From its humble beginnings as a parody of the “Beefsteak
Charlie’s” restaurant chain in the pages of Gemstone’s UNCLE SCROOGE # 375
(2008)…
…Yes, really, look it up.
Oh, wait, I’ll show you right here…
…The name “Bertram” has become a “go-to” in present day
American Disney comic book dialoguing.
But, despite numerous dropped-in references, today marks the first time we've "bopped along with Bertram" for two consecutive weeks!
Last week's IDW DONALD DUCK # 21, released on June 14, 2017...
...And this week's IDW UNCLE SCROOGE # 27, dialogued by Thad Komorowski and released today: June 21, 2017!
The latter as a throwaway gag by the great Romano Scarpa,
establishing Scrooge in his bin filled with money…and the often strange things
he does with said money! ...And isn't it a coincidence that all three "Bertram" sightings illustrated in this post have to do with beef?
And, while you’re at your local comic book shop picking up UNCLE
SCROOGE # 27 from IDW, make sure to stop and check THIS out…
If you thought my heart stopped the day I saw THIS COMIC…
...Imagine what I must have looked like when I spotted LOBO /
ROAD RUNNER! So much so that I bought
both covers!
This might very well be “the comic I waited for ALL MY LIFE,
but never knew it”! …Of course LOBO has
not been around for “ALL MY LIFE”, but you know what I mean!
 |
| One story in "Lobo-Style", and one story in "Animated-style"! |
In fact, I’m gonna settle in with a “Jumbo Deluxe Big
Bertram” and read it right now! ...Da-rool! Da-rool!
Beep-Fraggin’-Beep!
12 comments:
My shop didn't have Uncle Scrooge #27, but I did pick up Mickey Mouse #21, which I didn't want to miss, as like Donald Duck #21, it may be the last one for awhile. While on any given month, it is hard to pick a favorite out of the "core four" titles, looking back, Mickey Mouse has been consistently a "can't miss" title. It's a shame to see it go, but I look forward to what Donald and Mickey has in store for us in the months to come.
Deb:
If I had to pick ONE IDW Disney title that has consistently impressed me over the last two years, it would be MICKEY MOUSE!
The glorious parade of Scarpa, Casty, and Cavazzano stories, aided and abetted by translators who really know – and love – the material, with occasional drop-ins by Paul Murry and Bill Wright (but never so much that it felt like a “reprint title”), was PERFECT, in my view!
The DONALD and SCROOGE titles, while almost always great as well, were just a little more variable than MICKEY. There was not one issue of MICKEY MOUSE that I did not thoroughly enjoy, the “Mickey Shorts” interregnum (Thanks, Elaine!) excepted! And, quite frankly, I didn’t enjoy the first twelve issues of WDC&S all that much – but it really picked up, and became what it should have ALWAYS been, after that!
So… Yay, Mickey! …And, at least we got 21, rather than the mere 18 issues of MICKEY MOUSE ADVENTURES from Disney Comics in 1990-91.
…Oh, and Lobo wants to know why we haven’t mentioned him.
I didn't get the Lobo/Road Runner book, but I did get the Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny one-shot last week. Funny stuff!
Joe:
It seems DC is doing a bunch of looney tunes crossover one shots this month. Last week the owner of my comic store put aside "Legion Of Super-Heroes meets Bugs Bunny" for me without me asking him to. This goes to show how nice it is to actually go to a store and form a relationship with people rather than shoping online. I haven't read the issue yet but I'll drop a comment with my thoughts when I do :)
OK, I have no idea who Lobo is. I did, however, buy the similar "Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny" comic today, which so far is quite funny. "Computo 2?! Brainiac, have you gone insane?! You know Legion regulations! The Levitz Law regulates how often we can recycle subplots!" Plus: a panel with Bugs as Wonder Woman!
I do know who Bugs Bunny is. And back in the day, I actually did read "Legion of Super-Heroes"...despite the fact that the girls' powers were either mental or negatively physical (invisibility, shrinking, light-removing). I hope things have improved on that score! Though the gender division of powers wasn't much better in "The Incredibles"....
I connect a lot to "The Columbus Butterfly", as it was the first story by Romano Scarpa, one of my favourite Disney artists, I ever read. It was also the first Italian story ever to be published in Germany! The names of the cow in other countries are the following (if somebody is interested):
Italy: Gaetano
Greece: ZOVZOVKO (?)
Germany: Ferdinand
France: Pinta (which referrs to the fastest ship with which Columbus sailed west to find India)
Wow! Take two days off and behold the multitude of comments awaiting – here and in other current posts for me to address! No doubt about it… THIS BLOG IS BACK, BABY! And, thank you all for making it so!
A lotta love for LEGION OF SUPERHEROES / BUGS BUNNY (released the week prior – June 14, 2017) from Deb, Clapton, and Elaine… and rightly so! I devoured that thing last night like a Tasmanian Devil on a rabbit or duck, and thoroughly enjoyed it! And, as a “chaser”, finished my night’s reading with SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP # 26, guest-starring Hong Kong Phooey! …After all Scooby is always being “chased” by something, isn’t he?
Now that I’m no longer as (…all together now) “horrifically busy” as I once was, the ambitious side of me says to do specific blog posts on LEGION / BUGS, SDTU # 26, LOBO / ROAD RUNNER, and (of course) IDW’s UNCLE SCROOGE # 27. And, some of that may very well happen… even though that “ambitious side” tends to collide head-on with those good ol’ standards of Chores, Obligations, and Responsibilities. But, we’ll try our best.
Clapton: There is nothing better than having a personal relationship with a comic shop and its employees. My shop, to which I’ve been connected in both its previous and present incarnations for more than 20 years, is very good to me, and is a great place to visit.
Elaine: ACK! You never heard of LOBO?! Lobo was simply my most favorite character – and comics title – created in the ‘90s. (Yes, I know Lobo’s actual “first appearance” was in the latter ‘80s, but he truly came into his own over the course of the ‘90s!).
Lobo was crass and violent – but didn’t that apply to the nineties comics scene pretty much as a whole, Disney/Gladstone II and certain DC comics notwithstanding? But he was also FUNNY, in that “crass and violent” sort of way… something that most nineties comics were decidedly not.
Please take THIS LINK for my review of a typical issue of LOBO from the ‘90s – and lots of background information on the character. Lobo may not be your cup of tea, but imagine the fun if he were to ever team up with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl!
Indeed, if ever there was a mainstream DC character that could carry a regular series like SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP, it would be Lobo! LOBO TEAM-UP, anyone? LOBO / ROAD RUNNER proves how well the concept can work… with some very unlikely co-stars
Of course, I’d happily settle for Lobo appearing in SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP! …Anyone at DC reading this?
As for LEGION OF SUPERHEROES / BUGS BUNNY, I’m not familiar with writer Sam Humphreys – but this story proves that he can run with the great writer of SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP, Sholly Fisch. Humphreys writes the “Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny”, perhaps better than anyone this side of Michael Maltese! Having a conscience, groggy and unaware of his surroundings, holding-up signs when speechless, etc. Of course, if you use ACTUAL “Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny lines”, as Humphreys did, your chances for success are practically assured. A great job by our writer!
From the cover, and the intro of Bugs to the Legion story, there was a certain “ending gag” that I anticipated, and was convinced that the story was leading to – but did not! As it would be too much of a spoiler to reveal that now, I’ll wait until my possible (hopefully, eventual) Blog post on the issue to discuss it.
I’m not sure if revealing something that DOESN’T HAPPEN in a story is an actual “SPOILER”… but it does “take a possibility off the table” for those who haven’t read it, so I guess so.
Huwey:
“The Columbus Butterfly” was the FIRST Italian story to be published in Germany? That’s very interesting!
Being a 1962 story, I’ll assume it would have appeared somewhere about 1962-63. Surely, no later than 1964-65.
Before that, what did the German comics consist of? American reprints? …And what else? Did Germany produce its own product at any time?
I took German in grade school, high school, and college, and could make *some* sense of reading MICKY MAUS which, in the ‘80s, I was able to find in a hole-in-the-wall foreign book and magazine shop in Times Square. It was primarily made up of Egmont (then, Gutenberghus) material. On the rare occasions that I saw “pocket books/ digests”, they tended more toward the Italian.
That’s where I first saw “The Blot’s Double Mystery” and lobbied Gladstone Series One to print it, as I detail in the comments of the “Duck Comics Review” post at this link.
Unless there is something completely unknown to me, that would be the first Italian Disney story to be published in a regular comic book in the USA. …And it was a German “Lustiges Taschenbuch” (Hopefully, I’ve got the spelling right!) that led me to do so.
Joe:
Actually the storyy was published in October 1967... ya ain't (y'ain't? can one say that?) catch it right. It appears in Lustiges Taschenbuch, which was called Lustige Taschenbücher back then.
Before that, we didn't have pocket books with Italian stories. We had Die tollsten Geschichten von Donal Duck Sonderheft, which constisted just of Barks stories for quite a while, and as a second series (and the first Disney Comic series ever to be published in Germany), we had the Micky Maus Magazin, founded by the world-famous Ma'am Dr Erika Fuchs, which consisted primarily (but not only) of Barks comics. These early translations of the Barks stories by Mrs Fuchs are still used today, since the D.O.N.A.L.D. (German Organization of Non-Commercial Followers of the Louder Donaldism) doesn't accept newer translations.
Germany made sometimes own productions, you can watch them HERE. There are some real jewels beneath them.
Yes, meanwhile Micky Maus Magazin is made up just of Egmont stories, and once in a lifetime there is a German production. And I can't advise anybody of reading the Micky Maus because today, it is primarily made up of really bad stories (no offense to the creators, it was a decision by Egmont, to no longer print stories that are longer than 12 pages). The real interesting, new Danish productions can be found in the Micky Maus Comics or in the Die tollsten Geschichten von Donald Duck.
"The Blot's Double Mystery" was published in Lustiges Taschenbuch #62 and is, since then, an absolute Classic among German Comic Fanatics, it's won prizes and got many good reviews.
Huwey:
It looks like the “Micky Maus Magazine” and the “German Production” links do not work properly. If you’d like to send them again, please do.
I’m guessing it was “Lustiges Taschenbuch #62” that I have. It had a yellow cover, with Mickey and the Blot on it (?)
Micky Maus Magazin
German productions
Yes, these early books always had yellow covers.
LTB #62
That is the original version, there were numerous reprints of the stories, such as the following:
CLICK HERE
Huwey:
Thanks for the updated links. They work fine. Everyone, go use them!
YES, LTB # 62 is indeed the book I have… and the book in which I first saw “The Blot’s Double Mystery”… AND the book that ultimately led to Romano Scarpa (…and, by extension, other Italian creators and product) and Eega Beeva first appearing in regular American Disney licensed comic books!
No one outside this Blog’s readership may even be aware of this, but wouldn’t that make LTB # 62 an “historically significant” issue in the overall scheme of Disney comics publishing? Just look at the proliferation of Scarpa and other Italian stories, and the regular appearances of Eega Beeva, in the contemporary IDW comics! …Isn’t it amazing how “little things” can lead to “big things”!
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