Moby Duck, Dimwitty, and Porpy The Porpoise

[Matthew Williams]

This may be an unpopular thing to say, but I remember kind of liking the
Moby Duck stories.  Of course, I only have two or three of the actual Moby
Duck comic books, but I kind of like the stories in them.  The art was okay
(leagues above what I could ever dream of doing, of course!).  I recall one
story where Moby goes to a kingdom that changes rulers every night at
midnight and he is elected king (what an oxymoron!).   I thought the idea
was kind of neat.  Actually, I've re-read some of the old seventies Gold Key
and Whitman comics lately, and I've found it sort of frustrating.  So many
of the stories have good or funny ideas, but there just isn't much payoff.
I think Moby could be a really neat character if he was in the hands of the
right artist or writer.  Somehow I doubt that Rosa or Van Horn are waiting
for their moment to bring on a full-scale Moby revival, though.

About Kay Wright.I think Wright would seem like a much better artist if he
(or she?) had been drawing better scripts.  I think Wright has suffered a
lot of unjust criticism because he dared to draw the Woodchuck scripts that
Barks scripted.  That's not really fair, of course.  Reading the set of the
Carl Barks Library that reprints Barks' Woodchuck stories, I feel like they
present Strobl and Wright as saboteurs bent on destroying Barks's scripts.
Being painfully frank, though, Barks's Woodchuck scripts hardly seem a cut
above Western's other seventies scripts.  Even a master artist like Jippes
can only do so much with the stories.  I thought the recent "New Zoo Brews
Ado" was pretty mediocre.  The art was wonderful, but the story.  Gosh, the
poacher just got away and that was that!  The three millionaire golfers
funded an entire zoo long-term.  Ugh!  I'm probably on thin ice here, so I'
ll stop!  My point is that Wright really wasn't a bad artist.  He just had
poor material to work with and wasn't as brilliant as Barks was at the prime
of his career (how many artists are?).

By the way, despite my criticisms of Barks's Woodchuck scripts, I've got to
confess that I still enjoy seeing the new Jippes versions.  I just like to
sigh sadly over them later! :/

Matthew A. Williams