I know in Italian the JWs are the Giovani Marmotte, though Pujol is Spanish, not Italian, and in Spanish and French the JWs are the young/junior beavers.
Pujol has done a lot of Italian stories though. Well, unless we ask him, we won't know...
I know in Italian the JWs are the Giovani Marmotte, though Pujol is Spanish, not Italian, and in Spanish and French the JWs are the young/junior beavers.
Pujol has done a lot of Italian stories though. Well, unless we ask him, we won't know...
Yeah, and he was working with Italians in this very series. I strongly suspect that the Alpine marmot is shout-out to the Giovani Marmotte.
Yeah, and he was working with Italians in this very series. I strongly suspect that the Alpine marmot is shout-out to the Giovani Marmotte.
I think you're right. In the British English edition of the story, the animal is actually called a woodchuck, though it's a crocodile/alligator distinction: while woodchucks are in the marmot family, all marmots are not woodchucks (...and I don't think alpine marmots are woodchucks!).
In the story, HDL initially adopt the marmot as he'd make a fine mascot, but I assumed it was for the mission, as again no explicit mention to the Woodchucks is made.
Last Edit: Mar 9, 2021 21:11:21 GMT by That Duckfan
G A 3 The Excursion to Key West Writing by Miquel Pujol Art by Albert García, Cèsar Ferioli Pelaez, José Miguel Tortajada Aguilar, Marçal Abella Bresco, Maximino Tortajada Aguilar Inks by Francisco Sabaté Montero, Marga Querol Manzano, Maria José Sánchez Núñez
Rating: C-
Scrooge invites his nephews over to Key West, Florida, to celebrate Donald's birthday. Scrooge has built a railway along the Keys because he's discovered a pirate ship filled with 235 treasure chests in one of the islets on the outskirs of Key West. Little does he know that 234 of the chests contain pepper, rather than gold and precious jewels. However, when the Beagle Boys kidnap the train on its way back to Miami, they are soon thwarted by a freak hurricane.
It's nice to see the artwork evolve over the course of this series. It's one of the main attractions of a world adventure story, after all. I wish I could say the same about the writing, though. I can't be too hard on these stories, given that they were written in the 1980s. There are some novelties in these stories compared to their Barksian predecessors, but still... it still reads like I'm reading a version of Hawaiian Hideaway with considerably less flair.
Part of this is due to the mandated 44-page length. Instead of dabbling in some sprawling epic, in practice these stories read like 24/32-page plots stretched out beyond belief. This leads to villains and other shady characters getting far too much screentime (paneltime?), with far too much pointless dialogue about how they're going to rob Scrooge of their money. It's nothing like the elegance of Hawaiian Hideaway. Everything in the story is spelled out far in advance, such as when the nephews realize they're carrying pepper and it takes another 20 pages to tell Uncle Scrooge about it.
The flipside to this is that we get a lot of character interaction. This can be good, like in the first part of the story. Scrooge and Donald are being obscenely nice to one another, because they've each got something up their sleeve. But this too, often drags on for too long. In general, the rapport between Donald and Scrooge in these stories is too abusive for my tastes. It's always a tough dynamic to manage and many writers go too far, not just here. I'm not invested in a Donald who is always resentful, or a Scrooge who always exploits his family to enrich himself. It's also just predictable: Donald is the butt of every joke, Scrooge always makes a profit in the end, and the nephews never get a word in edgewise.
In general, these stories suffer from a lack of incident and other characters. It's just Donald, Scrooge and the boys, plus some incidental character like the Beagle Boys, the Japanese businessman, or Professor Muchasgracias. That's not much to fill a 44-page 4-tier story. Gyro's in this too, but he doesn't actually do anything of note. The kids befriend some pelicans, but they're mainly just a comic relief or plot device, not a character. I'm bringing this up now because I know it will get better in the future stories. This story in particular had a lot of plot points that didn't go anywhere. I didn't even bring up Donald's pointless conch allergy.
Meh. Next time: Picasso Heist in Barcelona
Last Edit: May 2, 2021 18:03:09 GMT by That Duckfan
G A 4 Picasso Heist in Barcelona Writing by Miquel Pujol Art by José Miguel Tortajada Aguilar, Maximino Tortajada Aguilar Inks by Francisco Sabaté Montero, Marga Querol Manzano, Maria José Sánchez Núñez
Rating: B+
I remember liking this adventure when I was little. Glad to see it holds up, and that's it's available to our American compadres as well. It was published as "The Great Paint Robbery" in Uncle Scrooge 356. Finally, we get a story with enough intrigue and incident to last 44-pages.
{Plot: spoilers!}Scrooge has just opened a new private museum, showcasing two Picassos he has acquired. But a peculiar man is conspicuously drawn to the paintings. And when Scrooge is momentarily interrupted, the man attempts to lift the paintings from the wall, revealing...! Scrooge chases the man away, but he drops a note. Suddenly, Scrooge is quick to loan his Picassos to an exhibition at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. But to travel cheaply, the Ducks will have to cross half the world first.
In London, the famous Inspector Clueless is called on a special case, to protect and deliver a Picasso to Barcelona, the Child with a Dove. After meeting him on a cruise liner, Scrooge attempts to steal Child with a Dove disguised as a maid, but fails.
When in Barcelona, Child with a Dove is stolen on the first night, the suspicions of the three men are aroused. But the cat burglars fail to make a clean getaway, and after an unfortunate rooftop slip-up, the painting lands on the balcony of Mercedes Pujol, a young painter in love with Picasso's work. Fortunately, Scrooge manages to retrieve the painting, and lays the three canvases side-by-side. A cryptic hint reveals itself. The chase is on.
After finding a second riddle at the foot of the Columbus Monument and a third along the stairs of the Sagrada Família, the Ducks travel to the Montserrat Abbey. There, hidden away underneath a mountain ridge, they find a gigantic printing press. The machine prints an infinite stream of paper once it's turned on, but turning it off will cause it to self-destruct. Scrooge is overjoyed to corner the paper market, until the mysterious man explains its dangers. He was once the secretary to Mr. Pujol, a printer and inventor, who stored away the machine for wiser generations. The machine is stopped before all of Catalunya is covered in paper, but Scrooge makes good use of it: by printing life-size copies of... you guessed it, Child with a Dove!
What's not to love about this story? Mysterious characters, lots of mystery, and a puzzle leading us past all the landmarks in Barcelona. There's quite a few plot points seem to have been lodged in my unconscious, reading it all back now. And Mercedes Pujol one for the list of positive female characters in Duck comics. This is the bar that long-form adventure stories should strive for, in my opinion. There's not a lot of moments I can point to without giving away too many spoilers, so I suggest anyone who's interested in art, mystery, and Barcelona, to go check it out for themselves. Next time: Grand Canyon and Back Again
Last Edit: May 2, 2021 18:03:26 GMT by That Duckfan
There are a lot of Pujols in the story. Mercedes, the writer of the story. Even the inventor/printing magnate is named Pujol.
Another easter egg: Scrooge starts listing several famous printing houses. All of them did exist at the time the story was first published, but the mention of Gutenberghus and Mondadori can't be a coincidence.
G A 3 The Excursion to Key West Writing by Miquel Pujol Art by Albert García, Cèsar Ferioli Pelaez, José Miguel Tortajada Aguilar, Marçal Abella Bresco, Maximino Tortajada Aguilar Inks by Francisco Sabaté Montero, Marga Querol Manzano, Maria José Sánchez Núñez
I'm bringing this up now because I know it will get better in the future stories. This story in particular had a lot of plot points that didn't go anywhere. I didn't even bring up Donald's pointless conch allergy.
Meh.
I really like this one. Like several others from the series I read it when I was very young but this one still stays with me because of its atmosphere. And the conch allergy does lead to some memorable wordplay in the German version - in German, "jemanden zur Schnecke machen" (= to turn somebody into a snail) means deflating someone, putting someone down in public.
To piggyback on Spectrus's comment as well as the Picasso review: one of the ways these stories stand out is in atmosphere. Key West and Barcelona are both made the most of as settings, visually and thematically.
To piggyback on Spectrus's comment as well as the Picasso review: one of the ways these stories stand out is in atmosphere. Key West and Barcelona are both made the most of as settings, visually and thematically.
Yes! It's something I consider very important to an adventure, and you can't take it for granted. The background atmosphere in these stories is solid, very solid.
Scrooge is being blackmailed by an '80s guy called Mr. Hair to split his fortune 50/50, after Hair claims to be the rightful heir of an old friend from Scrooge's pre-Klondike days, Donawits. Long ago, Scrooge and Donawits made a pact to share everything they had, and now Mr. Hair has come to collect his part of the bargain. Sensing that something is up, the Ducks leave for Los Angeles, to follow the trail of Donawits. Meanwhile, one of Scrooge's Beverly Hills hotels has been haemorraging money, and Donald and the kids are sent to find out what's happening. As it turns out, the manager and the bartender have been stealing millions. After an exciting chase through Disneyland, the two trails meet up at the Los Angeles Wax Museum. It's all one big conspiracy! From there, the Ducks chase the villains to Las Vegas and then to the Grand Canyon, where they rescue Donawits and all is well.
This story was published recently in Uncle Scrooge 408 and 409 as The Grand Canyon Conquest!, so I'm sure some of you are familiar with it (even if I've stuck with names closer to the original here).
It's another decent story. Much like the previous ones, there's too much emnity between Scrooge and Donald for my tastes, but it's clear that my creative tastes just don't line up with theirs. Whatever problems I might have, the quality is very consistent and the art even improves over time. The plot doesn't always make sense (they spend too much time on gags IMO), but the scenery is beautiful and Disneyland is a fun location to have a chase in. I'd rank it higher than The Starstruck Duck in that respect.
The second half of this series was done by a different team, so who knows what they'll bring to the table. Next time: The Tartan of the Clan McDuck
