Back when I was a kid there a "novelty record" (...Actually there were A LOT of "novelty records", then they peaked and virtually disappeared!) in which a young boy lamented:
"But, I'm only gettin' HALF OF WHAT I OUGHTTA, 'cause my birthday's on Christmas!"...or something very similar.
As the years rolled on, and comic book issues piled up, Chip 'n' Dale appeared to have this same problem! ...All cover art is by the great Harvey Eisenberg!
Exhibit One: The cover of CHIP 'N' DALE # 12 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: December, 1957 - February, 1958)...
It's CHRISTMAS, and they're exchanging predictable gifts!
Exhibit Two: The cover of CHIP 'N' DALE # 19 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: January, 1973)...
Now, it's THEIR (mutual?) BIRTHDAY and they're exchanging the same predictable gifts!
Oh, well, as the popular song goes... "It's their party, and they'll cry if they want to!"
Exhibit Three: The cover of CHIP 'N' DALE # 55 (Gold Key/Whitman Comics, Cover Date: November, 1978)...
It's CHRISTMAS once again, and they're STILL exchanging those same predictable gifts!
Only now with the intrusive UPC code slapped-on the art to obscure a festive sprig of holly, and the 1978 "Happy Birthday Mickey" logo added to ensure that this is both a Christmas AND a birthday cover!
Here they are, all together...
Finally, regardless of the occasion... did anyone (including the editors) notice that DALE is holding his card BACKWARDS - and, presumably, "reading" the blank reverse side?
This inadvertently in-character bit for Dale, might actually make a good gag, better still!
UPDATE: June 28, 2019
Our great friend, The Amazing Debbie Anne Perry, shared some SKETCHES of this cover that she worked-up in 2016... talk about an unrelated coincidence!
There are four images leading us from beginning to end! ...Enjoy!
Two observations: ONE: Deb appears to be opting for the DELL version of the title logo.
TWO: Dale is STILL reading the (presumably blank) reverse side of his card!
Compare and tell me Deb didn't do a GREAT job on this! Not slavishly copying Harvey Eisenberg, but injecting some of her own "personality drawing" into the final sketch!
(Sigh!) If only they looked as good as Deb's version all the time!
4 comments:
Your reading of Dale's backward-card-holding is very amusing, but it could just be that there's a note scrawled on the other side that he's reading.
Achille:
Yeah, but it’s DALE! I’m sure the back is blank! :-)
In fact, he may even be wondering WHO the gift was from!
Doing a recreation of an existing drawing is often a harder job than creating a new one out of whole cloth (or paper and pencil). I had to sort of build Chip and Dale backwards, looking at them and trying to figure out how to build the poses first as simple shapes and then to put the details back where they go. I really wouldn't want to do an exact copy of Harvey Eisenberg's style, but if you can look at the drawing and tell who they're supposed to be, then I did a fair job of it. I tend to give a lot of the Disney characters the Carl Barks style pie cut eyes. It just feels right.
Deb:
To quote the title of one of my subset features: “I’m Not an Artist, But…”
…I know what I like, and I like this! I also like the artist’s insight on “…Build[ing] Chip and Dale backwards” . I suppose, to one degree or another, every recreation of an illustration, tribute/homage to a famous cover, etc. starts like this!
The “pie cut eyes” is an element that became regrettably lost as character designs became slicker, and would seem to be employed in modern times only when a retro-look is intended. Even Harvey Eisenberg (whom I regard, after Carl Barks, as Western Publishing’s best cartoon-artist overall) doesn’t use it by this time. That’s part of what I meant when I made reference to your own “personality drawing”, as “pie cut eyes” DO give a character a certain personality.
I’d like to think that Captain Retro-Duck (remember him?) has NEVER been drawn without “pie cut eyes” (even into his fondly imagined 1970s and 1980s Whitman issues)… except when some modern artist or contemporary corporate studio is trying to distort him for some new animated series that purposefully eschews his classic (Retro) look!
And, again, what a tremendous coincidence that (to paraphrase the great Humphrey Bogart in the even-greater film “Casablanca”) “of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she picks THIS COVER to homage!” WELL DONE!
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