Donald Duck & Co # 6

["Jørgen Andreas Bangor"]

Donald Duck & Co # 6 - 2000

Dutch front cover showing Gus Goose giving flowers and a box of chocolate 
to Daisy Duck. In typical Gus manner, all but one of the chocolats are 
eaten.

Story number one is a Donald Duck story (D 99077, 12 pages), written by 
Lars Jensen and Chris Spencer, and drawn by Vicar.

Donald is trying to become an inventor again, but isn't very successfull. 
But then suddenly (very suddenly, in fact) a new fuel seems promising. 
He doesn't get time for further research, though, since an angry Scrooge
arrives with a job for him. Scrooge has made a deal with the counsil of 
Duckburg, to remove all the ice from the harbour - and Donald gets the 
job to implement it, with an old ice breaker called the "Silver Bell".
The "Bell" is an old, wooden steam powered thing with a paddle wheel at 
the stern. In the preparations to get her into work, Donald more or 
less accidentally teases a man (looking like a close relative to neighboor 
Jones) to the extent that he comes on board and destroys the boiler.
Now when the ship's engine is out of function, Donald puts an old 
outboard engine on the bow, and fills it with the super fuel he has 
invented. The ship then moves astern with the paddle wheel working like 
that thing on the front of a combine harvester. Very effective, but a 
little hard to steer. A ceremony where Scrooge is given a medal for his 
work for the city is soon destroyed. Then Donald throws over board the 
rest of the fuel, since it starts to act a little threateningly. It 
explodes, and a huge wave of water and ice is rolling in over Duckburg.
Scrooge gets the bill for cleaning up the city, and Donald and the nephews 
go far away with "Silver Bell".

The story is quite uninteresting, but some of the art is pretty good. 
Especially the picture where the wave is rolling in towards Duckburg. 
The ice breaker on the other hand, isn't credible at all. And how can a
wooden boat be rusty?

Story number two is a one page Scrooge story (D 98013), written by 
Per Hedman, and drawn by Alferez.

Scrooge walks around in a supermarket, enjoying all the free 
demonstrations of food. Then he discovers that he owns the supermarket, 
and orders them all to be closed.

Not so bad.

Story number three is a Mickey Mouse story (D 99039, 10 pages), written 
by Stefan Petrucha, and drawn by Rodriques.

Mickey is in an area with farms, all covered in snow, looking for pieces 
of a crashed comet. He has an accident with his snow scooter, and bangs 
his head in a tree. He finds a farm which is not covered with snow, and 
runs towards it to borrow a phone. Then he gets a surprise. The animals 
of the farm have gotten the ability to talk and think like humans from a 
strange stone (the comet) which landed there. The radiation from it also 
keeps the snow away.
The animals show Mickey the farm, where the production has raised with 
52 per cent since the animals took over (I wonder if that includes meat 
production). Mickey wants to report this to the rest of the world, but
is prevented from it by the animals. They want it to be kept a secret. 
When they have produced enough food and other things they need, they will 
move north and build a farm of their own. If Mickey can prove that he's 
usefull, well... they don't really say what will happen to him if he's 
not. Anyway, he's given several tasks to show that he can work like an 
animal. Pulling wagons like a horse and laying eggs are not within
the mouse's - sorry, human's abilities. And neither is getting rid of 
garbage like a pig (eating it).
The animals conclude that he's not usable for anything, and since he tried 
to cheat when laying eggs, he's not trustworthy either. When Mickey tries 
to run away, he bangs his head in a way Donald would have found familiar. 
And when he wakes up, he's lying besides the tree where he had the 
accident with the scooter. The animals at the farm are walking around 
like normal animals, and Mickey believes he dreamt it all. When he's 
helped away by another snow scooter, the animals raise up, and put on 
their clothes again.

I'm a bit ashamed that I've never read Animal Farm, although it has 
been on the list for years. Another story comes to mind, though, 
involving three small pigs ;-)  Anyway, this is a very entertaining and 
very well drawn story. I liked the end, where we for one moment are made 
to believe that this was just another dream, and then are shown that it 
actually happened.

Story number four is an old one-pager (KF 09-12-54).

Story number five is a Big Bad Wolf story (D 98008, 2 pages), written 
by Peter Hardfeldt, and drawn by David.

The wolfs have no money for food, and the big bad one refuses to work 
for Br'er Bear to earn some. Then the little nice one asks the bear to 
give them the wood he wants cut. After the wood is cut, the wolfs sell it
to the bear for the same amount that he would have paid them to cut it 
in the first place. Everyone is happy.

Not completely credible. It would have been better if the big bad one 
had been made to believe that he stole the wood, and then sold it back 
to the bear.

Story number six is a Donald Duck story (D 98218, 6 pages), written by
Gail Renard and Jack Sutter, and drawn by Manrique.

Donald has become coach for a rugby (the brutal sport Americans call 
football) team, where his nephews are among the players. Donald is not a 
very good coach, and the team decide to fire him. Instead they hire
another one, who's been an elite player. This new one completely takes 
over Donald's role, and becomes his nephews hero. Donald becomes very 
depressed, and the nephew's bad conscience is awakened. Soon after the 
new coach is scared away by a mouse - he's afraid of them - and Donald 
is put back in is old role (the mouse was put there by his nephews).

Cute.

Story number seven is another old one-pager (KF 1-24-54).
These old one-pagers are a constant reminder that the art of making 
one-pagers must have been forgotten some time in the distant past. There 
is so much going on in the old ones, and they end with a gag which is
actually funny.

Story number eight is a Goofy story (D 98284, 3 pages), written by 
Stefan Petrucha, and drawn by David.

Accidentally Goofy attracts the anger of an old witch, and she casts a 
spell on him. Everything he touches turn into chocolate (remember 
King Midas?). In the beginning this is very nice, and he eats a big part 
of his house, but when Pluto turns into chocolate, things are not so 
funny anymore. He convinces the witch to take back the spell, but is 
kicked away when he asks if she can make a touch of just one of his 
fingers turn things into ice cream.

This is good. An entertaining story with several gags and a deeper 
meaning in only three pages. This is an art known by too few writers. 
And David's Goofy is good. This shows that he can do better than the 
simple art of the Br'er Rabbit stories.

Story number nine is a Donald Duck one-pager (D 93023), without credits. 
The art is Branca-style, possibly Colomer (early style).

Donald is at last finished with removing snow in front of his house. 
Then a snow plough comes in high speed on the street outside, throwing 
snow to both sides. Donald makes it slow down just before it fills his 
garden with snow. Then he bangs the door, and a lot of snow falls from 
the roof.

I have a hunch that this could have been funny, but I'm not sure how. 
Maybe if one could remove a few of the other stories of the same kind.

Story number ten is the IT-Duckburg story, with Huey Louie and Dewey as 
heroes (D 99103), no credits.

The ducklings and three other friends, among them a small computer genius, 
are trying to make an artificial intelligence which can challenge the 
genius in chess. To achieve this they need a very powerfull CPU (central
processing unit). Gyro's little helper tries to help them, but then the 
CPU is taken by a bird. Little helper tries to get it back, and ends up 
in the sewer. With help from a computer at the library, they find out 
where the sewer ends up, and rescue him. Immediately after, the helper 
rescues them all from being "eaten" by a dredger.
The artificial intelligence comes up, but shows up not to be too bright. 
It can act as a translator between the humans and Gyro's little helper, 
though, and the latter shows up to be a good chess player.

No more of this, please. I think I recognize elements from Duck Tales, 
Tales Spin and such series. Now, those series weren't too bad, but this 
is - at least if I'm to judge from the little I've seen so far.
First of all, if this is to be remotely credible, the writer should know 
a little about computers, and not only the pseudo tech talk from sales 
brochures. Secondly, the art with pictures appearing just about anywhere,
makes me tired only from finding out where the story continues.
One thing I applaud, though, and that's the girl. A tough, young girl 
could be needed in the regular character gallery. The semi regular 
characters April, May and June, and Minnie's three (2+1) nieces could 
need a good replacement.

BTW, the concept of intelligent computers is mostly a past chapter now, 
but I remember one story from the time when it was one of the big issues. 
The story was about a VAX 11/750 at Caltech (imagine a cube with sides 
1.5 meters, and you roughly have the size of an 11/750). The computer 
was made sentient, and it was tought the phrase "I think, therefore I am." 
Now that was a mistake, because every time the computer crashed, it 
disappeared.

As eleventh and last story is an old one-pager (KF 03-18-51).



   Jørgen