RIP Vicar (Victor Arriagada Rios)

Along with Daniel Branca, Freddy Milton, Daan Jippes, and Volker Reiche, Vicar was one of the Disney Duck artists who brought (non-reprinted) quality back to American Disney comics, thanks to Gladstone Comics' extensive use of his work during the line's first (1986-1990) incarnation. His myriad efforts remained a mainstay of all American Disney lines up through and including Boom! (cf. the stories drawn by him that were dialogued by Joe Torcivia).

The best way that I can describe Vicar's style is that it was the Duck-comics' equivalent of "comfort food." He didn't wow me with a splashy early effort, as Don Rosa did with "The Son of the Sun", or Kari Korhonen did with "Sons of the Moon". His work never possessed the slickness of Branca or Cesar Ferioli, or the cuteness and cleverness of Massimo Fecchi. The most memorable Vicar stories were generally memorable because of the extra ounces of oomph that his co-creators gave them (hi, Joe!). But he was steady and reliable, and his stuff was always high-quality. Indeed, it's thanks to him and his fellow Gladstone "creationists" that I came to expect high-quality original work in American Disney comics as a matter of course. Those with longer memories (hi again, Joe!) can attest to the fact that there was a time when the hope of once again seeing anything close to Vicar-level quality in American Disney comics seemed like a true pipe dream.

Comics Review: UNCLE $CROOGE #386 (December 2009, Boom! Kids)

It's becoming increasingly apparent that the "cycle of European treasure-tales" that Boom! has chosen to inaugurate its stewardship of UNCLE $CROOGE isn't going to make anyone forget "Scrooge's Quest," much less "The Gold Odyssey." On every count -- individual chapters, interstitial material -- Per-Erik Hedman's wannabe epic has been distressingly mediocre. Even the chapter titles display a lack of passion: in this issue, we get "Weapons of the Vikings" and the first eight pages of "The Gold Hunt." At this point, the artwork -- here, by Daniel Branca's accomplished former associate, Wanda Gattino -- is keeping this thing afloat, but more in the manner of Scrooge's improbably seaworthy Golden Nugget Boat than the proud Viking craft that the Ducks are riding on the above cover.

"Weapons of the Vikings" finds Scrooge, Donald, and HD&L -- with Magica De Spell, of course, continuing to dog their web-steps -- in Denmark, where, thanks to some paradoxically lucky ineptitude of Donald's, they get involved in a hunt for the magical weapons used in a legendary battle between Viking king Harald the Hero and his rival, Vidar the Evil. The Ducks use a local professor's notes to guide them, which raises the question of whether the boys misplaced the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook during one of their previous stops. Magica tries and fails to derrick the Ducks' plans on two occasions before we have the big showdown at the site of the ancient battle, "a cliff known as Viking Rock, where the seas of Denmark (sic), Sweden (sic), and Norway (well, "en" out of "tre" ain't bad) meet." Both Harald's magical shield and Vidar's sorcerous sword just happen to be on site. While we do find out why Vidar's sword was left there, it seems unlikely that Harald would have left such a valuable implement behind. There's a legitimately scary moment at the climax, but there's relatively little else to stir the blood, "Viking" or otherwise.

In the first panel of "The Gold Hunt," Scrooge acts on a whim similar to that seen at the beginning of "His Ancestor's Diamonds" in #385, abruptly deciding to stay in Scandinavia and accept an invitation to look for gold in northern Finland. While there apparently really is gold in Finland -- and Scrooge's desire to steal a march on Flintheart Glomgold, who's also gotten the go-ahead to delve, gives him a believable reason to oversee the activity personally -- this sudden change of venue points up Hedman's major storytelling flaw, a lack of sufficient "connective tissue" between the various parts of his narrative. As Scrooge, Donald, and HD&L head for the gold field in a reindeer-driven sled (after the Ducks' snowmobile has been sabotaged by a Glomgold operative), the pursuing Magica provides the issue's brightest moment when she disguises herself as a rabbit and manages to look both cute and evil at the same time. Both Magi-bunny and the Ducks are set upon by hungry wolves, however, and then the story breaks... "To Be Contined (sic)." Yes, it really says that. Bad enough that we have to get a second mid-chapter cutoff without this particular "wet fish" (a herring, most likely, given the venues) being swatted across our faces. Sorry to say it, but I've started counting the number of issues until we can rid ourselves of the "Hedman hammerlock" and move on to some higher-quality European $CROOGE stories.

Comics Review: UNCLE $CROOGE #384 (October 2009, Boom! Kids)

For the foreseeable future, this title will be Boom!'s monthly bouquet tossed to the "old sourdoughs," the die-hard Disney Duck fans who cheered "Gladstone I," took a roller-coaster ride with Disney Comics, gradually became disillusioned (if not outright disgusted) with "Gladstone II," and cherished the effort put into the Gemstone books. The Boom! $CROOGE, like the Gemstone version, will concentrate on European stories in the Barksian mold, so the "x-factor" in its success will be the quality of the translation and dialogue work. Gemstone's scripts are a tough act to follow, though, and U$ #384 doesn't even come close. Toss in an egregious formatting decision, and this issue stands as the weakest Boom! has released to date.

Apart from the three-tiered format, there's little to distinguish this ish's first story, "Uncle $crooge and the Ghostly Carriage," from a mid-rank Gemstone space-filler. Per-Erik Hedman provides the plot and Wanda Gattino the Daniel Branca-esque artwork for a relatively straightforward tale in which Scrooge, Donald, and HD&L, closely tracked by Magica de Spell, head to Germany to investigate rumors that a castle Scrooge has just purchased holds a treasure, secreted there by the pile's late owner, a count. The title bar (Huzza! The title of a story, finally displayed in all its glory!) cleverly features some "Scooby-Doo Font" lettering, but there's nothing phony about the count's ghost, though the Ducks do find that the villagers' claim that he's been haunting the place while driving a spectral schlepper isn't exactly accurate. Magica's presence is due solely to the highly dubious theory that Scrooge feels safer about leaving his Money Bin if he brings along his "magical" dime. Between screeching ineffectively, blowing up a few "poof" (sic) bombs, and losing her "magic bag" (what, is she cribbing from Felix the Cat now?), Magica's more of an annoyance than a true menace here. Unfortunately, thanks to the relatively prosaic dialogue, the Ducks aren't characterized with any more vim than Magica. It's a competent effort, but we've come to expect more from our $CROOGE stories.

"The Ghostly Carriage" does have one inestimable virtue -- it begins and ends in this issue. Such, shockingly, cannot be said of its follow-up story, "Salt and Gold," another Hedman-Gattino team-up which immediately succeeds "Carriage" in Duck-time. This time, the Ducks, joined by Gyro, are off to Krakow, Poland to investigate a story that Copernicus' assistant Krzystof may have possessed the knowledge to turn salt into gold. (Actually, Gyro quotes Copernicus as having said, "If anyone can make gold out of salt, [Krzystof] can!" which merely indicates that Krzystof was the most likely lad to succeed; it doesn't guarantee that he actually achieved success.) Having recovered her runic rucksack, Magica follows apace. Gyro is given access to the Copernicus archives because to his "reputation in scientific circles" (I thought he was a glorified backyard inventor? Won any Nobel Prizes lately, Gyro?) and briefly gets to wield a neat little device that helps him scan and locate documents in a flash, but the Ducks quickly fall under suspicion when a priceless book vanishes (it was actually stolen by Magica). Scrooge and Donald are apprehended as HD&L and Gyro escape... and, folks, that is where it ends, "to be continued next month." After only six pages, mind you. This is easily the clumsiest "continued story scenario" I've ever seen in a Duck comic. Wasn't there some short Egmont story that could have filled this gap? If the two stories were linked to begin with, then why print them in a book with limited space, as opposed to a $CROOGE trade paperback or extra-size issue? Boom!'s displayed several traces of haphazard organization in all of its releases to date, but this one is by far the most troubling.

As mentioned in my previous post, Don Rosa provided the cover for the special Baltimore Comic-Con edition of this issue. The two other cover variants were drawn by Daniel Branca (see above, following the first paragraph) and Tino Santanach (see immediately above). Since my local comics shop is closed for renovations right now, I won't be able to get either of these regular releases for a bit, but I greatly prefer the clean, easy-to-scan Branca cover to the cluttered Santanach version. I'm glad to see that Boom! intends to continue the practice of giving Egmont stalwarts pride of place on $CROOGE covers. The book's interior, however, needs a bit of work.

Comics Review: UNCLE $CROOGE #382 (October 2008, Gemstone Publishing)

A "Festivus" issue (see my post on WDC&S #697) suffused with the worthy, yet occasionally treaclesome, sentiment of characters learning "the true meaning of the holiday season" leads off with something brisk, bracing, and decidedly UNsentimental -- Carl Barks' "The Money Champ." This 1959 story marks the second appearance of Flintheart Glomgold, and, within its panels, the South African squajillionaire who'd acted simply as Scrooge's doppelganger during the first go-round begins the long slide into sinfulness. Challenging Scrooge to another "contest for the money championship of the universe!" -- this time, it's a straightforward pileup of the two ducks' riches (converted into silver dollar form) at a Duckburg airport -- Flinty cheats in order to prosper. The avaricious Afrikaaner uses transparent aliases to hamstring some of Scrooge's business enterprises, puffs up his own money pile with the help of an air pump, and buys a witch doctor's "shrinking juice" in order to shrivel Scrooge's tycoonhood. Glomgold does appear to realize, on some level, the damage he's doing to his soul, worrying "I've betrayed my dear old mother's fondest hopes [and] turned myself into a scoundrel!", but, once he buys the Jivaro Juice, there's literally no turning back. (In a symbolic assertion of his "good-guy" status forever after vis-a-vis Flinty, Scrooge proudly refuses to buy any of the witch doctor's wares when he gets the chance to do so.) By the time of his third appearance, Flinty had turned into a murderous thug, and his subsequent persona on DuckTales wasn't much nicer. For all intents and purposes, this is a Scrooge solo -- Donald and HD&L play a decidedly secondary role -- and it's one of Barks' better long stories from the late 50s, though there are a few glitches here and there. (Why, for example, does Glomgold fret over "going to jail" after Scrooge literally kicks his butt on the final page? Did he actually do anything illegal that the authorities knew about?) The cynical characterization of the Duckburg populace as a fickle mob that alternately glories in Scrooge's status as "money champ" ("The only claim to glamor Duckburg has!" frets one native) and sucks up to Flinty when it appears that he's going to win is perhaps the most memorable aspect of the tale.


For the balance of the issue, it's ho-ho-hold back no attempt to tug at the heartstrings as Scrooge and Donald get lessons in Christmas-ology 101 in a trio of decent, though predictably mechanical, stories. Jens Hansegard and Jose Massaroli first serve up "Scrooge's Workshop," in which Scrooge, obsessed with the "menace" of a gift-giving, uncompensated Santa, takes advantage of a legal loophole and literally takes possession of Santa's toy factory. The new Claus is most definitely not the same as the old Claus, hatching a scheme to deliver gifts throughout the month of December and (horrors!) ask for payment in return. This works about as well as might be expected, but Scrooge is thankfully jolted back to sanity by the sight of an elf-made toy train, which reminds him of a gift he got as a wee lad. Next, in the Daniel Branca-drawn "The Great Lot Plot," Donald is shamed into aggressive solicitation for a phony charity, goes ballistic when he learns the truth, yet exits the tale with a new-found compassion for "Duckburg's dreariest." David Gerstein tries to pump some extra life into the modest storyline with some turbo-charged dialogue but unfortunately overwrites some of it, to the extent that it's very hard to imagine the characters actually speaking their lines. Hansegard then returns (with Vicar and John Clark) in "The Madness of King Scrooge," which finds Scrooge being forced to give out largess to Donald and his Money Bin staff in order to maintain his status as "King of Christmas" at the Billionaires' Club Christmas fete. Determined to stop Donald, at least, from "squandering" his $500 bonus, an increasingly frantic Scrooge tries repeated subterfuges to con his nephew out of the money. He relents, however, after he learns that Don used the funds to finance a family Christmas party -- and included Scrooge as one of the gift recipients. Scrooge really gets off lightly here, considering the extreme lengths to which he goes to get his money back; why, he even manages to turn a profit in the end! But only at Christmastime, it would seem, can a one-panel penance reap such rich rewards. Overall, this isn't a bad issue, but last week's CHRISTMAS PARADE (which I'll review soon) certainly qualifies as a more memorable Yuletide reading experience.