Fantagraphics Disney Masters Volume 16: Luciano Bottaro - Joyously Jumpin' with Jupiter!

Lotsa jumpin' for joy goin' on 'round here today, an' here's why...

Yes, I finally got my copy today and all I can do is envy those of you who have had the opportunity to enjoy this wonderful book even sooner!  

In fact, I did something I have never done with any previous volume of Fantagraphics Disney Masters... I read it through COMPLETELY IN ONE SITTING!  ...Yes, really!  Me? Mister Horrifically Busy!  ...So, maybe I skipped a little housecleaning... and a meal... maybe a doctor's appointment... what of it?  

And, believe me, this volume has had some VERY strong competition... 

But, other than THE PHANTOM BLOT (...aaaand one future volume still in the works), there is none I anticipated more eagerly than this sequel to the previous volume dedicated to Italian Disney Master Luciano Bottaro (1931-2006)!

  Why?  Just one word... REBO! 

REBO: the ruler, the warlord, the imperious, impatient, and impetuous, and most importantly... the S.L.U.G. of  the planet Saturn!  (S.L.U.G. = Supreme Leader and Unquestioned General)  ...An acronym I created for the character with sheer delight!  

With his two obsequious generals in tow, this volume finds Rebo taking the battles (perhaps not nearly as hard-fought as he would have wanted) away from Saturn and his "target" Jupiter, and bringing them to Earth.  

We lead off with "Fear the Wrath of Rebo"... a title I admittedly cobbled together from two other genre favorites - "Fear the Walking Dead" and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn".  

Having miraculously cheated death (as all the best villains tend to do), Rebo and his generals stow away on a Jovian SNARK ("Space Navigational Ark" seen above) bound for Earth and "The Great Hero of Jupiter"... Donald Duck (...?)

Rebo vows revenge on Donald for the humiliating defeats of the earlier Disney Masters volume, and the fun takes-over with the "pink and rubbery havoc" Rebo wreaks upon Duckburg, Rebo taking-over all the television sets in the city to deliver an ultimatum as if he were The Joker, and Daisy's uproariously indignant reaction to the S.L.U.G. of  Saturn by thinking it's all part of one of Donald's strange lodge initiations. 

A VERY worthy sequel by Mr. Bottaro, especially at it comes decades after the original "Uncle Scrooge's Money Rocket"!  

 Things To Look For:  

You'll find everything you've come to expect in my translation and dialogue efforts: puns and wordplay, "Bertram", "Goat-Ham City", Super Goof (...as a TV cartoon "Super Goof the Animated Series", anyone?) references.  Dog-face surrogates for Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, and not just one but two Lost in Space references - one obvious, and one very oblique (A "Tip of the TIAH Topper" to anyone who... "unearths" that second one!) 

Beyond that, Rebo is more over-the-top than ever, and his two generals all the more obsequious... though one of them is just a liiiittle more "obsequious-er" than the other!

Oh, yes... there's also a reference to the Carl Barks "Donald ducking-out on Daisy's spring cleaning" story from WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #213 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: June, 1958) - where, as noted in our last post, Donald beats a rug! 

...And hey... this book was released in spring! 

We continue IMMEDIATELY where we left off (...literally, the same scene that closes the first story opens the next) with the book-titular "Jumpin Jupiter!", translation and dialogue by "Jonathan H. Gray with David Gerstein".  

Now, I don't know "who-did-what", but these stories are so nicely cross-edited - carrying over some of my characterizations and bits into this story, just as I followed Jon's lead in the "Ice Sword" stories... 

...that I figure at least some of this continuity-carryover might be attributed to David.  He is the best possible editor for this stuff (You'll see other reasons why, later in this post!), because NO ONE goes that extra mile quite like he does!  

Anyway, Rebo meets, and joins forces with Dr. Zantaf, another Luciano Bottaro creation whom you might remember from DONALD DUCK #9 (IDW, Cover Date: January, 2016).

They meet!

But, these things never end well. 

So, how did they go from "comrades-in-arms" to "arm-powered-combat"?  You'll just have to read (and enjoy) the story!  After all, this is a Blog, not a library!  

As if to cleanse the palate after all that Rebo-ranting and Zantaf... er, Zantaf... um, "whatever-he-does", we have a hilarious Bottaro Goofy story co-starring Witch Hazel...

...She of the epic confrontation with Donald Duck that spanned both animation and comic books!  

"Goofy and the Washed-Up Witch", with translation and dialogue by Thad Komorowski (and a better dialogue creator for Witch Hazel... and Magica DeSpell... and Gladstone Gander and other "characters of a certain type and attitude", you'll never find in this modern era).

In short, Hazel goes to extraordinary and absurd lengths to convince a dead-skeptical Goofy that witches exist - and that she is one!  

But, Goofy maddingly counters with the same solid and implacable denial that he once applied to the existence of Eega Beeva  - leading one to believe that Bottaro was directly influenced by Bill Walsh and Floyd Gottfredson's "The Man of Tomorrow" (1947).  

Another one of "those editing things" that I so love is the use of the "Paul Murry Goofy Logo"... 

 

...And the title, "Goofy and the Washed-Up Witch" done up in a "Paul Murry Lettering Font"!  

We end on another wonderfully weird sci-fi effort by Bottaro... alas, one published posthumously in 2007, after his death in 2006!  ...A story given one delightful surprise of an American English title, for a story about Scrooge and Gyro exploring the Black Holes of the universe - "Voyage to the Bottom of the Hole"!   

And, despite the English language reference to one Irwin Allen '60s sci-fi series in its new title, Luciano Bottaro visually recalls another Allen series with his unique artistic stylings... The Time Tunnel!  

I'm not so sure I can even recap this one, so best we let Luciano Bottaro, aided and English-abetted by David Gerstein (translation and dialogue), tell you himself!  ...And tell it he (and David) will in grand style! 

One more HUGE thing on "Voyage to the Bottom of the Hole"... not only was it named after my all time favorite TV series, but check out the title font...

 It's the VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA LOGO FONT!!!

DAVID, YOU ARE THE BEST!!!  What a surprise!  ...You had me at the "Paul Murry Goofy Logo and title font", but THIS?  WOW!  

It's enough to make a guy forget about REBO! 

 Just don't tell him, okay?  

The book is rounded-out by a biography of Luciano Bottaro, by Armando Botto.  

After all that, I can say no more beyond... GET THIS BOOK!  

Oh, wait... "REBO SAYS... GET THIS BOOK!"

Um... Better?  

Meta McDuck and Meta Maverick!

 

Or, “I never Meta Maverick I didn’t like!” 

Be it James Garner as "Bret Maverick", Jack Kelly as "Bart Maverick", Roger Moore as "Beau Maverick", and, even Robert Colbert (of The Time Tunnel) in his very brief shot as "Brent Maverick".

 

"I wasn't a Maverick long enough to get my own DVD box cover!"

"I wasn't on Bonanza very long either, but I DID get into the opening credits!" 

"...Then we BOTH ended up working for Irwin Allen!"

Wow!  That was a long enough digression to be a "cutaway" on FAMILY GUY! 

But, now... back to "Meta-matters"!   

 

I happen to find "Meta" humor and references, forth-wall breaking, etc. to be quite funny.  (Quick, one-sentence digression - as opposed to the loooong one you've just experienced - I also find "deadpan" to be just as funny, most likely because an enthusiastic guy like me is so incapable of doing it that I regard it as "humorously alien".)

 

 

And so, when preparing my script for the Uncle Scrooge story that I called "A Game of One-Cupmanship" (I enjoy puns, too!  Can't cha tell?) I included the Meta-gag of Scrooge whiling away the time by sleepily singing the theme to Disney TV's DUCKTALES. 

 

 

I thought it was a nice Meta reference, in keeping with the generally fast-paced, zany nature of the story.

 

 

Imagine my surprise, while watching "Family Pride", an episode of the classic TV western MAVERICK (Original Air Date: January 08, 1961), to find Roger Moore, as Beau Maverick, WHISTLING THE MAVERICK THEME SONG to open the episode's teaser! 

 

 

Meta?!  Snack-dab in the middle of the 1960-1961 television season?! 

 

Gotta love that! 

 

Oh, since the 4 th season of MAVERICK was released on DVD by Warner Archives (as were the final three seasons of the series), and their discs don't play on computers - thus no episode-specific screen captures for "Family Pride" - I'll just scan the package cover and the disc to represent Roger Moore's completely unexpected "Maverick Meta-moment"!   

It's the FIRST EPISODE on this set!

 

...It's not as if you could hear him whistle in a Blog post anyway! 

 

 



R.I.P. Michael Ansara

 

Actor Michael Ansara passed away on July 31, 2013 at the age of 91.

Mr. Ansara was another of those special actors who turned up in almost everything that I liked! 

His stark, severely-rugged visage allowed him to specialize in playing “The Other”… be his characters from “Other Lands”, “Other Worlds” or, as "Quarlo" in the Harlan Ellison penned episode of THE OUTER LIMITS “Soldier” (1964), a future-Earth warrior from “Other Times”. 

 

He was known for the role of “Cochise” in TV’s BROKEN ARROW but, unfortunately (even in the wondrous age of DVD), I’d never had the opportunity to see that series. 

 

To me, Michael Ansara was:

 

"Kang", the BEST of the original Klingons on STAR TREK TOS.  A role he revisited on the later TREK series DEEP SPACE NINE and VOYAGER.  
 

 

An alien warrior chieftain (and father to warrior prince Kurt Russell) on LOST IN SPACE.
 

 

An iron curtain military official in 1956 AND a silver-skinned, ruthless alien "historian and collector" from the year 8433 (!) on THE TIME TUNNEL.

 

 

Beyond Klingon Kang, one of his very best roles was as enemy submarine commander "Tomas Ruiz" on VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, and previously as a Russian scientist (not to mention a key player in the feature film version of VOYAGE in 1961)...

...And many more such roles during the golden fantasy-adventure period of 1960s television. 

 

Later, in the ‘90s, Ansara lent his distinctive, almost chill-inducing voice to Mister Freeze in BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES. 

 

At one time, he was even married to Barbara Eden and appeared on I DREAM OF JEANNIE and, before that, the VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA movie with her.  

But why take it from me, when you can read a complete list of his many credits HERE.  ...Just LOOK at all the great things he was in!    

 

I once referred to actor James Arness as "Television's John Wayne".  If so, then Michael Ansara was its "Yul Brenner".  

Rest In Peace, Michael Ansara!   

 

“Only a fool fights in a burning house!”   One of the wisest things a Klingon has ever said – echoing in immortality, thanks to the talents of a fine actor!