Fantagraphics' New Adventures of the Phantom Blot
Jan 7, 2023 23:13:29 GMT
Spectrus, mousemaestro, and 2 more like this
Post by djnyr on Jan 7, 2023 23:13:29 GMT
Despite my general lack of enthusiasm for Paul Murry's art, I have fond childhood memories of Gladstone II's reprinting of "The Crown of Tasbah," which made a much stronger impression on me as a kid than the majority of the Murry/Fallberg serials did; it was one of the handful of comic-book stories that I actually acted out as a sort of home play, with myself as Mickey, my sister as Donald, and my wonderfully patient dad as the Blot and the police chief. All this is a long prelude to explain why I picked up the Fantagraphics Blot collection--to have a complete hardcover copy of "Tasbah" and also to get a look at the other entries in the short-lived Blot comic-book series. A few random thoughts follow.
One, I'm curious as to how the author credits for each of these Murry-drawn stories were determined (or, in most cases, left undetermined). The Blot/Madam Mim story is credited to Bob Ogle, and the Blot/Super Goof one to Del Connell, but there is no author listed for any of the others. Despite the lack of credits, the last long story in the collection, "The Disappearing Diamonds Mystery" is clearly the work of Vic Lockman--lines like "Agent Goofy to the thuh aid of a maid!", "You cad with an itchy-bleachy trigger-finger!", and "Worst of all, he used my marble bath chamber, the foul fellow!" could not have been penned by anyone but Lockman; the bit of didacticism at the end (the Blot is caught because he doesn't know the spelling difference between "golf" and "gulf," and Mickey admonishes him for not paying more attention to spelling in school) is also pure Lockman. Inducks, bizarrely, credits “Diamonds” to Bob Ogle, but this is one case where I’m 100% certain that Inducks is wrong.
I would be curious to know who wrote the other stories; the same writer was clearly responsible for both the "Mr. X” and "Culprits Inc." stories, both of which have the odd quirk of repeatedly referring to Scrooge’s “vault” rather than his money bin (“Mr. X” does use “money bin” at one point, but “vault” is the predominant term in the story). Lockman and Connell both worked so much with the Ducks that I don’t think either of them would have made this error; the “vault” usage makes me inclined to attribute both stories to Ogle, who did much less Disney work. Although there are no telltale references to “Scrooge’s vault” in the “Secret Sea Raider” story, I’d suspect that it is also Ogle’s work, as its depiction of the Beagles and their dynamic with the Blot is very much of a piece with that in “Culprits Inc.”. All three stories also feature a rather one-note portrayal of Scrooge as consistently harried and fretful; this fretfulness is decidedly overdone, but I have to admit that I laughed at a panel in the Mr. X story in which Scrooge is glumly staring over the edge of a boat, fatalistically maintaining that “I just know Mr. X will get my billions”, ignoring Donald and Chief O’Hara’s earnest questing for the villains’ hideout. As for “Crown of Tasbah”, I suppose Ogle or Connell could have written it (it’s definitely not Lockman), or someone else entirely. It’s less outlandish than any of the other stories in the collection, with no plot gimmicks as crazy as the money tree in “Culprits Inc” or the flying ship in “Secret Sea Raider.”
Moving on to the stories themselves, it may be childhood nostalgia speaking, but I think “Tasbah” is the best of the bunch; I think I liked it as a kid because (1) it featured a rare team-up of Donald and Mickey, (2) the Blot’s plan (taking over the kingdom, and cheerfully arranging for the rightful ruler to be eaten by a tiger as part of the plan) made him seem genuinely formidable and ruthless, and (3) the way in which Mickey eventually exposed the Blot’s plan (by picking up on the odd breathlessness of the “Rajah” and then confirming his hunch by forcing the Blot to repeatedly rush up and down stairs) was both clever and funny. Viewed today, I think all of the foregoing are strengths in the story; even with Murry’s less than inspired renderings of Mickey and the Blot (I actually don’t mind his Donald that much, oddly enough), it works for me as a whole.
As for the other stories, “Culprits Inc.”—which I first knew as “Uncle Scrooge Meets the Phantom Blot”, in Gladstone II’s weird revised reprinting—was another story I liked a lot as a kid (I was really, really fond of multi-character crossovers in those days), but it doesn’t hold up for me as well as “Tasbah” does, although I find some things to like in it—the gag about the lengthy forms that Donald and Mickey must fill out in order to gain entrance to Scrooge’s barricaded mansion is a good one (anyway, it resonates with me, since frustrating paperwork is such a regular part of my job), and the bit with the Blot’s four “mothers” is a nice piece of surreal/absurdist humor (wrecked in the Gladstone version). The money-tree MacGuffin is rather childish as a story-driving MacGuffin, but Scrooge’s reference to its derivation—by crossbreeding a silver spruce and a goldenrod—is a nifty bit of wordplay. While on the subject of the money tree, I should mention that, even as a kid, I thought that the leaves of the “square-leafed oil bush” in the Gladstone revision looked an awful lot like blank dollar bills. I still wonder at the weird thought processes that led to Gladstone’s decision to try to rewrite this goofy but enjoyable story to make it more “serious;” I tend to suspect that the combination of the Blot’s cult status among certain comic fans, coupled with Scrooge’s status as the most marketable character at Gladstone II, led someone (Bruce Hamilton?) to conclude that a Blot meets Scrooge story was a surefire hit and dig up “Culprits” for reprinting, then became obsessed with the worry that the story was too lightweight to live up to the awesomeness that the fans would expect to flow from such a tale, and ordered that it be “improved.”
Among the other stories, the Madam Mim one, nutty as it was, I found rather enjoyable—mainly because it was fun to see the humorless and relentlessly rationalistic 1960s version of Mickey come up against Mim’s anarchic “whammies,” as well as to see the similarly stodgy Murry-drawn version of Chief O’Hara wind up having to kiss Mim and finish out the story getting chased by her. The “Mr. X” story was enjoyably strange and offbeat as well (Mr. X was a lot more kooky-looking than the average Murry incidental character, looking almost like a proto-Megavolt at times), but the gimmick of Mickey hypnotizing Goofy into undertaking a potentially dangerous task (impersonating the Blot) was one that I found rather distasteful. You need informed consent for a valid assumption of risk, doggone it!
The Lockman “Disappearing Diamond” story was silly, but exuberantly so (exemplified by rival kings named “King Stewie” and “King Max E. Mouse”), with some good wordplay in places (“Chivalry isn’t dead after all…it’s even quick on the draw!”). The story also demonstrates something that I’ve argued before—namely, that Lockman is actually rather well-suited to Goofy; he makes him seem more genuinely eccentric than simply idiotic—as opposed to, for example, Del Connell, whose Blot/Super Goof story gets my vote as the weakest in the book, both for making Goofy a completely useless pest and moron, and for depicting the Blot as a childishly monomaniacal madman suddenly obsessed with becoming a Western outlaw. “Secret Sea Raider” is the second-weakest, with its flying-ship gimmick feeling even more childish than the money-tree idea in “Culprits Inc”; Scrooge’s chimpanzee crew was a funny idea, though, and something I could genuinely see Scrooge doing even in a less off-brand story—they won’t embezzle, and they work for bananas; what’s not to like from Scrooge’s point of view?
Anyway, I found this volume more curiosity than classic, but well worth getting; unlike so many of the competent but almost relentlessly bland Fallberg/Murry efforts, it’s so consistently off-the-wall that it’s never dull.
One, I'm curious as to how the author credits for each of these Murry-drawn stories were determined (or, in most cases, left undetermined). The Blot/Madam Mim story is credited to Bob Ogle, and the Blot/Super Goof one to Del Connell, but there is no author listed for any of the others. Despite the lack of credits, the last long story in the collection, "The Disappearing Diamonds Mystery" is clearly the work of Vic Lockman--lines like "Agent Goofy to the thuh aid of a maid!", "You cad with an itchy-bleachy trigger-finger!", and "Worst of all, he used my marble bath chamber, the foul fellow!" could not have been penned by anyone but Lockman; the bit of didacticism at the end (the Blot is caught because he doesn't know the spelling difference between "golf" and "gulf," and Mickey admonishes him for not paying more attention to spelling in school) is also pure Lockman. Inducks, bizarrely, credits “Diamonds” to Bob Ogle, but this is one case where I’m 100% certain that Inducks is wrong.
I would be curious to know who wrote the other stories; the same writer was clearly responsible for both the "Mr. X” and "Culprits Inc." stories, both of which have the odd quirk of repeatedly referring to Scrooge’s “vault” rather than his money bin (“Mr. X” does use “money bin” at one point, but “vault” is the predominant term in the story). Lockman and Connell both worked so much with the Ducks that I don’t think either of them would have made this error; the “vault” usage makes me inclined to attribute both stories to Ogle, who did much less Disney work. Although there are no telltale references to “Scrooge’s vault” in the “Secret Sea Raider” story, I’d suspect that it is also Ogle’s work, as its depiction of the Beagles and their dynamic with the Blot is very much of a piece with that in “Culprits Inc.”. All three stories also feature a rather one-note portrayal of Scrooge as consistently harried and fretful; this fretfulness is decidedly overdone, but I have to admit that I laughed at a panel in the Mr. X story in which Scrooge is glumly staring over the edge of a boat, fatalistically maintaining that “I just know Mr. X will get my billions”, ignoring Donald and Chief O’Hara’s earnest questing for the villains’ hideout. As for “Crown of Tasbah”, I suppose Ogle or Connell could have written it (it’s definitely not Lockman), or someone else entirely. It’s less outlandish than any of the other stories in the collection, with no plot gimmicks as crazy as the money tree in “Culprits Inc” or the flying ship in “Secret Sea Raider.”
Moving on to the stories themselves, it may be childhood nostalgia speaking, but I think “Tasbah” is the best of the bunch; I think I liked it as a kid because (1) it featured a rare team-up of Donald and Mickey, (2) the Blot’s plan (taking over the kingdom, and cheerfully arranging for the rightful ruler to be eaten by a tiger as part of the plan) made him seem genuinely formidable and ruthless, and (3) the way in which Mickey eventually exposed the Blot’s plan (by picking up on the odd breathlessness of the “Rajah” and then confirming his hunch by forcing the Blot to repeatedly rush up and down stairs) was both clever and funny. Viewed today, I think all of the foregoing are strengths in the story; even with Murry’s less than inspired renderings of Mickey and the Blot (I actually don’t mind his Donald that much, oddly enough), it works for me as a whole.
As for the other stories, “Culprits Inc.”—which I first knew as “Uncle Scrooge Meets the Phantom Blot”, in Gladstone II’s weird revised reprinting—was another story I liked a lot as a kid (I was really, really fond of multi-character crossovers in those days), but it doesn’t hold up for me as well as “Tasbah” does, although I find some things to like in it—the gag about the lengthy forms that Donald and Mickey must fill out in order to gain entrance to Scrooge’s barricaded mansion is a good one (anyway, it resonates with me, since frustrating paperwork is such a regular part of my job), and the bit with the Blot’s four “mothers” is a nice piece of surreal/absurdist humor (wrecked in the Gladstone version). The money-tree MacGuffin is rather childish as a story-driving MacGuffin, but Scrooge’s reference to its derivation—by crossbreeding a silver spruce and a goldenrod—is a nifty bit of wordplay. While on the subject of the money tree, I should mention that, even as a kid, I thought that the leaves of the “square-leafed oil bush” in the Gladstone revision looked an awful lot like blank dollar bills. I still wonder at the weird thought processes that led to Gladstone’s decision to try to rewrite this goofy but enjoyable story to make it more “serious;” I tend to suspect that the combination of the Blot’s cult status among certain comic fans, coupled with Scrooge’s status as the most marketable character at Gladstone II, led someone (Bruce Hamilton?) to conclude that a Blot meets Scrooge story was a surefire hit and dig up “Culprits” for reprinting, then became obsessed with the worry that the story was too lightweight to live up to the awesomeness that the fans would expect to flow from such a tale, and ordered that it be “improved.”
Among the other stories, the Madam Mim one, nutty as it was, I found rather enjoyable—mainly because it was fun to see the humorless and relentlessly rationalistic 1960s version of Mickey come up against Mim’s anarchic “whammies,” as well as to see the similarly stodgy Murry-drawn version of Chief O’Hara wind up having to kiss Mim and finish out the story getting chased by her. The “Mr. X” story was enjoyably strange and offbeat as well (Mr. X was a lot more kooky-looking than the average Murry incidental character, looking almost like a proto-Megavolt at times), but the gimmick of Mickey hypnotizing Goofy into undertaking a potentially dangerous task (impersonating the Blot) was one that I found rather distasteful. You need informed consent for a valid assumption of risk, doggone it!
The Lockman “Disappearing Diamond” story was silly, but exuberantly so (exemplified by rival kings named “King Stewie” and “King Max E. Mouse”), with some good wordplay in places (“Chivalry isn’t dead after all…it’s even quick on the draw!”). The story also demonstrates something that I’ve argued before—namely, that Lockman is actually rather well-suited to Goofy; he makes him seem more genuinely eccentric than simply idiotic—as opposed to, for example, Del Connell, whose Blot/Super Goof story gets my vote as the weakest in the book, both for making Goofy a completely useless pest and moron, and for depicting the Blot as a childishly monomaniacal madman suddenly obsessed with becoming a Western outlaw. “Secret Sea Raider” is the second-weakest, with its flying-ship gimmick feeling even more childish than the money-tree idea in “Culprits Inc”; Scrooge’s chimpanzee crew was a funny idea, though, and something I could genuinely see Scrooge doing even in a less off-brand story—they won’t embezzle, and they work for bananas; what’s not to like from Scrooge’s point of view?
Anyway, I found this volume more curiosity than classic, but well worth getting; unlike so many of the competent but almost relentlessly bland Fallberg/Murry efforts, it’s so consistently off-the-wall that it’s never dull.
