I wish you all a Happier Easter than Sourpuss is having on the cover of TERRY-TOONS COMICS #21 (Timely/Marvel Comics, Cover Date: June, 1944).
At the very least, may all your Easter Eggs be colorful and/or sweet tasting... and not (Gandy) Goose Eggs!
14 comments:
Happy Easter to you and yours, Joe!
And the same to your and yours, Sergio.
I've had an all-around lovely Easter, and one of the wonderful events of the weekend has a story attached. All through last year, I was communicating with a friend who had offered to buy used Dutch comics for me on the Dutch online marketplace (since they don't sell their used comics on eBay!), choosing "lots" of comics including issues with stories/covers I wanted. After he put the trove of comics together and we figured out how I could pay him (a story in itself!), he shipped the package to me on February 7th. No sign or word for weeks and weeks. Dutch postal service said it had been shipped to the destination country, US postal service said it hadn't shown up in New York. I basically gave up. Then, I got home yesterday from Easter prep at church, and lo and behold! there was a good-sized box on my doorstep. No, it cannot be...but it was! The box from the Netherlands, in perfectly good shape, with absolutely no indication of where it had been for nearly ten weeks. Happy Easter!
My theory is that after the box was opened for inspection, some Dutch customs official decided to read all 73 comics before repacking them for shipment.
ANYWAY, here is my favorite of the two Easter covers in the stack:
https://inducks.org/story.php?c=H+94043B
depicting a cheerier Easter for both participants than poor Sourpuss got!
Elaine:
Happy Easter to you and yours!
That is a WONDERFUL story, and maybe even an Easter miracle, given that the USPS delivered your package on Easter Sunday – a day largely celebrated as a holiday!
Let’s say that, if it happened that way (…and I’d sure like to believe it DID), it took 2 months or so for “…some Dutch customs official [to decide] to read all 73 comics before repacking them for shipment.” , I wonder how long it will take YOU to do the same… adding translation time and subtracting that “repacking” part, of course.
Our Easter weekend was wonderful as well, with two days of Averi and Cici staying over with us! This was Cici’s first backyard Easter Egg hunt. Averi’s was three years ago, when she was the same age as Cici is now, 1 ½ . Being an “old pro” at 4 1/2, Averi picked-up those plastic eggs as if she were a high-powered shop-vac – getting two full baskets to Cici’s “not-quite-half-of-one” basket – but, it was SOOOO delightful to watch!
That Gyro and Helper cover was also wonderful (Some days, ya just can’t use that word too often!) … but the writer in me keeps thinking that it would have been still better served as a Christmas cover – with Gyro instead holding a CANDY CANE, and the Helper applying candy-cane-stripes to the object he holds (no spoilers, until you all see the cover – which you can do HERE
Thanks for the link, Joe! I respectfully have to disagree. I think the cover is well served as is--an Easter-themed picture. I like to see Gyro putting his inventive powers to work at something as simple as painting an Easter Egg. Also, it's amazing to see Gyro and helper as the only Disney characters on the cover of a Donald Duck comic book! My general preference is for the title character to grace the cover of his or her own book--but in this instance, where Donald Duck is so well known that nobody could mistake Gyro Gearloose for him (even though GG is still not a universally-known character, although his exposure in the Duck Tales TV series has made him better known to many Disney fans), it's actually nice that Donald was willing to give over the cover of his book to Duckburg's most famous inventor.
And thanks, Elaine, for that great story! It's always nice to get a surprise like that--especially at a holiday like Easter!
Well, I wrote that comment on Sunday night, so the package came on Saturday...but I still consider it something of an Easter miracle!
I note that even contemporary Easter covers on European comics show people painting eggs rather than dyeing them as we do. I surmise that this is because their eggs are light brown rather than white?
Elaine:
Oh, it’s STILL an Easter miracle… what’s 24 hours more-or-less! Averi and Cici had their Easter Egg hunt on Saturday as well. It was a better day weather-wise, and their Mommy was off from work and could enjoy (and video) it with us.
Actually, I never considered the brown-egg matter but that’s probably the case. Though, HERE’S one American example of the Ducks painting eggs. I’m sure there are others over the course of Western Publishing’s once vast output.
I would imagine that the “square checkerboard” pattern painted by Louie was an “eggs-traordinary effort” (Sorry, I was momentarily channeling THIS GUY!)
Then again, this kid (supposedly) blew square bubble gum bubbles, so why not?
Oh, I think the cover is fine, Scarecrow.
But, the “curse” of being someone like me is that you mentally rewrite everything that in any way falls short of a “100% approval”. As a writer yourself, I’ll assume you understand.
And the only reason this charming cover “fell short” was that I immediately saw it as a Christmas cover – maybe because the shape of the battery is more analogous to a candy cane than to an egg. So, the connection (pardon) of a battery and an egg simply didn’t ring 100% true for me. As they say… “Your mileage may vary!”
I’m sure you know that a secondary character starring in the cover gag, to the exclusion of the title character, is a common thing in European comics. Like THIS ONE!
Personally, I have mixed feelings on that approach. The traditionalist in me feels that the title character should be present on the cover, even if said character is relegated to the background observing the actions of a supporting character. …Maybe have a puzzled Donald peering through a window or a doorway at the Easter “egg-tivities”.
Then again, there are SO MANY European Disney comics (… must… fight… jealousy… creeping-in) that it’s no big deal to spotlight a secondary character now and then – or even regularly! Though I still feel that cover would be best served fronting a Gyro Gearloose comic or special.
The gag of a pail of paint which is polka-dotted, or checkered, or the like is a strong enough gag that it outweighs the actual practice of dyeing eggs by submersing them in colored water. We've seen the "polka-dot paint" gag in many venues, including the Silly Symphony "Funny Little Bunnies" where the bunnies paint the eggs with polka-dot paint (you actually see the bunny making the polka-dot paint by throwing dots of paint into the pail and then "mixing" it!), striped paint, checkered paint and "Scotch" plaid paint. And this was a couple of years after the elf uses checkered paint to paint checkerboards in "Santa's Workshop." Maybe you all know even earlier instances of this joke!
It may have been more common in the 1930's for Americans to paint Easter eggs rather than dyeing them. But I do see lots of recent European cover art with folks painting eggs, and I don't think I've seen any where they're dyeing eggs. The only Disney art I've seen featuring dyeing eggs is a stamp from a Disney Easter set of stamps made in Grenada, where Dewey is using a toy bulldozer-with-claw to submerse eggs into cups of dye.
Elaine:
And, of course there was the “camouflage paint” that would, straight out of the bucket, make planes or other objects completely invisible… except, for some strange reason, the PAINTBRUSH used to apply it.
I always dipped eggs into a cup of dye… because my mother would never trust me with paints! If she turned her back, she might find a crude, paint-dripped image of Donald Duck on the walls, or the refrigerator door.
You’ve got a point about painting vs. dyeing Easter eggs. Maybe dyeing was more of a ‘50s-‘60s thing and, before that, painting was the norm. I checked “the usual suspects” for Easter themed covers (WDC&S, LOONEY TUNES, OUR GANG/TOM AND JERRY and even the Bugs Bunny issues of MARCH OF COMICS, which often had Easter covers simply because Bugs was a rabbit) --- lots of painting but no dyeing!
Of course, back in those days, Western Publishing NEVER took the easy-way-out proving the old adage (wait for it) “Dyeing is easy, comedy is hard!”
My belated but warmest Easter wishes to everyone!
Elaine:
Being a European with a poultry-raising grandma, I can assure you we get both white and brown eggs! A consultation with experts in the field indicates that the distribution of our egg colours is roughly even, but may slightly vary depending on the breed and species of the egg-raising bird :)
As for the prevalence of egg-painting: I believe this is mainly because painting is simply a more eye-catching and attractive visual than dumping eggs into jars with hot water and dyes. It also offers more gag possibilities, I'd wager. I can't say for other European countries, but here in Poland we decorate eggs in a wild variety of ways: we paint 'em, we dye 'em, we use stencils or wax to create ornamental patterns, we apply special stickers... we even scratch intricate motifs on the shell (Google "kraszanka" to see an example). Our personal family custom is that my brother and I have been using marker pens since we were little tykes... I guess that was to limit the potential paint-related damage to our furniture :)
To complement my Christmas post, here are some covers from our "Kaczor Donald" magazine from my childhood... I see that one of them has even been printed in the US!
https://inducks.org/story.php?c=D++9939
https://inducks.org/story.php?c=D+13419
https://inducks.org/story.php?c=D+13420
https://inducks.org/story.php?c=D+14523
Once again, happy Easter!
T.:
I’m certain you and Elaine are correct about “painting” being a better source of gags than “dyeing” – even if dyeing became the more common activity over the years. Decades worth of comic covers bear that out.
You can have all sorts of mischief or mishaps with paint. What’s the worst you can do with dye? …Knock the cup over? The brush as a gag prop can also be a useful tool.
Belated warm Easter wishes to you too, and much more for just being near that part of the world these days!
Cover links are HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE!
Thank you very much, Joe, though compared to what our eastern neighbors are going through right now, we in Poland have it smooth and easy. But I must say I'm very uplifted by my fellow citizens' reaction to the ongoing crisis. Help is being provided everywhere!
To tie it with our Easter theme, I can say that in addition to an "empty grave, Cross and Hallelujah" scene egg and a "hodgepodge of colorful patches" egg, this year I proudly painted my third egg yellow and blue :)
And, since the Orthodox Easter falls this Sunday, I'd like to wish anyone who will celebrate it and has been affected by the war, whether in Poland, in Ukraine or anywhere in the world, lots of peace and hope that come with this beautiful holiday. Stay strong!
SO VERY WELL SAID, T.!
As a child of the sixties, born in the previous decade, I NEVER thought I’d see something as terrifying as this in Europe… and SO NEEDLESS! I guess evil dictators and would-be conquerors (and the “useful idiots” in other countries who aid them, and “wanna be like them”) never REALLY vanish from the Earth – they just reincarnate every few generations.
“Stay strong”, indeed!
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