If you ride a vacuum off into the sunset, would you be making a "clean getaway"?
Don't ask me! Ask Knothead and Splinter, as they "get away" on a cylindrical steel steed, on the cover of WOODY WOODPECKER # 160 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: September, 1977)! Art by Joe Messerli.
Not to be outdone by two little 'peckers, Duck Bros. Huey, Dewey, and Louie ditch the cowboy motif, and just make a good old fashioned 'nother fine mess for their exasperated Unca Donald, on the cover of WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES # 298! (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: July 1965), with art by the great Carl Barks!
Things to Note:
Knothead and Splinter are just "playing cowboy", while Huey, Dewey, and Louie, are obnoxiously chowing-down! ...So much for Junior Woodchucks Honor!
In the same vein, K&S are only playing, while HD&L are intentionally creating more cleaning work for their angry uncle!
Both "vacuum-ers" (Woody and Donald) are front-right of the frame.
But, as posed, if the illustrations were SIDE-BY-SIDE, Woody and Donald would be looking AT each other!
...Or AWAY, depending on which one was placed where!
And the POPCORN, at upper left, comes close to encroaching on the Cover Date of the issue!
In contrast, Messerli's composition is a straight-forward, left-to-right progression for Woody, Knothead, Splinter, and the vacuum! Sufficient space is provided for the intrusive UPC Code (at lower left), but that leaves a large blank space BETWEEN the UPC Code and the vacuum head, further throwing-off the composition!
Doubtless by pure coincidence, both vacuum-riding covers are light green!
In a very slight bit of satisfaction for Donald, unrelated to his nephews, he is about to "vacuum-up" the words "Chip 'n' Dale"!
Alas, in so doing, he will also "vacuum-up" the Disney copyright notice, and is sure to face a battery of entertainment lawyers for such a breach!
Despite having a wider vacuum head, Woody will probably not "vacuum-up" his own copyright notice - if, for no other reason than he's looking forward!
So, before Donald has to talk his way out of a fine for "behavioral clause contract violation", we will leave WOODY WOODPECKER # 160 and WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES # 298 - joined by the drudgery of household vacuuming... but "Separated At Mirth"!
6 comments:
No offence to Unca Carl, but the perspective on his version seems a little off to me. That would have to be a veritable tanystropheus of a vacuum-cleaner for Donald to look so big and the triplets so small!
Also, all this talk of riding vacuum cleaners reminds me of the once-popular gag (I think it shows up in at least one Italian Disney comic) of "modern" witches riding flying vacuum-cleaners into the moonlit night, to get with the times.
Oh, I dunno… Maybe Unca Carl had just watched “Citizen Kane”, and was drawing in DEEP FOCUS!
I think the problem with the Donald Duck cover is that Barks’ editors seemed to want him to draw Donald Duck (or at least his head) bigger than normal, probably so that it could be noticed easily on the comic book racks.
Oh, you mean like THIS ONE? Ye cats!
There were all sorts of tricks that publishers resorted to in order to get noticed, when only the very top of an issue might stick up over that which was piled in front of it!
In the mid-1960s, DC used their infamous GO-GO Checks, as seen HERE, but Gold Key did it even smarter by having the title of the comic always next to the Gold Key Logo, at the upper left. This is true of every Gold Key Comic!
And it actually WORKED too, as that method was what allowed me to find THIS VERY SPECIAL ISSUE hidden within an unbelievably disorganized series of racks in the Hempstead (NY) Bus Terminal (now transit center) in 1964! Check the small text "Walt Disney Comics" at the upper left of the cover… that’s what I saw, and that's how I found my copy which I still have to this day!
I’ll say it was a special issue! It’s not every day you get to see the Fantastic Flying Goat, or Mad Madam Mim meeting Prince Charming! Too bad no one remembers that Blot guy...who is he?
I dunno! Makes you wonder why he bothered to “Return”.
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