Coming from Fantagraphics: Disney Masters: Massimo DeVita -- Mickey Mouse "The Ice Sword Saga" Book 2

...Or, maybe it's HERE ALREADY, for all I know!  

Disney Masters Volume 11: Mickey Mouse "The Ice Sword Saga" Book 2 by the great Massimo DeVita... and a host of others you may know!

Yes, it's the long-awaited follow-up to the amazing Book 1...

...Where Mickey and "legendary hero Goofy" (?!), along with the great wizard Yor, faithful Boz, and the "hero's hero" Gunni Helm (all pictured above) make a habit of saving the fabled land of Argaar from doom and destruction - coincidentally every Christmas Eve! 

As for that "host of others" all working in service to the wonderful storytelling of Massimo DeVita, that would be the "Disney Comics American Creative Core Four" of David Gerstein, Jonathan Gray, Thad Komorowski... and the humble host of this very blog, li'l old me!

A lot of you have missed us (and, it would seem, not without good reason, Joe editorializes), but we're back and (cliche warning) better than ever!

...Or, more likely it's Massimo DeVita's talents that just make us look that way!

Just as with Book One (first page of which is seen below), we begin again with a lead story written and drawn by DeVita, with "Translation and Dialogue" by Jonathan Gray, followed by one "T&D'ed" by me!

 Even Gunni Helm's ELBOW (at middle right) is *too heroic* to be contained by panel borders!  ...And this is only BOOK ONE, wait until he really gets started! 

But WAIT, as those TV pitchmen often say, there's MORE!  The DeVita delights continue with an additional Donald Duck story "T&D'ed" by Thad Komorowski - and an Arizona Goof story "T&D'ed" by David Gerstein!  

(Another cliche warning)... I feel like we're GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER AGAIN!

Buy your tickets (...er, COPY) now folks, seating is limited and we can promise no extra shows or make-up dates!  First come, first served...  and first delightfully entertained!  

If you haven't read any of "The Ice Sword Saga" tales yet, but think you "know it all" by (Third cliche warning)... "judging a book by its cover"... DON'T!  

For what it's worth, I am NOT a big fan of "sword and sorcery" or "fantasy/mythology" stories!

I didn't like "Wizards of Mickey" (for reasons well beyond its silly title), or "DonaldQuest", or anything in that vein...

...BUT, THESE ARE DIFFERENT!

THESE ARE "MYTHOLOGY" LACED WITH A HEALTHY DOSE OF SCI-FI!

And THAT, I LOVE!

Assisting our usual cast, in this final installment of the Saga, is SAN HOLO (Yes, I named him! Blame me!), "Interstellar Cabbie" (owing to the past DC Comics series "Space Cabbie" - see illustration further down), who carries his fares on a giant bug rather than a spaceship!

Space Cabbie...

Nice, but... "Next Time, Get a BUG!"

Just a few more quick items, before we bump up against "Spoiler Territory"!

Gunni Helm - the "hero's hero" (a character I really enjoy writing) is in top bombastically heroic form...

Taking my dialoguing cue from the also-bombastically heroic version of Aquaman, from the animated series BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD! 

Speaking of dialoguing influences, there's also the character of "Dragon Yorrfeet" (Yes, I named HIM too! Can't ya tell?) who, in both books, was written with Wally Gator in mind!  

It just wouldn't BE a story "T&D'ed" by me if there weren't a "BERTRAM" in there someplace!  

Only here with a sorta-Norse-mythology variant spelling, as are a number of other scattered variant spellings... like "Hjula Hoops" and "Bobby-Sjox"! 

And the occasional familiar quote...

A wonderful Carl Barks quote now said by Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and Mickey Mouse... the later two courtesy of your's truly, who has loved that line from Barks since first reading it over five decades ago!  

Finally, Goofy has some fascinating interaction with a "Higher Power"... but that REALLY WOULD be spoiling!  

It's all here waiting for you in the fourth and final chapter of "The Ice Sword Saga", in a tale titled "Mickey Mouse and Goofy Meet the Sleeping Beauty in the Stars"!   (...See? I  told'ja it was mythology an' sci-fi deliciously smooshed together!) 

Join the journey now!  You're in for a great time with Chapters 3 and 4 of "The Ice Sword Saga" and Donald Duck and Arizona Goof to boot!  

And, just as we did (far more frequently) in the old days, let's all meet-up here in the Comments Section for some heroically-stirring discussions!  

(Final cliche warning, but true)... YOU'RE GONNA LOVE IT!  

Gunni Helm's heroic-honor, you will!  

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: Mickey's a G-G-G-GHOST!

As these panels from WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES # 211 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: April, 1958) clearly show, it doesn't take very much to turn Mickey Mouse into a GHOST!  

Just remove his CAP, and have the colorist neglect to color his RED PANTS...

...And, PRESTO!  Instant GHOST!  

Simple, eh?  

Illustrations are from "The Castaways of Whale Bay" (1958) written and drawn by the classic team of Carl Fallberg and Paul Murry!  

BOO!

I’m Not an Artist, But… The EARS Have It!

I’m not an artist, but… I can certainly appreciate how a skilled artist can use something like the EARS of Mighty Mouse to great storytelling advantage!  

This sequence, from TERRY-TOONS # 2 (St. John, Cover Date: August, 1952), is by Terrytoons animator Connie Rasinski, and just look at all the additional "visual mileage" he gets with his manipulation of Mighty Mouse's ears! 

"Raised / Heroically / Defiantly":  More or less as you would EXPECT to see them!

"Backward Trailing":  To indicate takeoff acceleration and speed!

"Raised High and Twitching": To convey great and sudden surprise!  Nicely compliments the EYES and MOUTH!   

And all of this emotion (...or would that be EAR-motion?) so nicely expressed in a three-panel sequence!  

Well done, Mr. Rasinski!  

Unconventional Self-Quarantine Looong DVD Review: The Uncanny (Blu-ray, 1977)

The Uncanny (1977)

(Released on Blu-ray May 28, 2019 by Severin)

Another Looong DVD Review by Joe Torcivia

...Gosh, it FELT GOOD to write THAT!

Summary: Fear, kitty, kitty! 

As many of you know, I attend a "Thursday Night Film Group", in the basement of a friend and independent film maker, whom Esther and I met as a adult-ed college lecturer.  

Weeeelll... We can't really do that anymore!  So, what did I do on a Thursday night?  Decided to watch a horror film, of course.  

Looking through my shelves for something I bought a long time ago, but never watched (I've got quite a few of those!), I stopped on "The Uncanny" (1977), and popped it in the player.  

Here is the review I submitted to the group... 

----------------------------------

Being self-quarantined, I honestly don’t miss all that much. 

The person I love is self-quarantined with me… The places I love, should (hopefully) still be there when it’s over – and it’s not like I can go to them anyway right now.  And the things I love are mostly locked up in here with me as well. 

So, what do I miss?  Averi aside, I’d have to say PIZZA!  Yeah, I know I could go out and get some but, somehow, it doesn’t seem worth it to me.   But, last Thursday night, when our group would normally have met… I decided that I missed… Peter Cushing!  …Talk about your strange cravings!

As was the case with the previous Thursday’s choice “The Return of the Living Dead” (1984), I walked over to my DVD shelves… and (if you’ll forgive the expression) “scratched that Peter Cushing itch!”  And did so with…

“The Uncanny” (1977)” …Or, as *I* would have titled it: “Fear, Kitty, Kitty!” 

“Years ago, people used to believe a cat was the devil in disguise!  I’m beginning to think they were right!” – Peter Cushing as writer Wilbur Gray, in “The Uncanny”.

Not only do I get the great Peter Cushing, but the also-great Ray Milland, and the equally-and-also-great Donald Pleasance. 

Co-produced by Milton Subotsky (formally of “Amicus Films”, or as I call them “Hammer Film’s Little Brother”), “The Uncanny” follows the Amicus formula of separate and distinct, but thematically-linked, stories within a surrounding story framework.

That “surrounding framework” being that nervous and paranoid Montreal writer Wilbur Gray (Cushing) is delivering a manuscript to his publisher Frank Richards (Ray Milland).  Gray’s manuscript warns of the dangers posed by ordinary cats, as exemplified by his quote above.

Richards is naturally skeptical and dismissive of so baseless and fearful a work, forcing Wilbur to produce and discuss in gory detail his research notes – which form the three “cat-horror” vignettes that make up the bulk of the picture. 

Wilbur and his notes! 

LONDON 1912: A wealthy old cat lady changes her will to leave her money and property to her herd of cats, rather than her irresponsible spendthrift nephew.  The nephew’s girlfriend is Janet, the old woman’s housemaid, who tries to get the copy of the new will and destroy it, so that she and nephew-dear will be rich.  The cats beg to differ… playing into Wilbur’s narrative. 

QUEBEC PROVINCE 1975:  Poor little Lucy’s parents died in a plane crash, leaving her with little more than the clothes on her back, her black cat “Wellington” … and her mother’s set of books on magic and the occult.  She is placed in the care of her Aunt Joan, to live in her prissy and snobbish home, where the quiet, introverted girl just wishes to be left alone with her cat.

Aunt Joan did not anticipate her niece arriving with a cat, and her mean, spoiled daughter Angela did not anticipate ANYTHING that would take even the slightest attentions away from her.  While Joan’s husband likes the girl and treats her as fatherly as he does Angela, Joan merely tolerates Lucy, and despises the cat (whom Joan views as a needless distraction and inconvenience).  The less nuanced Angela hates both Lucy and Wellington.

Angela is mean and dangerous to Lucy, going as far as to repeatedly buzz the girl and cat with the propeller of a flying radio-controlled model plane. (She must have seen “North by Northwest”!) When Angela blames house messes and breakage on Wellington, Joan decides the cat must go – and has her husband “take Wellington away” while Lucy is asleep. 

I’ll spoil no more, save to say that Lucy and Wellington have their horrifying and satisfying revenge on Angela – tying in to Wilbur’s fear-based theories on cats.   

As a totally delightful aside for me, copies of THE FLASH # 246 (January, 1977) and BATMAN # 283 (also January, 1977) can be seen in this segment! Yes, I have them both, and yes – even at a filmed distance – I could tell which issues they were on a big screen TV with DVD clarity, using freeze frame! 

HOLLYWOOD (1936):  Egotistical ham-actor “Valentine De’ath” (Donald Pleasance) and his wife Madeleine are the “First Couple” of 1930s horror movies, until Madeleine, imperiled beneath a swinging pendulum blade, is killed by a real blade where a prop-blade should have been used!  Val takes this… er,  “opportunity” to have Madeleine’s stand-in (and Val’s mistress), Edina Hamilton (Samantha Eggar), replace her in the role – that would lead Edina to certain stardom. 

When Val takes Edina to his large and ornate home to begin the rest of their lives (...mark those words) together, Edina is surprised to find that Madeleine had a cat!  As they were privately discussing Madeleine’s death at the time, Edina feels that the cat “heard” the details of Madeleine’s death.  

True or otherwise, the cat, who was so quiet that Val didn’t even know its name (or gender), began to become a problem for the happy couple – and finally had a litter of kittens.  (Val even thought it was a “he”!)

Fed up with the inconveniences, Val flushes the kittens down the toilet (!) and vows to get rid of the cat in the morning.  Comes the dawn, the cat is nowhere to be found… until it turns up in the “catwalk” of the studio where Val and Edina are continuing their horror film roles. 

The cat’s opening shot of revenge is to chew through the ropes supporting a heavy stage-light and having it crash down upon the two actors.  And that is only the beginning… leaving Wilbur more frightened by felines than ever, and Richards all the more disbelieving in Wilbur’s crackpot cat-demon claims.

This segment, so totally carried by Donald Pleasance, has its share of humor in Val’s slapstick-ish attempts to catch the cat up to and including the use of a “wind-up toy mouse” – something I have never seen outside of a cartoon!

The cartoon influences are also felt in Edina’s line upon first laying eyes on the cat: “Oh- I though I saw a pussy cat! I did! I did!” – spoken without Tweety’s endearing speech impediment.   

And considering the year depicted was 1936, when Warner Bros.’ only animated star was Porky Pig, she would have originated this classic line! 

We’ll stop short of ending-spoilers here.  But I will point out that “Janet”, the maid in the “LONDON 1912” sequence was played by Susan Penhaligon, whose name might not be immediately familiar to you (as it also wasn’t to me) but she played the young nurse at the center of one of our group-collective favorite films… “Patrick”!  

The DVD also had a 11:47 feature on her, produced in 2019!  …YAY, DVD! 

  

I give “The Uncanny” a “10”!  …Surprised?  Naahh!  You knew it all along!  

Will I continue do this on other Thursday nights?  Still undecided... But, perhaps my decision will be revealed in the form of another "Self-Quarantine Looong DVD Review"!
 

...If the cats don't get me first!