Here's a nice little cover from DELL FOUR COLOR # 795 JIMINY CRICKET (1957).
I have but a single question... What would one call the conclusion of Jiminy's recital?
"A Comb Over"!
After dropping such a pun on you, perhaps Jiminy should serve as MY conscience!
But, before he does, let me further state that this might be the ONLY performance where, at concert's end, "the sound of crickets" is an acceptable accolade!
Yep! He's comin' ta get me for THAT ONE!
18 comments:
EDITORIAL TIME:
Ya know, in their mad rush to morph the classic Disney comic book into something unrecognizable – such as casting Donald Duck in “PKNA” and as “Double Duck”, turning Mickey Mouse into Harry Potter, and creating a new, inferior saga of how Scrooge McDuck made his “First Millions”, which not only ignores Carl Barks and Don Rosa, but reads badly too… (Well, maybe it only “reads badly” in the American English version!) …Our Italian friends have lost a very special something!
Now, I can’t be TOO hard on them (…except for that “reads badly” thing, which could easily be fixed with better translations and dialoguing), because we Americans have ALSO lost that special something. Indeed we lost it first… probably in the early to mid-1970s!
This is the ability to produce stories like those that appear in this issue of JIMINY CRICKET! Once upon a time “soft fantasy” tales like these stood side by side with grand adventures like my sainted “24 Carat Moon”, and “The Flying Dutchman” by Carl Barks, and Paul Murry’s Mickey Mouse detective mysteries.
While the adventures and mysteries still exist aplenty, the “soft fantasies” have largely vanished (save those intended to market current films or appeal to specifically targeted groups like “Disney Princesses”!
Walt Disney was about BOTH types of stories with his classic characters – yet there haven’t been any “Jiminy Crickets” or “Non-Rescue Rangers Chip ‘n” Dales” for years! (…And if there are, we certainly haven’t seen them here!) Perhaps it’s more than merely symbolic that the “Walt” has been recently expunged from today’s “Fresh and Modern” comics, leaving only the “Disney’s” corporate moniker to guide their comics – both good and not so good – into the future!
Read a modern PKNA and a Dell issue of JIMINY CRICKET back-to-back, and ask yourself which one better represented WALT Disney!
Okay, back to “Bad Cricket Music Jokes”! …Got any?
Not to Jiminish the importance of your larger point, but — first — is it really fair to blame the Italians alone for the disappearance of what you justly call the "soft fantasies"? It seems to me that Egmont and the Brazilians didn't carry on the tradition any more than the Italians, and, indeed, the Italians held on slightly longer, with stories like Donald Fracas reading like more fully-realized versions of the "soft fantasy" stories. Of course, the Dutch are still fully in the game, lucky fellows. But still, I think it's unfair to pin it on the Italians like that, when it seems to me the Scandinavians did the same and more.
Also, among the examples you give — I would be remiss not to point out, first, that Wizards of Mickey turned Mickey into Frodo Baggins much more than Harry Potter, as he now inhabited an entire fantasy world, with Dragons and Kingdoms and Dark Lords and so on. I don't believe there has been a straight Great Parody of Harry Potter as of yet; I think it would be an amusing enough read; but we can rest assured that it wouldn't be suited to a full-blown series.
And as for All of Scrooge McDuck's Millions (I'm going to keep calling it that, its ComiXology name, if you don't mind), true, tis mediocre, even without the lackluster translation, but I don't think it's mediocre in a way that particularly connects to your point. In fact, foregoing all the complexity and wit of Rosa, they read very much as children's stories, very much in the spirit of the less inspired 1960's and 1970's American comics. There's far more "soft fantasy" and "whimsy" to a story where the great market collapse of 1929 is caused by every building in Wall Street literally collapsing because they were built out of inferior plaster, than there is to any of Don Rosa's Life and Times; it's just very incompetently executed "soft-fantasy".
Achille:
In the true spirit of Jiminy Cricket, here you are serving as my conscience! …And, quite frankly, I do need that from time to time, as do we all! So, thank you for the additional and alternative perspective! It’s always welcome here.
Now, to the… “Issues at Hand”…
I am hardly blaming the Italians alone for the current state of things. Indeed, I purposefully say that the Americans “lost it” (…or rather “gave up and ceded it to other, more interested, countries”) long ago.
It’s just that, from where I sit, and with my experiences at Boom!, Fantagraphics, and IDW, that the Italians have cast themselves to the forefront of Disney comics publishing and production, and thus appear “more responsible” for the state of things today, than the others.
My use of “Harry Potter” is mere shorthand for the “whole fantasy thing” that has taken hold of so many different cultures. Now, that doesn’t mean that I that I only want the “traditional” type of stories where Mickey is “on a ranch”, “railroading”, or “sailing on a boat with a name like Flying Flounder”… but I want him – and the other starring characters – to be consistently portrayed as “characters of their / our time” and not denizens of alternate realities or stretched into something that Floyd Gottfredson or Carl Barks (much less readers who grew up on them) would not recognize… like PKNA and such!
I think CASTY does this perfectly with Mickey! He creates decidedly modern-set stories, but of the type that Floyd Gottfredson and Bill Walsh would be proud!
I will be the first to pin the label of “lackluster” on the 1970s American comics – but certainly thru 1966, if not another year or two beyond, the 1960s comics were at something of a “second creative golden age” – with 1964-1966 being the epicenter, not just for the Disney titles, but for Western Publishing/Gold Key in general. See my writings elsewhere on that subject!
I must confess that, in being true to my earlier declaration, I bailed-out of the story you (more palatably) call “All of Scrooge McDuck's Millions”, before it reached anything about a “market collapse”! That’s not bad, in and of itself, and I could see Rosa illustrating it with a large catastrophic splash panel!
It (perhaps tenuously) “connects to my point” only in that, with Barks and Rosa (and surely other like Scarpa) having ALREADY created a full-mythology concerning Scrooge’s fortune, why even do this? Continue to build on that which has ALREADY MADE THESE COMICS GREAT, and save the alternate versions (if you MUST have them) for DuckTales! Anything that takes the overall feel further away from (all together now) that which has ALREADY MADE THESE COMICS GREAT” makes them less recognizable!
Regarding the “market collapse”… In the tepid American comic book translation that I did not see by choice, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scrooge reacted to this comically-calamitous event by saying something like: “Look! The buildings are falling!” As opposed to the DIALOGUE GOLD that would have emerged from Barks, Rosa, Geoffrey Blum, Gary Leach, or the “Core Four”! Heck, even Vic Lockman! That, too, helps to make something well-established become incrementally more unrecognizable!
But, to bring this back to where it all began, the whole thing is nothing more than my singular reaction to having spent a Saturday afternoon with a “really nice”, professionally done, Disney comic book that sprang directly from that which “WALT Disney” either created or had a great influence upon! And, if that little dose of “traditionalism” that barely exists today (if at all) isn’t the definition of REAL “Disney Magic”, I don’t know what is!
PS: LOVE your opening line “Not to Jiminish the importance of your larger point…”
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "soft fantasy"--don't know what the Jiminy Cricket stories are like, though I do know Chip 'n' Dale, of course. Fantasy that's not a whole alternative world, but this world with a touch of gentle magic? Fantasy that's pegged a bit younger?
Here are several Duck stories I can think of that might qualify as soft fantasy. Ones that were published in the USA: "The Crying Monster/Sobbing Serpent" (Galton & Angus/Vicar, 1982, Disney Interregnum's DDA 31, 1992), where the boys unite the crying young lake monster with its loving parents, "Brig-a-Dog" (Renard/Manrique, 2004, VP 2, 2005), which reimagines Brigadoon with the love of a boy & his dog replacing romantic love, "To Bee or Not To Bee" (Janet Gilbert/Uzal, 2000, WDC 645, 2004), where Gyro's formula turns Daisy into a queen bee. One not published here that comes to mind is "Chilly Charlie" (Halas & Hempson-Simpson/Millet, 1992), where Mim makes AMJ's snowman come to life and they take him to the Arctic where he won't melt and make him a female companion. Actually, a bunch of the European Mim stories might qualify. Sadly, there haven't been any Mim stories like that recently.
These stories tend not to get great ratings on INDUCKS (though Crying Monster did OK). I think they often are aimed at the younger demographic. I've said this about Janet Gilbert's stories; I think that many of her stories are great for the six-to-nine-year-old set, and adult fans sometimes disdain them. I would have loved her "All Tricks and No Treats" and her "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't" (the one where Helper gets lost, U$ 348--that one also gets a good rating) when I was about seven; my brothers, fans of "Watch Mr. Wizard" and his science experiments, would have loved Gilbert's "Sorry, Wrong Number," where HDL save a tiny stranded alien by figuring out that his spaceship fuel is folic acid, which they then distill from spinach.
It's a little difficult to nail down, but "soft fantasy", at least as I’d attempt to define the phrase, is something on the order of Jiminy Cricket exploring an old castle with Gus and Jaq, or trying to locate the wayward Mr. Toad for Mr. Mole and Mr. Rat, or taking Thumper and Flower to a circus at night, only to be imperiled by a trio of bad monkeys!
Or, in the CHIP ‘N’ DALE title, the ‘munks and Timothy the Mouse rescuing Dumbo from the Wicked Witch - to use actual examples from 1950s Dell Comics. The kind of things that were reprinted in 1960s-1970s issues of WALT DISNEY COMICS DIGEST along with the Carl Barks and Paul Murry adventure reprints!
Or, to step outside of Disney, the “Mary Jane and Sniffles” DELL LOONEY TUNES series was another example!
I think you really home-in on it when you say: “Fantasy that's not a whole alternative world, but this world with a touch of gentle magic”!
Oh, sure there are still such stories with the Ducks and Mickey, as you nicely note, but are there any with characters like Jiminy and the like, that are best suited for such tales? Perhaps the best way I can describe this is… “Stories that would look best if drawn by Al Hubbard”! We’ve moved into a Duck (and sometimes Mouse) world where the more fanciful characters for whom such stories would be more characteristic are “out of style”!
That’s Part One of my thesis. Part Two is that, if you are (more or less) going to strictly do just Ducks and Mickey… PLEASE DO NOT STRETCH THEM INTO SOMETHING SO FAR OUTSIDE OF THEIR CLASSIC COMICS INCARNATIONS THAT THEY BECOME UNRECOGNIZABLE!
I hope this helps you better understand the thoughts that churned around in my (sometimes admittedly offbeat) mind, as I was reading a particularly good issue of JIMINY CRICKET… and wondered where “stuff like that” went!
Don't you think, at the end of his concert, that Jiminy might be called upon for an "en-comb"?
As I've stated before elsewhere, the thing with American comic-books is that they're so dang thin. The Italians have every right to do PKNA and Wizards of Mickey and so on, for the very good reason that they come as an experimental side-order no matter what; any given issue of Topolino (which is a weekly!) is about a hundred pages, with at least one 'classic' Mouse and 'classic' Duck story in it. They are experiments, not bad in and on their own, but not suited to the American way of doing things, much like a coast redwood is a fine, unobjectionable kind of plant up until you try to cram it into a flowerbed.
As for “why All of Scrooge McDuck Millions when we already had Rosa”… there I'm not quite with you. For one thing, it is not all that hard to cram the whole of Millions into the offscreen bits of Scrooge's business travels as recounted in Chapter 11 of L&T; a few details don't match, sure, but then again, Millions is presented as a series of stories told by Scrooge to the rest of the Duck clan by the fire, so we can always claim unreliable narrator. Between "blinkus of the thinkus" and Scrooge's noted tendency, in Barks and elswhere, to resort to exaggerated, "tall tale" versions of his past adventures (the opening to Loony Lunar Goldrush, anyone?), I find it very easy to assume that any details of Million (or, for that matter, DuckTales Classic's Once Upon a Dime) which fails to match with Rosa is a case of misremembering mixed with embellishment.
More to the point, however, Scrooge's youth is a fantastic basis for stories, and I've always thought it was darn unfair of Rosa to have used it all up in one go without leaving anything for his fellow writers. (Barks himself was of the philosophy that Scrooge's past was best kept offscreen except for select moments, as to better allow oneself to make up any new and amusing details needed for a new story. Indeed, his brief “feud” with Rosa was, I understand, steeped in a comment of Barks's which compared Rosa's biographical efforts to dissecting a butterfly — sure, you gain better understanding, but at the cost of the reason you care about the butterfly to begin with.) Indeed, Rosa himself understands this, and goes to great pains in his introduction to the collected edition of the L&T to stress that he sees himself as a fan, and the L&T as just his own "fanfiction", his personal variation of events, to which other Duck fans should not feel bound if they disagree with it.
As concerns my reading of Millions: I own (for completion's sake), but have not cracked open, the New IDW versions (aside from the sample I reviewed on my blog); I read the whole thing in French a few years ago when one of our bimonthly books ran it as a back feature. I am honestly not sure whether the Great Depression story was printed in the IDW run or not. Perhaps it wasn't. (In the meantime, my monthly report: New IDW continues to waste good stories with its terrible editorial choices. The last WDC&S had a Sylvia Ziche Blot story, for God's sake!…)
I quite agree with your definition of the "soft fantasy" stories, by the way, and you keep asking as though it were rhetorical, but I told you where they went: to the Netherlands. They never stopped cranking out stories with Chip'n'Dale, Jungle Book, Aristokittens, Pinocchio and so on — and, indeed, even applied the same aesthetic to newer Disney classics; they have created numerous “Lion King”, “Little Mermaid” or “Aladdin”-based stories which would not have been out of place in 1950's WDC&S. Of course, I don't think any current Dutch artists are quite as good as Al Hubbard (though I wouldn't peg down Hubbard as all that decisive to the soft fantasy aesthetic; he made whatever he drew look fantastic, from that one-shot Alice in Wonderland story of his to the early Fethry stories).
(Oh! Also, all thanks to Elaine for her many great recommendations there. I'll definitely be checking out a few of those. And as I've stated before I fully approve of Mim stories.)
All excellent points, Achille!
And yes... the REAL problem is not “that such stories exist” (they should, if for no other reason, because the copyright holder wants them too) – but that there is so precious little material published in the USA that it has comprised a larger portion of the “whole pie” than it ought to!
Therefore, it seems more out of proportion than it actually is! As seen through my personal American lens, there is far too much “character altering stuff” and (especially now) “badly presented stuff” in relation to what little we get overall!
And, in support of that, is that I’ve never seen, or am unlikely to ever see, the Dutch material you cite!
Scarecrow offers: “Don't you think, at the end of his concert, that Jiminy might be called upon for an "en-comb"?”
Only if he doesn’t close with “Night on Bald Mountain”!
While there haven't been as many of them, the "soft fantasy" stories have gotten some ink in recent years. The Silly Symphonies Sunday pages have three hardcover volumes out, there is a book collecting the newspaper strip Christmas features "Disney Christmas Classics", and Romano Scarpa's "Return of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (which to me feels like book #0 of the Disney Masters line). Jiminy Cricket even appears in one of the Snow White tales, as he wants to be the wicked queen's conscience! Mickey even got a "soft fantasy" book with Cosey's "A Mysterious Melody", telling an alternate version of how Mickey Mouse met Minnie.
"Duck Avenger: New Adventures" seems to have died along with the rest of the "Core Four" translator/scripter's projects, as it seems to have been David Gerstein and Jonathan Gray's project really. I had nothing against the series or "Donald Quest" because as it was running, we still got some traditional Donald in other titles. The new editors seem to be going very conservative with their books, as we get very simple Mickey Mouse and Uncle Scrooge stories as of late. (I'm not mentioning the translation or scripts because at this point, it's like beating a dead horse...or a dead duck?) What I liked about the "Core Four" run is that David had a plan to open up just what could be run in the states, and took chances with more creative or dated stories to make the most interesting Disney comics he could (and still does with the Disney Masters series). The IDW crew now just seems to plug in what's current, inoffensive and of the correct page length. You know you're doing something wrong when old beat up fifty cent late-run Whitman issues are more fun to read. WHITMAN ISSUES!
In a way, I'd like to see the older Duck Avenger stories, where Donald is mostly just living up to his alter-ego's name and avenging "wrongs" done to him by Uncle Scrooge and Gladstone. The Duck Avenger persona gave Donald an advantage over the two biggest pests in his life, and was fun in moderation. The newer adventures were sort of Disney's answer to 90's Marvel Comics Superheroes, but also gave Donald a chance to be competent, to be the hero he seldom was in his daily life. In a way, having DA as a secret identity almost makes you wonder "Were these stories happening, or is Donald daydreaming them?"
Whew! This is a lengthy reply! Jiminy Cricket is telling me to stop typing now and go do other, more productive things with my time, and to give a little whistle if I start to slide, so I'd best end this reply now. Where's that bug spray?
I don't quite agree with Debbie re: New IDW's choice of stories; indeed, part of what has made their run so infuriating to me is that they keep wasting interesting stories with their lackluster editorship. A Lonesome Ghosts adaptation, a Phantom Blot story by Ziche where the Blot blackmails the government into exiling Mickey, that anniversary-type thing about Goofy and Mickey's friendships — even All of Scrooge McDuck's Millions — not all of those stories are that great in practice, but certainly they're not just random off-the-shelf material.
Now, THAT is one GREAT COMMENT, Deb!
Yes, I very definitely need to get the Scarpa “Snow White” book!
You will never see or hear me malign David’s editorial efforts, even when I occasionally disagreed with his choices – the RARE two occasions being “Zodiac Stone” and the DUCK AVENGER series. The latter of which is THE PERFECT EXAMPLE of turning classically crafted characters into something unrecognizable! What would Carl Barks say about that, I wonder!
David did his absolute best to open the USA up to so many of the characters and concepts enjoyed by the rest of the Disney comics-reading world, that his run on the IDW comics should be remembered as THE GREATEST OF MODERN TIMES – which I’d define as 1990 and beyond!
Your description of the… um, “current situation” is SOOO spot on, it bears repeating! So much so that I request each of my blog-visitors to read this passage a dozen times, then put it in a briefcase, or even a sack, take it home and read it again every night before bedtime – and again every morning upon waking:
“ The new editors seem to be going very conservative with their books, as we get very simple Mickey Mouse and Uncle Scrooge stories as of late. (I'm not mentioning the translation or scripts because at this point, it's like beating a dead horse...or a dead duck?) What I liked about the "Core Four" run is that David had a plan to open up just what could be run in the states, and took chances with more creative or dated stories to make the most interesting Disney comics he could (and still does with the Disney Masters series). The IDW crew now just seems to plug in what's current, inoffensive and of the correct page length. You know you're doing something wrong when old beat up fifty cent late-run Whitman issues are more fun to read. WHITMAN ISSUES!”
I’m almost ready to run out and get this tattooed on my chest… if only I could stand the pain!
…That, and Jiminy Cricket would probably advise against it! And we all know what happens when we disregard his advice… HEE-HAW! HEE-HAW! HEE-HAW!
Achille:
You write: “A Lonesome Ghosts adaptation, a Phantom Blot story by Ziche where the Blot blackmails the government into exiling Mickey, that anniversary-type thing about Goofy and Mickey's friendships — even All of Scrooge McDuck's Millions — not all of those stories are that great in practice, but certainly they're not just random off-the-shelf material.”
Maybe not, but the editorial packaging, most notably the tepid, simplified translations, make them SEEM like “random off-the-shelf material” and, as Deb so perfectly says, “…current, inoffensive and of the correct page length”!
And that’s the truly sad part of all this! They WERE so much better than this, and they COULD BE AGAIN, before too much damage is done… but no!
Yeah, don’t get that tattooed on your chest. That would not just hurt, but would be socially awkward in non-comics fan situations. Jiminy Cricket would not approve (despite the fact that he wasn’t above rebranding himself as Jiminy Crockett for about a month in the mid-50’s).
Deb:
I guess even Jiminy is not immune to the pressures of marketing... as he would likely con-FESS, if you took away his warm "Parker" in January!
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