Latest Gemstone Issues and New Barks Story

Daniel J. Neyer jerryblake2 at juno.com
Mon May 10 17:15:53 CEST 2004


Just purchased (somewhat late, I know) the latest issues of Uncle Scrooge
and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. Really enjoyed "Dream of a
Lifetime", and recognized all the "dream" sequences except the Blackjack
Ballroom fire that opened and closed the story. Is this from "Hearts of
the Yukon"? I unfortunately missed that one when Gladstone published it.
Donald's meeting with Hortense was hilarious and a bit touching, too, and
the "falling makes you wake up" gimmick made perfect sense to me--I've
had that experience in dreams lots of times! One minor boo-boo--in Don's
"Buckaroo of the Badlands", Jesse James has a moustache and a suit and
his brother is more sloppily dressed and has a beard. In "Dream" the
names of the James boys seem to be reversed--the moustached one is Frank
and the bearded one is Jesse. A very good story, all in all--but I hope
Scrooge finds out about that well entrance soon. There's no telling how
much trouble the Beagles can cause with that secret passage into the Bin.


The other stories in the issue were OK, but just filler compared to
"Dream." Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, on the other hand, represents
another "thumbs-down" issue. The Van Horn story was good as always, but
the Daisy yarn was ridiculous (Daisy was "miscast" in the story to begin
with, but this could have been done using any character and would still
be as blah as all get out). 

The worst part, though (this has sadly been the trend lately) was the
Mickey story, another flash and thunder "magic" tale. What, oh what, has
happened to the Mickey who used to battle Pegleg Pete's rackteers, Wolf
Barker's outlaws, and the like with "his naked hands"? Now he can't get
anything done without magical powers or other outside help. It would seem
Egmont, in reaction to the boringly perfect Mickey of Paul Murry, has
gone to the opposite extreme and made our Mouse an unsure-of-himself
bumbler who at best can nimbly dodge overweight thugs. There's an
inbetween Mickey, boyishly exuberant but resourceful, unflappable, and
good-humored, shown in the works of Gottfredson and Romano Scarpa--both
of whom didn't exist, at least going by Gemstone's current policy. I
repeat--stop printing Mickey altogether if you're not going to give us
the real Mouse.

The best part of this issue of WDC&S, besides the Van Horn tale, was the
Branca-illustrated fishing yarn. I had this one in an old, second-hand
Whitman (I think) that was unfortunately thrown out, and was delighted to
see it again, albeit with a slightly different translation than what I
remembered. 

This stuff on Blum's "new" story using Barks' old cartoon outline is
interesting, not the least in that I remember Blum roundly dismissing the
outline in a Carl Barks Library article as not capturing the essence of
the characters. Guess he doesn't care what he's said in the past so long
as he can get the acclaim of "discovering" a new Barks yarn. But why is
he working magic into the plot? I guess that's all you can expect from a
man whose major creative influences are "the Secret World of Jules Verne"
and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I'm not kidding--he says so on his
website.

Sorry for the negative tone of this e-mail, but the "Brave New World" of
Gemstone has some very unpleasant aspects that I fear may someday eclipse
the good stories we know and love.

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