I also dislike the stories (not W-coded, I think) in which his family members also wear a hod 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, which further reinforce the idea, that I really dislike, that wearing a hood is just a random quirk that has no rational justification at all.
The always-masked Blot also created some confusion with French translators, who sometimes called the unmasked Blot "Jo Crisse" because they didn't realize he was the same character. Scrooge MacDuck mentioned in another thread a story in which everyone discovered that the Blot and Jo Crisse are the same person: can anyone identify this story? Also, I seem to remember the same thing (differentiating the masked and unmasked Blot in translations) happened at Egmont: is it true?
By the way, are there other countries beside Italy that show the Blot unmasked? And is the idea of keeping him masked in W-coded story a choice of the authors, or an editiorial imposition that American authors had to follow? Do you think he really looks like Walt Disney? And how about the rumor that Disney was annoyed by that resemblance and didn't want the character to be used again? Do we have any interview in which Gottfredson commented the use later authors made of his character?
*It's interesting how Italian authors and American authors not only revived the character independently from each other, but apparently also came up independently from each other with the idea of the Blot being a master of disguise that can impersonate anyone with realistic full-face masks.
Yeah, the unmasked Blot was presented to German readers as a different character from the cloaked Blot. He was called "Plattnase" (= flat nose), even in "The Blot's Double Mystery". To not have to deal with this confusion also meant painting his face and clothes black in parts of the famous Faraci/Cavazzano story. Worst of all was in this Egmont story inducks.org/story.php?c=D+95071 where Mickey wonders about the Blot's white-cloaked brother (!) and says he didn't even think the Blot was a human; instead he had always assumed it had crawled from underneath some stone or been created by a mad scientist. Obviously the author has never read the debut story...
However, this story inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL+2878-1 has quite charming portrayal of PB's family. They appear to be respected people living in a white (!) mansion (perhaps they're noble?) with an interest in cleanliness, which is in contrast to young PB's room filled with chemical experiments and the like.
Ah yes, I know of that Italian story. I do like the idea, and had it in the back of my mind when writing down my PB backstory earlier in this thread. I imagine the Blackspots as being merely upper-class, but not truly noble.
On the other hand, there's also the one in The Color Caper, where his parents were instead already criminals who adopted the black cloak look and forced the Blot to wear it as well, even though he never actually liked it. It's a problematic idea in light of other elements of the Blot's backstory and character, but it has the merit of explaining why all of his family (the Blotlings, his white-cloaked brother in the other story you link, the Phantom Brat) seems to wear some variation of the black cloak and hood.
That was precisely my point: making the Blot look like a monster (or an alien) with black skin, instead of a guy wearing a costume and a hood/mask, does not add mystery to the character, but rather makes him less interesting.
By the way, does anyone know any non-Italian story (beside "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot" and its remakes) in which we see the Blot without his mask?
Does the DuckTales/Darkwing Duck crossover count? I know he looks radically different there (I wouldn't have recognized him!) but he's certainly unmasked in places.
Ah, now I see Scrooge MacDuck has already mentioned Dangerous Currency. (By the way, he also wanted to kill Chief O'Hara in The Blot's Double Mystery!)
In Byron Erickson's "A Mickey Mystery" we also see him unmasked, if only briefly.
At Egmont—at least when I was an editor there (1997-2004)—there was generally an attitude that it made the Blot less mysterious for his true identity to be commonly seen (and, especially, recognized), so the idea was to show it as little as possible; to keep him as mysterious as could be.
Byron's story showed the Blot's face from the context of an alternate-universe Mickey having become a greater detective, and capturing the Blot seemingly *permanently*... the appearance of his face seemed to signify the finality of his capture.
I think I personally like the idea of the Blot staying more mysterious, with his face rarely appearing; but I've been outnumbered now by others who've shown it repeatedly and often, so I've just gotten used to publishing stories in which neither of his "looks" is mysterious. In modern Italian stories, he generally goes around with his face visible, and tends to cover up only while actively committing a crime. As an editor, I'll publish those, and I'll also publish Egmont stories where he's covered up more of the time, and let both be as they will be.
(Some Italian stories even seem to imply that the Blot's face is a better disguise than his cloak—because everyone knows his masked appearance, and his face looks more normal...)
Does the DuckTales/Darkwing Duck crossover count? I know he looks radically different there (I wouldn't have recognized him!) but he's certainly unmasked in places.
…what are you talking about?
Except from the red eyes (which are a holdover from the Blot's appearnace in DuckTales), he looks pretty standard to me.
Does the DuckTales/Darkwing Duck crossover count? I know he looks radically different there (I wouldn't have recognized him!) but he's certainly unmasked in places.
…what are you talking about?
Except from the red eyes (which are a holdover from the Blot's appearnace in DuckTales), he looks pretty standard to me.
I don't mean when he has his cloak on. I mean his unmasked face as seen in the prologue and flashback scenes, which looks quite different from how I know him. Not unrecognizable, but still...
Except from the red eyes (which are a holdover from the Blot's appearnace in DuckTales), he looks pretty standard to me.
I don't mean when he has his cloak on. I mean his unmasked face as seen in the prologue and flashback scenes, which looks quite different from how I know him. Not unrecognizable, but still...
Got any scans? As far as I recall he wasn't too out of the ordinary — no more different than every character is in the artist's personal style.
In Byron Erickson's "A Mickey Mystery" we also see him unmasked, if only briefly.
At Egmont—at least when I was an editor there (1997-2004)—there was generally an attitude that it made the Blot less mysterious for his true identity to be commonly seen (and, especially, recognized), so the idea was to show it as little as possible; to keep him as mysterious as could be.
Byron's story showed the Blot's face from the context of an alternate-universe Mickey having become a greater detective, and capturing the Blot seemingly *permanently*... the appearance of his face seemed to signify the finality of his capture.
I think I personally like the idea of the Blot staying more mysterious, with his face rarely appearing; but I've been outnumbered now by others who've shown it repeatedly and often, so I've just gotten used to publishing stories in which neither of his "looks" is mysterious. In modern Italian stories, he generally goes around with his face visible, and tends to cover up only while actively committing a crime. As an editor, I'll publish those, and I'll also publish Egmont stories where he's covered up more of the time, and let both be as they will be.
(Some Italian stories even seem to imply that the Blot's face is a better disguise than his cloak—because everyone knows his masked appearance, and his face looks more normal...)
I don't really care so much for the appearance compared to the behaviour - and most of the Egmont stories involving the Blot I remember from back in the day that weren't written by Byron E. were absolutely abysmal or just plain stupid. That may explain why I'm partial to the more human version of the character.
The "mystified" policy even prevented great Italian stories from being published in Germany because the face was shown (a great one from 2002 was only recently published, since 3-tiered Egmont Mickey is thankfully dead) and led to the dubious decision of painting the unmasked Blot black in all panels of inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL+2147-1
I don't mean when he has his cloak on. I mean his unmasked face as seen in the prologue and flashback scenes, which looks quite different from how I know him. Not unrecognizable, but still...
Got any scans? As far as I recall he wasn't too out of the ordinary — no more different than every character is in the artist's personal style.
I don't mean when he has his cloak on. I mean his unmasked face as seen in the prologue and flashback scenes, which looks quite different from how I know him. Not unrecognizable, but still...
Got any scans? As far as I recall he wasn't too out of the ordinary — no more different than every character is in the artist's personal style.
Scans:
From Darkwing Duck #15 (DARB 15)
From Darkwing Duck #16 (DARB 16)
Allowances for James Silvani's art style, maybe, but I had no problem recognziing him unmasked.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Nov 7, 2017 21:59:05 GMT
Yeah, it's essentiall as I recalled. Yes, he looks a bit odd, but everybody (even Launchpad!) looks a bit odd in Silvani's art-style. Just look at Magica here!
Floyd Gottfriedson was a better storyteller and artist than he knew. He created a perfect villain in The Phantom Blot. He just invented him for that one story, and made the mistake of not bringing him back in any future stories. But, The Blot was so strong a character, he should have been brought back. True, that his being used again lowers the value of that first story. But it is worth doing. A future author/artist should just reveal that the face we saw at the end of that introduction story should be explained as a mask, which wasn't detected by the police upon his arrest. He was taken to prison, but escaped by taking the mask off. In all the following stories his real face has never been revealed. That makes him more dangerous and interesting. We could have a future story in which his face is revealed, and he tears off the mask, and yet another mask is revealed. He is now revealed as a master of masks. So, now, he still is almost impossible to see on a dark night. But, in addition, no one knows who he really is, and even if brought into the light, and if his "face" is accidentally seen, his real face and identity is still unknown. This makes me want to write and storyboard a 32 page Mickey Mouse story with a return of The Blot, including the events I described above. Unfortunately, I can't think of a Disney Comics producing franchise who would buy such a story from me, other than, possibly, The Italians, but, I was told that they are not buying stories from "outside" of their regular writing crew.
Floyd Gottfriedson was a betty storyteller and artist than he knew. He created a perfect villain in The Phantom Blot. He just invented him for that one story, and made the mistake of not bringing him back in any future stories. But, The Blot was so strong a character, he should have been brought back. True, that his being used again lowers the value of that first story. But it is worth doing. A future author/artist should just reveal that the face we saw at the end of that introduction story should be explained as a mask, which wasn't detected by the police upon his arrest. He was taken to prison, but escaped by taking the mask off. In all the following stories his real face has never been revealed. That makes him more dangerous and interesting. We could have a future story in which his face is revealed, and he tears off the mask, and yet another mask is revealed. He is now revealed as a master of masks. So, now, he still is almost impossible to see on a dark night. But, in addition, no one knows who he really is, and even if brought into the light, and if his "face" is accidentally seen, his real face and identity is still unknown. This makes me want to write and storyboard a 32 page Mickey Mouse story with a return of The Blot, including the events I described above. Unfortunately, I can't think of a Disney Comics producing franchise who would buy such a story from me, other than, possibly, The Italians, but, I was told that they are not buying stories from "outside" of their regular writing crew.
All of this sounds fascinating, Robb, and I wish they'd done that back in the day… but unfortunately such an idea cannot fly today after the Blot's face has been seen so many times in contexts where it's clear it's not a mask (including literary parody stories and such where he doesn't even have a secret identity at all). For this very reason, I believe it's the Italians who'd be least likely to buy this hypothetical story because of how ingrained it is in their version of the Duckverse that the Outwits end scene face is the real one.
Floyd Gottfriedson was a betty storyteller and artist than he knew. He created a perfect villain in The Phantom Blot. He just invented him for that one story, and made the mistake of not bringing him back in any future stories. But, The Blot was so strong a character, he should have been brought back. True, that his being used again lowers the value of that first story. But it is worth doing. A future author/artist should just reveal that the face we saw at the end of that introduction story should be explained as a mask, which wasn't detected by the police upon his arrest. He was taken to prison, but escaped by taking the mask off. In all the following stories his real face has never been revealed. That makes him more dangerous and interesting. We could have a future story in which his face is revealed, and he tears off the mask, and yet another mask is revealed. He is now revealed as a master of masks. So, now, he still is almost impossible to see on a dark night. But, in addition, no one knows who he really is, and even if brought into the light, and if his "face" is accidentally seen, his real face and identity is still unknown. This makes me want to write and storyboard a 32 page Mickey Mouse story with a return of The Blot, including the events I described above. Unfortunately, I can't think of a Disney Comics producing franchise who would buy such a story from me, other than, possibly, The Italians, but, I was told that they are not buying stories from "outside" of their regular writing crew.
All of this sounds fascinating, Robb, and I wish they'd done that back in the day… but unfortunately such an idea cannot fly today after the Blot's face has been seen so many times in contexts where it's clear it's not a mask (including literary parody stories and such where he doesn't even have a secret identity at all). For this very reason, I believe it's the Italians who'd be least likely to buy this hypothetical story because of how ingrained it is in their version of the Duckverse that the Outwits end scene face is the real one.
No problem! We just need a new story showing that The Blot is now as dangerous as ever, because he haqs had plastic surgery to change the features on his face, AND he has been studying and practising the use of synthetic facial masks to the point where he is now The World's most accomplished expert on that skill. So, he is more dangerous than ever, and if his hood is removed, we will still never see his real face. If Humphry Bogart could do that in a major film, we can do that in a Disney comic.