are put in jail. And there's their alibi - a tunnel already dug, 
at an earlier stay. They leave through it, steal the money, and then 
try to get into the jail again. But now the problems start. In the 
meantime, the jail has been totally secured by an expert. It's of course 
to keep guests from getting out, but it also stops the Beagle Boys from 
getting in. After some unsuccessfull tries, they give up, and report 
themselves at the main gate. They will get there anyway, so why delay it.

Traditional Beagle Boys style. Not much to say about it really. The art 
is unusually good for a Beagle Boys story, though.

Story number six is another old one-pager (KF 10-24-54).

Story number seven is a Mickey Mouse story (D 99004, 10 pages), 
written by Pat and Carol McGreal, and drawn by Rodriques.

Mickey and Pluto are in the cold north, to see a friend of them in a 
contest with dog sleighs. Pluto admires the dogs (looks like Greenlanders 
on the shape, but have the drawings of Huskys). One of the other
contestors is not of the nice kind, and sabotages the sleigh of Mickey's 
friend. He's hurt, and Mickey takes his place in the race. Pluto goes 
with him as a stowaway on the sleigh. When discovered, they have gotten
to far, and he's told to run besides the sleigh.
After a while the sleighs are stopped by people from a landed helicopter. 
A village in the area is isolated by an avalanche. The weather is too 
bad to fly in medicines etc. to the people there, so Mickey and the bad
guy's sleigh are loaded with them. The bad guy takes a short route to 
get there first - then he'll be the hero. Mickey stays in the secure 
route. Because of the bad weather Pluto loses Mickey's sleigh out of 
sight, and at the same time the crook loses all his dogs. Mickey reaches 
the village, but has decided to leave at once, to look for Pluto. He 
doesn't have to, since Pluto arrives soon after, together with the crook 
and his sleigh. So Pluto becomes the hero.

An entertaing story with a lot of action. There is one thing that 
puzzles me a bit, though. This situation with isolated villages who 
desperately needs medicines etc. is a quite common concept of Disney 
stories. Still, this is something that happens almost every winter 
in Norway, but never do we hear about heroic attempts to reach them with 
needed things. I guess experiencing what would be called a natural 
catastrophe in other countries, six month every year, have made us 
prepare for such events.

Then comes a one-page article about Donald and money - of the Erik Hørthe 
kind. And there are references to the stories from which the illustrations 
are taken. I also checked some earlier articles of this kind, and they 
also had references. Maybe they are removed in Sweden and Denmark?

And now to the Donald Duck continuation story (D 99171, 36 pages), 
written by Andreas Pihl, and drawn by Colomer.

The story is about ambitions. Scrooge has it, and it has made him what 
he is. There are other people having it, but less of it, so they will 
never reach Scrooge's level. Donald hasn't got it at all, and this Scrooge
despises. Gladstone Gander doesn't have it either, but then again, he 
doesn't need it. Daisy has it to some extent, but limited to being 
respected by her friends - and that is easier achieved by being seen 
in the new car Gladstone has won, than besides the wagon from which 
Donald is selling peanuts. Donald's nephews go through the story mostly 
as observers, clearing up details. 
Things are in balance, and everything works more or less to everybody's 
liking. But then the balance is disturbed, because of Scrooge's ambitions. 
He can with his enormous fortune control the economy around the world, 
and he can fool less ambitious finance people to buy his stocks. To 
make this possible, he also raises the price of peanuts. And that 
destroys Donald's modest income. Suddenly Donald's ambitions are 
awakened, and he puts into fruition a ploy to take over Scrooge's fortune. 
It involves Gladstone's luck, and to get his cooperation, Donald agrees 
to stay away from Daisy for a year. The result of this is that the next 
day, Scrooge is broke, and Donald own his entire fortune.
And so ends part one.

In the beginning of part two, Scrooge is bailed out of prison by Donald's 
nephews. They stay at their old house, refusing to live with Donald at 
his new mansion. Scrooge is in a very bad shape. 
At the same time, there's a big party at Donald's mansion. Everybody 
who counts are there - among them is the city's mayor, who's entirely 
in Donald's pocket now. Daisy comes in, but is rejected by Donald (he 
remembers his deal with Gladstone). The only person at the mansion who's 
sceptical to Donald's lifestyle is miss Quackfaster. She disturbs him 
a couple of times with things that must be done. Donald doesn't care, 
being totally oblivious to the reasons that made Scrooge earn all the 
money. Suddenly the electricity disappear all over the city because of 
Donald's irresponsibility, and everyone at the party leave him.
Now Donald is without friends, but he's still rich, and can do nothing 
but relax in the garden if that's what he wants. And that is what he wants.
At the same time, Scrooge is giving up. There's nothing for him in this 
world now. He leaves Donald's nephews, to live a life on the streets. 
When hiding in the dark besides a garbage bin, he sees Daisy and
Gladstone passing by. He hears Gladstone telling Daisy how he helped 
Donald take over Scrooge's fortune.
To illustrate his luck, Gladstone throws away a coin, which Scrooge 
takes. The ambitions return, and he decides to earn back his fortune.
And so ends part two.

Donald still hasn't learned the responsibilities coming with the big 
fortune, and will rather shoot plastic animals in his swimming pool, 
than care about a big dam threatening to break apart. And just as little 
does he care about Duckburg's sewage system.
At the same time Gladstone is getting bored by Daisy. Earlier he had 
found it entertaing to contest with Donald about her, but now that she 
spends all the time with him, the fun is gone.
The sewage system starts to fill houses with sewage, and when people 
are leaving their houses, a flood wave rolls over the city because of 
the broken dam.
Daisy and Gladstone splits apart, and Gladstone leaves her in a 
gondola floating by the roof they are sitting on.
Donald is chased away by angry citizens.
Scrooge and the nephews fool the city's less ambitious finance people 
to invest in a phony company, and Donald recklessly invest in it. 
Soon after the entire fortune is back on Scrooge's hands, and Donald 
gets back his old peanut wagon. Scrooge also lowers the peanut price a 
bit - not to risk anything. 
Things are not completely back to the normal, though, since Daisy is 
still angry at Donald... Er, oh! They _are_ back to normal, then.
And so ends the story.

A rare situation has happened: I hardly know what to say. Andreas Pihl 
has done a remarkable job on this story. There are no cheap gags, and 
no space used on irrelevant details, just to fill up space. From 
beginning to end everything is part of, and just as important to, the 
story. You just have to read it to understand. And never in a Duck story 
have I seen writer and artist work so well together in playing on the 
emotions of the reader. And in this story the art is indeed part of it. 
Often the art is just an illustration of what's going on in the story, 
but not in this case. Almost no pages follows the traditional pattern 
of four tiers and eight pictures, instead the art is on every single 
page made to fit perfectly to the story (untraditional layout in itself 
might not be good, though; I hated that IT-Duckburg story in # 6). And 
apart from the layout of the pages, Colomer has done a wonderful job. 
This perfect match of the art to the story is something I wouldn't have
thought could be possible without the artist writing the story himself. 
And all the references to Barks stories come as a good bonus.
I lack words to describe it further. I hope to see more stories by Pihl. 
And as I've said before, Colomer is the one of the regular Egmont Duck 
artists who impresses me most these days.

Story number nine is an old one-pager (KF 11-23-41).



   Jørgen