Speaking of DuckTales 2017 - Perhaps One "DuckBridge" Too Far!

As mentioned in the last post's Comments Section, I am finally in possession of the complete series of DuckTales 2017 on DVD, thanks to my favorite "private label physical media dealer".  

And, as I've done many times in the past when discussing such purchases, I once again emphasize that, if the Vast Many-Tentacled Media Giant Conglomerate that owns, or presently holds the copyright to, the property in question would release AUTHORIZED COMPLETE SERIES SETS of said intellectual property (or properties), on DVD, Blu-ray, or dare-I-dream 4K, I would be first on line (or online, as the case may be) to purchase it!  ... But, since you don't and, apparently have no intention to do so... well, here we are! 

Still slowly wending my way through this long-coveted collection as if it were "The Spear of Selene" itself,  I've since battled in "The Shadow War!", played "The Most Dangerous Game... Night!", and am next primed to see what an animated version of Fethry Duck is like!  

SO, NO SPOILERS ON ANYTHING PAST FETHRY... OKAY?!  

Also, in the previous post and its comments, I've discussed the many differences between the 2017 series, its 1987 predecessor, and the comics by Carl Barks and those who followed in his wake...

...Which brings us to the BACK COVER of the "10-DVD set" that I hope to complete before our country's next civil war... but that's another story - and an off-limits topic at this friendly and humble Blog!  

If you can't read all the descriptive text touting the series, fear not... I shall parse it out for you - and verify the veracity of each hyperbole-an paragraph as we go! ...Hyperbole-an?  Ahh, let's dive in! 

"Scrooge McDuck is back in this reboot of the late-'80s animated series. He gains guardianship of grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie when Donald Duck reluctantly takes them to McDuck Manor, the wonder of which enthralls the mischievous triplets."

CHECK! 

"While living with their trillionaire relative, the boys learn long-held family secrets and unleash symbolic artifacts from Scrooge's past."

CHECK! Except Scrooge as a "trillionaire" seems a bit of a comedown from Barks' proud and boastful self-made "fantasticatillionaire"!  ...Scrooge wouldn't be..., uh, um... "undervaluing his assets" to avoid taxes, would he?  Naww... that's someone else!  (Of course, I mean GLOMGOLD here, no references to any actual person living or dead  is intended - as those disclaimers used to say!)  

"The threesome's antics send the family on a number of adventures, which include Webby Vanderquack, the granddaughter of Scrooge's housekeeper, Mrs. Beakley." 

CHECK-A-ROONEY!  Three-for-three, so far! 

...And finally...

"The show's animation style is inspired by the classic comic designs of animator Carl Barks." 

WAIT... WHAT, NOW?  

"The show's animation style is inspired by the classic comic designs of animator Carl Barks." 

AH-OOO-GAH!  TILT!  REJECT!  YOU ARE FIBBING, FIBBING, FIBBING!  

  (...Or as our title says, "One DuckBridge too far!")  

"The show's animation style is inspired by the classic comic designs of animator Carl Barks." 

TIME FOR SOME SERIOUS FACT-CHECKING HERE! 

"The show's animation style is inspired by the classic comic designs of animator Carl Barks." 

True, Carl Barks *was* a Disney "animator", who worked on Donald Duck theatrical shorts...

...But that was ancient history! Then again, DuckTales is all about... "rewriii-ting hist-treee", isn't it? 

However, the Carl Barks we all know and love became an all-time historic figure by working in the field of COMIC BOOKS!  

Indeed it was THOSE VERY COMIC BOOKS created by Carl Barks that formed the basis for anything bearing the name "DuckTales" - 1987, 2017, and anything in-between or after!  

And, in those fabled comic books, Carl Barks drew his cast of game-changing characters LIKE THIS...

He never drew ANYTHING that looked like THIS...

Aww, but when ya enter the crazy, mixed-up (but now needed more than ever) world of "private labels", ya gotta expect occasional missteps... as long as the discs themselves are of high quality - and these are! 

...Just like the many wonderful works of Carl Barks himself! 

DuckTales is... "Dynamite"!

First I'd like to welcome you back to this too-long-neglected humble Blog!  Said period of neglect is my doing entirely... No excuses, but plenty of apologies for the long period of inactivity.  Same apologies to those I've owed personal communications for far too long a while!   

That said, let's jump headfirst into a hot topic for late 2024... 

The Issue At Hand is: DuckTales #1 (Dynamite Entertainment, Cover Date: November, 2024)!  

Dynamite Entertainment has become a publisher for which I've gained very much respect in recent times!  They have aggressively licensed popular properties from the many embedded tentacles of both the Disney and Warner media empires as well as other sources.  

Dynamite Entertainment first came to my attention with its DJANGO/ZORRO seven-issue series of 2014 which, oddly, Esther pointed out to me knowing my fondness for the "Spaghetti Western" movies featuring the mythical western hero/anti-hero Django!  The series was very well done - and was actually written by filmmaker Quentin Tarantino!  

 

In 2017 Dynamite offered another fine team-up series, the six-issue THE SHADOW/BATMAN, which was particularly welcome as I was no longer interested in the way DC was handling Batman... and most of their other characters in general. 

And, while I left it at that, I resolved to go back and sample other Dynamite titles and series based on other characters and properties I liked, but that would take until 2024 to happen.  

Dynamite DID license Disney properties from the Disney Afternoon and feature films, but I had little to no interest in those. However, in early 2024 they licensed and published 1960s Hanna-Barbera adventure classic SPACE GHOST...

...And soon followed by H-B's original adventure classic, JONNY QUEST...

...Both as ongoing series - and both have been GREAT!

Now, they've added an ongoing DuckTales series to what I fear may eventually become an oversaturated Disney comics market (...thanks, Marvel!), but I'm glad they did!  

I'm glad they did because, unlike the already-repetitive approach Marvel has taken with the greatest of Disney characters - where each of them are awkwardly cast as (...wait for it) Marvel Superheroes!

The notable exception to this was their first release: "UNCLE SCROOGE and the INFINITY DIME"...

...Which still suffered from too much "Marvel Specificity" and an overabundance of Marvel-style physical fighting...

...Resulting in a greater deviation from the evergreen foundations set down by Scrooge's creator Carl Barks than I'd prefer, it still wound up as a decent story! 

But we now have a new comic featuring Uncle Scrooge McDuck that's closer to "The Real Thing" than anything other than the Fantagraphics hardcover Disney collections!  

And while Dynamite's 24-page opening opus, "Four Corners of Your World Part One: The More things Change...", consisted essentially of set-up and establishing for future issues (...the curse of modern comics - sizing stories for the inevitable trade paperback collections), it's a good, solid, and entertaining entry set squarely in the mode of the DuckTales classic series.  

 You can read my detailed GCD index for the issue HERE!  

Though I'll offer a few tidbits below: 

The story, as well as the issue/series as a whole, uses the familiar 1987 DuckTales character models and continuity, rather than the more jarring and unconventional 2017 versions.

Within the overall story, are three flashback stories told by Scrooge that break with the "modern visual format" of the main story. These flashbacks are two pages each, are drawn in a retro-style that resembles that of master Italian duck artist Marco Rota and are rendered in the four-tiers-per-page, rectangular panel format used by the Dell and Gold Key comics from the Golden Age thru the Bronze Age.   ...Note the contrast in style! 

Completing the retro-look of the flashbacks (a clever way to indicate that these are "old stories" that Scrooge is telling) is the use of Carl Barks' "Dell Interior Logo 1", which has the name "Uncle Scrooge" in large straight letters reading on a diagonal from southwest-to-northeast with a series of nine coins falling about the logo. https://www.comics.org/feature_logo/625/

Each flashback sequence concludes with the "End" logo that was used during the Disney Comics (1990) era of a diagonal tilting "End" within an oval. Nice touch, but using the Western/Gold Key "The End" logo instead would have carried the retro feel further still.

 Coulda, shoulda been! 

Nevertheless, Dynamite Entertainment's DuckTales has now joined its Space Ghost and Jonny Quest titles on my comic shop reserve list, and I look forward to enjoying a good, long run. 

 ...And, hey... If you don't care for this particular cover, Dynamite offers a total of 31 (!) variant covers to choose from!  

We close with some wonderfully funny DuckTales #1 (2024) variant covers by our great friend Debbie Anne Perry!  ...Can we now claim 33 variant covers?  

GOTTA LOVE THESE! 

New York Comic Con 2024

It's been a (all together now) horrifically busy time since our "16 Covers" mara-blog-a-thon, and I've been forced by multiple circumstances (...most of them occurring simultaneously) to "go-dusk" (...we never really "go-dark" here) for a while.  

While none of these crazy things have actually abated, I am, nevertheless, off to New York Comic Con 2024!  

It's been a while since I've been there!  Last one I attended was 2019.  Stopped going due to the COVID pandemic, and residual COVID concerns in subsequent years.  

 But, I'M GOING NOW!!! 

See you back here, when I return! 

TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Sixteen: AT LAST!!!

Staggering winded and achy across the finish line of this sixteen-post marathon, it's time to keep a semi-promise I made earlier in this (gasp!) sixteen-count-series... TOP THREE COVERS, finally  - naming a THIRD cover to join THIS ONE...

...Which shared co-honors with the one below, both by Bugs-master Tom McKimson (... and both counting as a single-occupant of one of those precious three slots - yes, I'm doing TWO-INTO-ONE here, but I was never very good at math)! 

And, of course, THIS magnificent Batman cover by Neal Adams! 

An image so strong, so powerful, so awesome, that you don't even bother to question why Batman remains masked... and "pants-ed" for that matter!  

And, while all of these had great stories backing those covers, they were primarily selected on the sheer brilliance of the covers themselves!   

But for that final slot, I find myself looking beyond strictly images, getting into the story it illustrates and the significance of said story - simultaneously noting that the cover is great in and of itself!  

So, without further ado (and "further a-don't", even) my list of  TOP THREE COVERS - in no particular order - is rounded out by (...pause for effect, while we cue the drumroll)...

DONALD DUCK in LOST IN THE ANDES by the great Carl Barks (originally published in 1949 by Dell Comics, as part of their unparalleled-in-comics-history FOUR COLOR SERIES!) 

...But, NOT the original printing as seen above!  No, the one that means much more to me is its first American reprint in THE BEST OF DONALD DUCK #1 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: 1965)!

While it has a little less detail than the original FOUR COLOR cover, I feel the BLUE background served the illustration far better than the garish orange of the Dell version!  You can take your pick! 

But, as I indicated, it was what this version REPRESENTS that makes it special!  

Walking up the corner street to the nearest soda fountain store that carried comics with my aunt (not the one with the nice house - but the "more fun" one who lived off-and-on with us) on a Friday early evening (knowing there was no school for two whole glorious days) and finding this on the rack!  I was so excited, I didn't even WANT a fountain soda!  I just wanted to get this baby home, and leap into it!  

...And finding it to be (what *still is*) my choice for THE SINGLE GREATEST COMIC BOOK STORY OF ALL TIME!  THIS POST can tell you why, and spare me the additional marathon-depleted-effort!   

And so we name THE BEST OF DONALD DUCK #1 our well-deserved and final (whew!) cover number sixteen! 

Now, if you'll excuse your exhausted and beleaguered host, I'm going to completely self-dissolve in a pail of liquid human-goo!  If any portion of me remains, those parts (once congealed) will be back soon!  

TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Fifteen: Preposterous Puppetry!

A gimmick often used by Silver Age DC comics was the "TRANSFORMATION", where DC heroes would somehow be (all together now) transformed into some... rather unusual form of themselves, making for an eye-catching cover image.  

Why it happened and how it was overcome was secondary to the image itself, which was often said to be handed to the poor writers who were tasked with writing a story around the bizarre looking covers!  

While virtually every DC hero underwent this sort of publisher-mandated metamorphosizing, the ones who... um, "carried most of the weight"...

...And sometimes carried it literally, were THE FLASH and JIMMY OLSEN! 

.

I've never done an official count (...and probably never will... Horrifically Busy, you know) but THE FLASH and JIMMY OLSEN just seemed to have more of these experiences than the others, and of a wider variety too! 

But there was one FLASH transformation cover that, for the sheer outrageousness of its execution, outdid all the rest!  In fact, it's become a legend among Silver Age DC aficionados.  It is  (...pause for effect... Say, can you actually "pause for effect" when you're WRITING?  It's not as if the reader is going to stop reading and hold his or her breath, simply because you said so! Did any of you really do it?)  ...THE FLASH #133 (DC Comics, Cover Date: December, 1962)!  

Abra Kadabra was a recurring Flash villain, and responsible for a share of Barry (Flash) Allen's strange twelve-cent era transformations!  

A flamboyant showman, Abra Kadabra was a common stage magician - but from the 64th century!  He had no actual magic powers but his mastery of 64th century science and technology seemed like true magic and sorcery to the masses of the comparatively backward, primitive 20th century.  

And it was with such amazing future-tech that he performed his evil miracles... including turning The Flash into a PUPPET!  

Now, the very image of it was outrageous enough, even for Silver Age DC, but what really puts it over the top, and into a class of its own is Barry's line of thought-dialogue!  

I mean, it's not like Bugs Bunny saying: "Did ya ever have da feeling ya was bein' watched?"

Because, at different times and in different situations, we all HAVE been watched!  

...But how many of us have ever been "TURNED INTO A PUPPET"?  

I'd figure that. even if I *DID* live in the Silver Age DC Universe (...which made my kid-hometown look like Mayberry, USA -- or I lived in TODAY'S DC Universe, which makes the *Silver Age DC Universe* look like Mayberry, USA!), there'd be little chance of my ever "being turned into a puppet!" 

I mean, how would you KNOW you were "being turned into a puppet!" 

What would it even FEEL LIKE so that, without being near a mirror, you could just sense that you were "being turned into a puppet!" 

If merely looking at your own arms and legs, it could probably - and more likely - be an ordinary, run-of-the-mill Silver Age DC transformation... like being turned to wood!  

In fact, that even happened to him at least ONCE!  ...And it would account for any stiffness he'd be feeling in his arm and leg joints!  

But nope, this month's metamorphosis is unapologetically of the puppet variety! 

...And, if YOU ever get "the strangest feeling that YOU are being turned into a puppet", please let me know what it feels like!  I've been wondering about it for years!  

For all I know, perhaps I *HAVE* been "turned into a puppet" for some time, but no one could summon up enough nerve to tell me!  "Say, doc, about this stiffness in my joints... Oh, just get some rest and take a few pills, eh? Oookay! ...And why have all the MIRRORS been removed from my house?  The car's kinda tough to drive without those rear and side-views!  How do you explain all these STRINGS in my clothes closet? ...Long shoelaces?  I guess..."

So, for its SHEER AUDACITY (...and because we puppets gotta stick together) our Cover Number Fifteen goes to THE FLASH #133... with (wait for it) "no strings attached"! 

...WHAT? You're STILL WAITING?  That WAS the joke! 

 TELL 'EM, FOGGY!  ...Aw, skip it! 

JUST ONE MORE TO GO, AND I'LL BE FREE... FREE... FREE!  F-R-E-E!!!  ...Ya know, maybe I just might miss doing this!