"
Silvertail the Renegade" is yet another episode that really should have been shoved back a few places in the chronological episode queue. This doesn't come across at all in the
manga, in which
Kimba is a leading "adult player" from the very beginning. On TV, by contrast,
Kimba starts off by engaging in kiddie
hijinks with pals Dot, Dash, Dinky, and Dodie, which lead to (1) the first, brief encounter with the titular
Silvertail and (2) an unpleasant rendezvous with a hive of "bees" (or, perhaps, of spider wasps left over from the aftermath of "
The Cobweb Caper"). Fearing "punishment" from
Dan'l, the badly-stung
Kimba literally
hides under the bed -- in his case, a pile of leaves -- and is only rousted out when
Dan'l comes to tell him that
Silvertail has arrived in search of assistance. Assuming that
Kimba has "been up to mischief,"
Dan'l gives him a sound thrashing, not even stopping to listen to
Kimba's explanation. This is even more painful to watch than it must have been for
Kimba to experience.
Even after recovering from his embarrassment (and his variegated sores),
Kimba is strangely passive and lets other animals take the initiative in the fierce debate over whether or not to protect
Silvertail (Gilbert Mack), an aging lion who has sought refuge in the jungle after raiding a village and incurring the wrath of its inhabitants. The affronted villagers promptly form a posse that displays all the legendary persistence of
the "guys" who chased Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. As
Pauley Cracker argues that
Silvertail should be turned over to the humans for his crimes and
Dan'l Baboon counters that the old lion deserves protection,
Kimba just sort of fades into the background. Not until near the end will the jungle prince leap into the fray, fighting the posse's hounds and borrowing
a strategem from Macbeth, of all places, to get close to the unwelcome visitors and stage a counterattack. In the meantime, it's
Dan'l who is the prime mover, stashing
Silvertail in a cave with a sulphur spring that's supposed to keep the dogs from picking up the lion's scent.
Whereas the TV
Silvertail is a rather generic, somewhat whiny lion with Gil Mack's standard old-guy voice, the
Silvertail of the
manga looks a lot more feral, hungry, and desperate. To extend the Shakespeare parallels, the fact that the unknown
manga artist draws
Silvertail with his mane askew may signify that the lion is at least partially
insane, much as
Ophelia's loosening of her hair in
Hamlet indicated that she was going round the bend. For sure,
Silvertail's attack on Dodie in the TV episode is much less frightening than
this one.
Kimba does fight
Silvertail briefly on TV during this first encounter, but
Silvertail turns and vanishes rather quickly, not showing up again until he arrives at the animals' jungle-clearing meeting place. In the
manga, once
Kimba pitches into
Silvertail for the first time, the latter stays on the scene for the rest of the story. Notice, as well, that
Silvertail appears a bit more willing to stand up for himself (at least verbally) during this initial scene. The TV version of the character, by contrast, displays no apparent free will of his own, allowing himself to be directed by
Dan'l and others at all times.
Pauley's point about the entire jungle being put in danger by the presence of the renegade is certainly well taken, but it's hard not to regard his negative attitude here as being the "dark side" of his loyalty to
Kimba in such episodes as "
Destroyers from the Desert" and "
Jungle Thief." It's probably easier to imagine
Dan'l having this opinion, especially in light of his appeals to "The Law of the Jungle." Perhaps
Dan'l saw something of himself in the over-the-hill lion, a "there but for the grace of
Kimba go I" vision? Or perhaps he remembered that
Kimba's father Caesar was also in the habit of raiding human villages for his own purposes? The jungle animals ultimately divide over the dilemma, and we even get the standard "quarreling" scene that featured so prominently in
eps like "
Battle at Dead River" and "
The Return of Fancy Prancy." Unfortunately, the scene is given a semi-comical tone that really doesn't fit the mood of this episode, with
Pauley and his allies literally walking all over
Dan'l on their way to lynch, er, serve walking papers on
Silvertail. (Since
Pauley neglected to consider that he doesn't know where
Dan'l hid
Silvertail, the march turns out to be a very short one.)
Kimba finally gets involved as it becomes more and more obvious that, despite
Dan'l's best efforts, the posse is willing to go to
any length -- including attacking any other animals that get in its way -- to hunt down
Silvertail. After
Kimba's attack on the dogs fails to convince the interlopers to leave,
Kimba hatches the scheme of having the animals disguise themselves as trees and bushes and sneak up on the bivouacked posse, the better to catch its members by surprise. This is pretty ingenious, I guess, though it relies heavily on the posse simply staring in slack-jawed puzzlement as the animals perform their
Birnam Wood act, as opposed to figuring that
something is amiss and firing into the foliage. After
Kimba and his subjects overpower the posse,
Kimba launches into "improbable" speech and scares the group's imperious leader (Ray Owens) into agreeing to leave on the condition that
Silvertail never raid the humans' village again.
The standard-issue "departure while
Kimba and his subjects stand watching on a cliff" ending scene is given a little extra twist by the brief sight of
Silvertail, the "redeemed" renegade, bowing his head and shedding a tear. The extra helping of pathos makes one wonder: to what extent has
Silvertail's spirit been broken by his crimes? Will he be able to fit into
Kimba's civilization as easily as some other newcomers have?
I'll be back this weekend, or early next week, with some final thoughts.
There's still no indication as to when Ape Entertainment will restart its "rebooted" RICHIE RICH title. Indeed, if the latest Ape releases and solicitations are any indication, then the company appears to be pulling back a bit on its RICHIE commitment, in the manner of a "shrinking violet." Symbolic of the horticultural hesitation are the RICHIE RICH DIGEST releases that have just recently begun to appear. Now, when I think of a comics digest, I think of a chunky collection that delivers fair value for the money: WALT DISNEY COMICS DIGEST from Western Publishing, the "classic" Harvey and "Gladstone I" digests, Gemstone's DONALD DUCK ADVENTURES and MICKEY MOUSE ADVENTURES... and, yes, I'm even willing to throw in DISNEY ADVENTURES, provided that we only count the issues with Disney Afternoon -related material. For Ape to be flogging these 48-page (!) slick-cover pamphlets as "digests," however, I have to stretch the definition of "digest" so far that it snaps back into my face like an over-strained rubber band.
Ape's Web-site description of RICHIE RICH DIGEST is, to put it charitably, somewhat misleading. The "wealth" of additional RICHIE material that appeared in the one RRD issue that I perused appeared to consist of nothing more than one five-page Warren Kremer-drawn story, plus a gag or two. If Richie were that "wealthy," then he'd be forced to run Rich Rescue 24/7 just to make ends meet. What Ape should have done here is obvious -- collect all the parts of the initial RICH RESCUE saga into a trade paperback, perhaps throwing in a few "classic" adventure stories to "make weight." How hard can a decision like that be to make? Or, maybe there's an ulterior motive for Ape's apparent madness. Perhaps Ape's elongated re-release of the early RICH RESCUE material is an attempt to stall for time while the final details (whatever they might be) of the regular title are being worked out. If so, then the company is going to as absurd an extent as did Fenton Crackshell when he was trying to delay getting shot by the Banana Republic firing squad in "Allowance Day."
Get ready for thrills and chills in this collection of stories taken from issues #44-47 of the critically acclaimed RICHIE RICH GEMS title! This collection reprints the 4 new stories that were done by Richie Rich's creator Sid Jacobson with art by long-time fan-favorite Ernie Colon! Each issue reprinted digitally re-colored classic RICHIE RICH stories, and there are short stories from the all-new RICHIE RICH: RICH RESCUE series!
Hitchings, previously the author of a fine book on the history of Samuel Johnson's famous DICTIONARY, here traces the "history of proper English" in a highly anecdotal, but equally enjoyable, volume. Cultural declinists who are convinced that our society is becoming ever more illiterate thanks to slipshod education and the growing dominance of electronic media will perhaps be heartened -- though only a bit, I would imagine -- to learn that writers, readers, and thinkers have been worrying over the state of the English language for many hundreds of years. Despite numerous attempts -- some well-mounted, some far-fetched -- to encase English grammar, spelling, and rules of usage in some sort of rigorously defined and maintained carapace of regular rules, the language and its structure have continued to mutate, and this process is likely to continue into the foreseeable future. Hitchings' goal is to describe "how we got here," and this he does quite admirably.
I really should have checked in a little sooner with my reaction to Mark Arnold's report of Sid Couchey's death. Blame the travails of real life. I was fortunate enough to get to speak with the old LITTLE DOT and LITTLE LOTTA master (well, if anyone was indelibly associated with those gals, then Sid certainly qualifies, the relative paucity of Couchey stories in Dark Horse's HARVEY GIRLS collection notwithstanding) and am glad that he finally began to get some recognition for his long service to Harvey Comics towards the end of his life. Of course, befitting the long history of screwups and gaffes that seem to plague all "official" Harvey projects, the professional bouquets didn't come without their share of thorns. Witness Ape's butchering of Sid's last name and inexplicable confusion of his art style with that of Ernie Colon in the recent VALENTINE'S SPECIAL! issue.
The bad guys are caught and thwarted and are sentenced to be shot as traitors, but Richie pleads for clemency, drawing a remarkable confession of guilt out of Quagmire -- which leads to the ultimate establishment of a newly democratic country:
"Simplistic and cliched!" Of course. But I think that this tale shows exactly why Richie is such an appealing hero in his adventures. Throughout, he displays courage, compassion for others, and quick thinking and helps the Port Atlantic Islanders penetrate the cliches of propaganda by demonstrating that capitalism doesn't inhibit the growth of character. Notably, he does not even mention his own vast wealth during the court-trial scene; his main concern is how Communism affects others.
In lieu of typing out my picks for the NCAA Tournament, as I did last year, I'm simply displaying my entry in the ESPN Bracket Challenge. Click on the image for a better view. The slenderest limb onto which I crawled this year was picking Harvard to get to the Elite Eight; I think that Syracuse's loss of its best big man to academic ineligibility gives the Crimson a good puncher's chance of getting past the Orange. Notre Dame is probably good for one win, no more, but that's still a lot better than the sub-NIT fate that seemed to be in store for the Irish after their terrible start.
I hope you enjoyed my lengthy dissection of the Kimba series, both the high and the low points. For my part, I now have a newfound appreciation of just how gnarled and convoluted the show's continuity truly was. How hard it must have been for the Titan dubbing crew to put the pieces together "on the run," as it were. Though I certainly took my share of shots at the many holes in their jury-rigged construct, the fact that the Titanistas were able to make the progression of the series seem at least faintly plausible is no small achievement.
I'll continue to post the occasional Astro Boy or Flying House review on this blog as the fancy strikes me, but, for now, I'll "retreat to Duckburg" and begin to ponder how I'm going to fete the 25th anniversary of DuckTales, a task that I should begin to tackle sometime this Summer. My "debate" with Greg Weagle over the merits of "Duck in the Iron Mask" went well enough that I'm thinking of doing the same thing with the other DT eps, perhaps throwing in a few belated comments about GeoX's reviews while I'm at it. Any other suggestions as to how I might handle this task would be greatly appreciated.
Kimba does fight Silvertail briefly on TV during this first encounter, but Silvertail turns and vanishes rather quickly, not showing up again until he arrives at the animals' jungle-clearing meeting place. In the manga, once Kimba pitches into Silvertail for the first time, the latter stays on the scene for the rest of the story. Notice, as well, that Silvertail appears a bit more willing to stand up for himself (at least verbally) during this initial scene. The TV version of the character, by contrast, displays no apparent free will of his own, allowing himself to be directed by Dan'l and others at all times.
Pauley's point about the entire jungle being put in danger by the presence of the renegade is certainly well taken, but it's hard not to regard his negative attitude here as being the "dark side" of his loyalty to Kimba in such episodes as "Destroyers from the Desert" and "Jungle Thief." It's probably easier to imagine Dan'l having this opinion, especially in light of his appeals to "The Law of the Jungle." Perhaps Dan'l saw something of himself in the over-the-hill lion, a "there but for the grace of Kimba go I" vision? Or perhaps he remembered that Kimba's father Caesar was also in the habit of raiding human villages for his own purposes? The jungle animals ultimately divide over the dilemma, and we even get the standard "quarreling" scene that featured so prominently in eps like "Battle at Dead River" and "The Return of Fancy Prancy." Unfortunately, the scene is given a semi-comical tone that really doesn't fit the mood of this episode, with Pauley and his allies literally walking all over Dan'l on their way to lynch, er, serve walking papers on Silvertail. (Since Pauley neglected to consider that he doesn't know where Dan'l hid Silvertail, the march turns out to be a very short one.)
The standard-issue "departure while Kimba and his subjects stand watching on a cliff" ending scene is given a little extra twist by the brief sight of Silvertail, the "redeemed" renegade, bowing his head and shedding a tear. The extra helping of pathos makes one wonder: to what extent has Silvertail's spirit been broken by his crimes? Will he be able to fit into Kimba's civilization as easily as some other newcomers have?