Return of the Gremlins #3

May 16, 2008

Return of the Gremlins #3 (Dark Horse Comics)
By Mike Richardson, Fabio Laguna, Vivie Risto & Walt Kelly

In the world of Disney Comics, the Gremlins have been more or less AWOL since World War II. In this miniseries, the grandson of the airman who befriended them in those old strips is now fighting to save their home from a ruthless land developer who’s out to destroy their forest. The writing is strong, and the artwork is impeccable, but the climax of this storyline fell a bit too far into the realm of cliche for my taste. It was funny, there were tons of sight gags and a lot of nice character beats, but no real surprises, and that hurt the rating. It was nice to see some of the classic strips, however, and while none of them were necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, they weren’t bad. I do like these characters, and I hope that if these little guys come back again, they find a slightly more original storyline in which to showcase them.
Rating: 7/10

Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Comics-75 Years of Innovation

July 31, 2006

Quick Rating: Very Good

A collection of rare Disney comics from across 75 years and around the world!

Writers: Floyd Gottfredson, Ted Osborne, Walt Kelly, Carl Buettner, Hubie Karp, Bill Walsh, Carl Barks, Don Christensen, Romano Scarpa, Dwight Decker, Dick Kinney, Vic Lockman, Eirik Ildahl, Freddy Milton, Daan Jippes, Geoffrey Blum, Renato Canini, Marck Meul, Jim Kenner, Byron Erickson, Bruno Sarda, Gary Leach, Don Rosa, Janet Gilbert, Evert Geradts
Art: Floyd Gottfredson, Earl Duvall, Ted Thwaites, Wilfred Haughton, Al Taliaferro, Walt Kelly, Carl Buettner, Paul Murray, Dick Moores, Paul Murry, Bill Wright, Carl Barks, Gil Turner, Frank McSavage, Romano Scarpa, Giorgio Cavazzano, Al Hubbard, Tony Strobl, Freddy Milton, Daan Jippes, Roberto O. Fukue, Daniel Branca, Andrea Ferraris, William Van Horn, Don Rosa, Vicar, Mau Heymans, Cesar Ferioli
Restoration: Daan Jippes & David Gerstein (“Race to the South Seas”), Rick Keene (“Sauce For the Duck”)
Colors: Rick Keene, Kneon Transitt, Marie Javins, Scott Rockwell, Barry Grossman, Susan Daigle-Leach, Michael Kraiger
Letters: Susie Lee, Jon Babcock, Bill Spicer, Willie Schubert, John Clark, Rick Keene
Archival Editor: David Gerstein
Cover Art: Don Rosa
Publisher: Gemstone Comics

Borrowing a page from Disney’s DVD department, which has been putting out a line of Walt Disney Treasures collector’s editions for a few years now, Gemstone Comics has graced us with this new volume, collecting rare comics and imports, some never before reprinted, from the vast history of Disney Comics. Billed as containing “75 years of innovation” (which is technically true, as it collects stories from 1930 through 2004, a total of 75 years), this is a very nice sampler of some of the various comics Disney has graced us with over the decades.

The collection has too many stories (presented, more or less, in chronological order of publication) to give a full review of each one, so let’s just take an overview of what we get here. First, there are several short stories from the various Disney newspaper strips, including a really nice Sunday storyline about Mickey and the gang trying to conquer a mountain. (To give you an idea of how old this story is, Goofy is still referred to here by his original name, “Dippy Dog”.) We get a smattering of various characters from throughout the Disney library, including a Brer Rabbit story, a Lil’ Bad Wolf story, stories with Grandma Duck, Fethry Duck, José Carioca, Arizona Dipp, Bucky Bug and a great Gremlins strip by the immortal Walt Kelly. Goofy stars in two stories, one co-starring with the little-seen Ellsworth and the other featuring his alter-ego, Super Goof. Pluto faces off with Chip and Dale, the Beagle Boys co-star with Magica DeSpell, we have a Ducktales story with Launchpad McQuack and, of course, a healthy sprinkling of stories featuring the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck families of characters. It’s a testament to how rare these stories are that I’ve only read one of these (the Beagle Boys/Magica story) before I got this volume.

In addition to a nice mix of characters, we get a nice mix of creators as well. There’s the aforementioned Walt Kelly (best known as the creator of Pogo), and we see the work of Floyd Gottfredson (creator of some of the best Disney newspaper strips), William Van Horn on the Ducktales story and popular creators from overseas such as Romano Scarpa, Daniel Branca and Vicar among others. American legends Carl Barks and Don Rosa each contribute a story to this volume as well. With any collection like this, the stories are expected to vary in quality, but with the exception of the Bucky Bug story (I’m just not a Bucky fan) I didn’t think there was a weak story in the bunch. The Goofy/Ellsworth story (reprinted here for the first time since its original Italian publication in 1965) is particularly funny. Barks’s story features Donald and Gladstone in a race to save their lost Uncle Scrooge, each hoping to secure their place as his favorite. Rosa’s story is unusual in that it has no villains other than Scrooge’s thirst for wealth – the ducks attempt to conquer a mountain he’s purchased looking for rare gems or metals, and it’s his zeal or Donald’s ineptitude that cause all of the mayhem. The artwork is beautiful and the writing is hysterical – just what you expect from Rosa. Mickey’s last story, by Byron Erickson and Cesar Ferioli, features his friends suspecting he’s ready to throw Minnie over for a new girl and plotting to confront him. With the possible exception of the Barks story, the volume doesn’t contain any of the high adventure stories that mark my favorite Disney comics, but fans looking to laugh will be highly satisfied.

Gemstone went to great lengths to imitate the DVD style with this book, from using the same cover design (including a wonderful Don Rosa cover) to commentary by Archival Editor David Gerstein, taking the role filled on the DVDs by Leonard Maltin. In addition to an introduction discussing the history of Disney comics, he also takes time to discuss how some of the cultural stereotypes shown in a few of the stories were viewed at the time. Maltin has done similar things on some of the DVDs and, like there, I found it a little frustrating – not so much that the discussion was held, but that if Gerstein hadn’t addressed the issue himself there would inevitably have been some people who complained about the stories without thinking about their context.

Judging from the number of titles this volume has – Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Comics – 75 Years of Innovation – it gives me the impression that future Walt Disney Treasures collections are in the works. I certainly hope that is the case. This was a good read, but aside from their scarcity the stories collected in this volume don’t really have any connective thread or reason to be presented together. It’s like reading a particularly long, particularly good issue of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. Here’s hoping Gemstone comes back with more volumes collecting great works by different creators, characters, stories with the same themes or other volumes that feel more complete in the stories collected therein. As far as this book goes, though, it’s a satisfying read for any real fan of Disney comics.

Rating: 8/10

The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

December 21, 2010

Featuring Stories By: Mel Millar, Walt Kelly, Jack Bradbury, H.R. Karp, Klaus Nordling, John Stanley, Mike Sekowsky, Charles Dickens, Richard Scarry, Elsa Jane Werner, Irving Tripp, Dan Gormley, Frank Johnson, Clement Clark Moore, Al Fago, Dan Noonan, Alberto Giolitti, Mo Gollub
Editor/Designer: Craig Yoe
Producer: Clizia Gussoni
Publisher: IDW Publishing/Yoe Books

Back in the 1940s and 50s, more so than today, comic publishers would often pump out huge volumes of Christmas comics every year. Some of these were one-offs, some were annual affairs, but in an era where almost every comic book was an anthology title, there were hundreds and hundreds of short stories produced. Craig Yoe has sifted through the pack and put together this charming collection of tales, including works by such luminaries as Pogo creator Walt Kelly, Little Lulu artist John Stanley, and noted children’s book author Richard Scarry, not to mention many others.

As an anthology, there are of course ups and downs, but most of these stories are pretty good. Kelly,  not surprisingly, does most of my favorites, including the first book in the collection, “How Santa Got His Red Suit.” It’s a funny little fantasy about a time when Santa wore a suit of many colors, and how that changed on the course of an adventure in the forest. This is an interesting story, it serves as a reminder that our standard image of Santa, living at the north pole with his eight tiny reindeer and so forth, is a fairly recent invention. Even as recently as the 1940s, there were still some writers imagining Santa in the woods, using gnomes as his helpers instead of elves, and so forth. It’s a good story in its own right, and even more interesting as a curiosity. Another Kelly creation, “The Great Three-Flavored Blizzard,” gives us an interesting view of how Santa deals with Christmas when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

Stanley also throws in several good tales, such as “The Helpful Snowman” and “Santa’s Problem,” both of which focus on characters attempting to spread a little Christmas cheer in a manner totally unsuited for them. Scarry’s contribution, “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” is a nice adaptation of that classic fairy tale.

Aside from the original stories, of which there are many, there’s also a “classics illustrated”-style take on A Christmas Carol, two different versions of The Night Before Christmas (including the only superhero story in the entire book, an Atomic Mouse adventure by Al Fago), and a telling of the Biblical Christmas story by Alberto Giolitti to close out the book.

If you’re a fan of old-school comics and Christmas comics in general, this handsome hardcover would look great on your coffee table this season. Pick it up.

Rating: 8/10

Return of the Gremlins #2

May 9, 2008

Return of the Gremlins #2 (Dark Horse Comics)
By Mike Richardson, Dean Yeagle, Nelson Rhodes & Walt Kelly

Here’s a weird little comic. The Gremlins was a comic strip from the 40s created by Roald Dahl, developed by the Walt Disney company and drawn by the legendary Walt Kelly, a triumverate of imagination if ever there was one. The Gremlins were imps who — upset that their woods were destroyed for an RAF airfield — sabotaged the planes of British fighter pilots until one of them convinced them of the worthiness of their flight. After that, they turned their attention to helping the Brits and sabotaging the Germans. This miniseries picks up in the modern-day, when the grandson of their benefactor inherits the estate where they’ve been living. A developer wants the land, though, and the Gremlins’ home is threatened once again. Both the story and the art here are extremely “Disney-esque,” if you know what I mean. The plot is kind of stale — evil land developer wants the home of the mythical creatures, noble human comes to the rescue — but the characters are all likable and pleasant to read about. Dean Yeagle‘s artwork is one step below spectacular — it looks like he pulled it straight from a Disney cartoon. This little miniseries has been a whole lot of fun, and although I don’t necessarily expect any big surprises in the conclusion, one can always hope.
Rating: 9/10