...Or, it's a matter of perspective!
Just look at the PERSPECTIVE in this opening splash panel of a FOX AND CROW story in REAL SCREEN COMICS # 33 (DC Comics, December 1950)!
You're actually UP HIGH! Higher, even, than Crawford Crow - looking down on both him and the visitor still further below, from a tree-tops view!
The angle on Fauntleroy Fox's HOUSE (at left) really sells it!
That's something you didn't see every day, especially in a "funny-animal" comic! I'm a writer, not an artist, so I really can't properly explain it any better than this - but, WOW!
Kudos to artist Jim Davis for taking what should have merely been "ordinary", and making it "extraordinary"!
But, that's not all in the "extraordinary" department, as REAL SCREEN COMICS # 33 is also home to an amazing META story, in which Fox and Crow squabble over "Top Billing", resulting in Fauntleroy Fox LEAVING THE FEATURE, and being replaced by a "Fox Hound"!
But the "magnificence of THIS meta" is hardly limited to just concept, but dives deep into the VISUALS as well!
Cast your eyes upon what appears to be a WOODEN PLANK, suspended across, and somehow attached-to, the top of the splash panel - bearing their billing and names!
And, as seen below, it's REALLY HANGING THERE, to the extent that Crawford can PROP A LADDER AGAINST IT, and start ripping-down its lettering!
Why, there's even more of that great "Jim Davis Perspective" in the above illustration's lower-left panel! ...That thing's just really up in the air!
THE FOX AND THE CROW, and its related series, are known for incorporating more meta-antics into their stories than the conventional-by-contrast Disney comics and other contemporary comics from Dell - but this one really deserves a prize for sheer audacity!
While you all ponder that, I'm going to step out my front door... and if I look up and see a huge wooden sign, across the sky directly above, that says "JOE AND ESTHER" - you'll never hear from me again!
...Either because I DIED OF SHOCK right there on the spot, or Esther wanted "Top Billing", and replaced me with a dog!
4 comments:
It warms my heart to see you spotlight Fox and the Crow again… though I never read that story in French (it could be that it never was printed in French, though it's equally plausible that it was just in one of the issues I never did manage to track down). And it's a darn shame, because it would have deepend the parallels I already saw between "Foxie and Croâ" and Walter Melon and Hilarius Bitterbug even more… for I don't know to what extent you've noticed this yet, but I've rarely seen a comic as hilariously meta as some Melon strips. Were Bitterbug credited in the title of the Melon series, I could totally see an equivalent of this story starring Bitterbug and Hilarius.
There are a few good ones which I mean to translate and send your way once you've run Bored and Gamed, which I couldn't really describe here without spoiling your future fun, but let me just mention a couple of brief sequences from two of the long, 44-page adventure stories. In one, Melon, Bitterbug, and the entire Melon family have been taken over by the villains, and everyone panics except for Walter, who keeps a jovial smile; when his mother asks him why, he answers that their current situation as static hostages in the middle of a desert is boring, and that, therefore, the writer will undoubtedly find a way to get them out of it before a page or two.
In another, a caricature of a greedy promotional-department executive keeps interruping the story with "asides" that remind the reader that there are 30 other Melon hardbacks out there and that they really should go and buy them right now. Finally, he interrupts the climax… and both Melon and the villain get so mad that they step out of their frames to violently chase the guy out of their book.
And yes, Davis was a brilliant artist.
Fear not, Achille… The Fox and the Crow will often find their way into these “Adventures in Comic-Boxing” and “Separated at Mirth” posts. They just seem to lend themselves to this sort of thing! …As do Mutt and Jeff.
I *do* notice a definite dose of Meta in the Walter Melon stories I’ve seen. Nice to know there’s lots more for me to enjoy. Just imagine, if there were an American publisher for this stuff, the job you and I, together and separately, could do on it! …I can dream, can’t I?
Similar to the “hostage gag”, there is a line (among SO MANY great ones) in the Casty Mickey Mouse story that I called “Night of the Living Text”, when Mickey wonders if they will be trapped for “all eternity”, the “Goofy-like” Professor says: “Heavens no! These adventures rarely last more than thirty pages! Before long, it will work out!” I’m quite sure that was Casty, and not me.
Oh, and I certainly intend to put up “Bored and Gamed” soon! You know that “Horrifically Busy” thing I’m always up to my neck in?
Just for the record, this particular post was prepared back in February, 2018! And released in July! I’ve got some posts stored-up even older than that! That’s, unfortunately, the lengths I sometimes have to go to in order to keep this Blog fresh!
…But, it’s WAAAY worth it!
Ah, an American (or Canadian, Australian… British! who knows? ) Walter Melon book would be a dream come true.
I have sent you one such meta Melon stories — have you received it?
Indeed I have, and have written back about it, privately!
Great stuff that I intend to put on the Blog. And, yes... an English Language Walter Melon Series WOULD be a dream come true - especially, if we got to collaborate on it!
Hey, IDW? Fantagraphics? Dark Horse? DC?
I'll keep going until I get to Whitman and Charlton? :-)
Post a Comment