Book Review: WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY by Dinesh D'Souza (Regnery, 2007)

I have to admit up front that I haven't read any of the works of the "New Atheist" authors who are the prime target of D'Souza's modern-day stab at a Christian apologetic on the order of C.S. Lewis' famous works. Taken strictly as a face-value argument that Christianity provides a more coherent and satisfying explanation for the natural world, human behavior, and human origins than atheism, D'Souza's work has a number of fairly obvious holes. Most of these relate to the fact that, while a number of his points in favor of religious belief score effectively, they might not convince a skeptic that a belief in Christianity necessarily must follow. For example, I agree with him that the "Big Bang" theory of the universe's origin is an exceptionally strong argument for some kind of "prime mover." Jumping from that to a belief in Christian doctrine is a "leap of faith" which some may not be able to make. Likewise, D'Souza makes good use of Immanuel Kant (and provides a nice refresher course in the ideas of the great philosopher, besides) in arguing that there are limits to what human reason can grasp, but is this a positive result arguing for the specific identity of what we can't grasp? Generally speaking, D'Souza is better at parrying the slings and arrows of atheist opponents than at racking up scoring thrusts of his own. As a Christian, that's not to say that I don't appreciate his efforts.

Where I believe that D'Souza is on absolutely solid ground is when he attacks the atheist "meme" that Christianity is guilty of uniquely monstrous historical crimes. Crimes there certainly were, but to try to explain away the mass murders by the totalitarian movements of the 20th century as some sort of indirect manifestation of the religious impulse, as some atheist writers have tried to do, is downright dishonest at its heart. Fascism and Communism were a perverted, secularized version of the religious impulse, rather than the real thing itself, and the scale of magnitude was immensely larger. Islamic radicalism is a sort of monstrous mutation of an actual religious faith with political radicalism and, as such, has provided a lot of the fuel for the atheist bandwagon in recent years. Christianity, however, continues to receive the lion's share of cultural criticism. While his arguments certainly could have been stronger, D'Souza's book repays reading by believers and nonbelievers of all stripes.

Ape Doubles Our RICHIE Pleasure

The other "white bootie" has dropped at Ape Entertainment. Starting in November, Ape's RICHIE RICH will become an ongoing series, AND the company is also restarting a Harvey-era RICHIE title (RICHIE RICH GEMS) to reprint some classic tales. Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon will be providing new stories to the latter title. It seems a bit strange to me that RR GEMS will lead off with SUPER RICHIE reprints -- I'd think that Ape would want to remind folks of what the "genuine, original" Richie looked like first -- but if the stories are pulled from the earlier, more successful portion of the "Green and Yellow Tights & NO KEPS!" era, then I'll be happy.

My major hope regarding RR GEMS is that some serious effort is made to provide writer, artist, and original publication-date credits as a matter of course. Harvey tried to provide some credits in the late 80s and early 90s, during its "fin de semi-siecle" period, but the results always struck me as being rather "patchy." RR GEMS is a golden opportunity to educate a whole new generation of readers as to the entertainment value of the old comics, and I hope that Ape doesn't miss its chance to spotlight the great Harvey creators along the way.

A SUPERBOOK SIESTA: The Titan Crew Return in an Early-80s Bible-Themed Anime Series

I knew nothing about Superbook (or its sequel-of-a-sort series, The Flying House) until I met Ray and Sonia Owens in the mid-90s. The Owenses were living in Virginia Beach at the time, and that city, as you may know, is the headquarters of the Christian Broadcasting Network. CBN, working in tandem with Tatsunoko Studios -- the animation outfit that created Speed Racer -- originally created Superbook to proselytize Japanese families and teach them about the Bible. The show wended its way to many other countries as well, premiering in the U.S. in early 1982, and is still in circulation in numerous places. It's also been updated in CGI format (not too well, I'm told).

Reconstituted as Echo Productions, the Superbook production team reunited four of the five performers who'd worked on Astro Boy and Kimba all those years ago: Billie Lou Watt, her husband Hal Studer, and the Owenses. Only Gilbert Mack was not part of the rotation, and he still made occasional guest appearances. The Owenses' daughter, Helena van Koert, took Mack's place. Other "Americanized anime" hands such as Peter Fernandez and Corinne Orr pitched in on occasion, making Superbook a delightful audio mashup of some of the most beloved anime series of the 60s.

In its first season, Superbook's structure was pretty basic: "Typical kid" Christopher Peeper (Billie Lou Watt) and his friend Joy (Sonia Owens) are whisked by the magical "Superbook" (the Bible) to various events in Biblical history, mostly drawn from the Old Testament. The kids, accompanied by their "guardian robot" Gizmo (Helena van Koert) -- who started life as one of Chris' toys (does that really make any sense?) -- interact with the Biblical heroes and play roles (sometimes shockingly significant ones) in the unspooling of many famous tales. The high degree of interaction between the kids and the Biblical figures must have made some people at CBN nervous. The second season completely rebooted the concept: now, Chris and Joy stayed at home and watched on a computer as Gizmo, Chris' dog Ruffles, and Joy's little brother, who'd been magically sucked into the past by some unholy combination of spiritual might and computer snafu, wandered around ancient Israel while "true-life Bible stories" were taking place elsewhere. I never found this revised concept to be convincing, even in such a highly fanciful context. The Flying House, which concentrated on the New Testament and the story of Jesus, returned to the "direct interaction" approach and stuck with it -- with considerable success.

You can see "sanctioned" clips from season one at CBN's Superbook Classic Web site. I'll just note a few additional points here:

(1) As you might expect, Billie Lou uses her Astro Boy and Kimba voice for Christopher Peeper. It's a little raspier than it used to be, but still immediately identifiable. What amuses me about its use in Superbook is that Chris is not exactly your standard goody-two-shoes kid. He feuds constantly with his Dad, the persnickety Professor Peeper (Ray Owens), and cannot always be trusted to do the right thing right away. I find it funny to hear that voice used, if not exactly for evil, then certainly for something other than unalloyed good.

(2) Sonia Owens' Joy sounds W-A-Y too much like an adult woman. The Titan/Echo crew were caught between a rock (Simon Peter?) and a hard place here; Sonia's voice for Kitty would have sounded too cutesy, Billie Lou also had difficulty doing convincing young-female voices, and Helena Van Koert apparently couldn't come up with a compromise voice. The Flying House, which also has a young girl as a main character, falls victim to the same problem.

(3) I'm currently watching streaming vids of The Flying House, and, to be honest, it is superior to Superbook in virtually all aesthetic particulars. The scripts (which were done by our friends at Titan/Echo in both cases) are better, and the draftsmanship is vastly better. Superbook, however, seems to be much more fondly remembered for some reason. Maybe it's because of the simple charm of the original concept. I'll be getting to The Flying House before long and will elaborate on the comparison at that time.

UP NEXT: We return to KIMBA with Episode 27, "The Chameleon who Cried Wolf."

Book Review: WALT DISNEY TREASURY: DONALD DUCK VOLUME 2 by Don Rosa (June 2011, Boom! Studios)

This package of fun -- if repeated abuse of Donald's corpus, soul, and everything in between represents your idea of "fun," that is -- reprints Rosa's DONALD DUCK stories from 1990 to 1995, starting with "The Money Pit," which holds a fair bit of cachet as (1) the only Rosa story that Disney Comics published during the pre-"Implosion" period and (2) the story in which Rosa casts a few thinly-veiled shots at the pretensions of comic-book collectors. Rosa's soapbox bit seems more convincing now that we're on the post-"burst" side of the "collectors' comics will put my kids through school... or not" bubble.

After barely surviving the collapse of the "coin mine" that he's greedily dug inside Scrooge's fortune, Donald then must face the fallout from the disastrous consequences of his efforts as "The Master Landscapist," Rosa's stab at doing a Carl Barks "mastery" story. Subsequently, Don gets to plunge from the heavens in "The Duck Who Fell to Earth", brave a harrowing turn as a would-be window washer in "Incident at McDuck Tower", and compete against Gladstone for Olympic glory -- with disastrous results -- in the special tale "From Duckburg to Lillehammer." Reading these stories in sequence, it certainly seems as though Rosa had it in for poor Donald on some level. Perhaps he was working out his frustrations regarding Disney's art-return policy?

Donald does get two chances to shine here. In "Super Snooper Strikes Again," Donald's second opportunity to chug the magic isotope and become a superhero turns out as well as you might expect, but the Nephews evince a newfound respect for their uncle's frequently doomed efforts to do the right thing. We get a much stiffer slug of the same sentiment in "The Duck Who Never Was," Rosa's contribution to Donald's 60th birthday celebration, in which Donald gets the "George Bailey" treatment and "magicks" his way (or hallucinates his way, thanks to a blow on the head; it's not entirely clear what the truth really is) to a dreadful, Don-deprived Duckburg. There is a distinct streak of nastiness in this story, with Rosa apparently attempting to do the worst he possibly can (in Duck fans' eyes, anyway) to the beloved Duck characters. Which is the worst -- a clueless hayseed Gyro, a trashbin-dwelling Scrooge, a tarted-up romance-novelist Daisy, or *ugh!* a trio of obese, belching Nephews who make the Quack Pack Nephews look like positively admirable fellows? Should I really have to choose? The nightmarish Duckburg seen here makes a far more vivid impression than did even Potterville in It's a Wonderful Life, since we had all of the flashback material available there to ground us in the reality of Bedford Falls. In "Never Was," by contrast, the attack is on all of our fond memories of what the Duck characters really are like, and the contrast is therefore all the more horrifying.

The comics material ends on a high note with "The Lost Charts of Columbus," Rosa's excellent sequel to Barks' "The Golden Helmet." I reviewed this story upon its 2008 reprinting in Gemstone's THE BARKS AND ROSA COLLECTION VOLUME 3; you can read those thoughts here. Stubborn cuss that I am, I also regard "On Stolen Time" as a sequel of sorts, in this case to the DuckTales episode "Time Teasers." Don, if you're reading this, you can enlighten me, but the time-stopping watch in your story is an exact match of the device in the TV episode.

Production-wise, this book maintains the high standards of Volume 1 and makes a few improvements besides. "The Money Pit" is colored much more appropriately than it was by Disney Comics -- no more Ducks with blue eyeballs! The binding could be better, but that's only a relatively minor quibble. The major question before the house is, are we ever going to see a Volume 3?

Comics Review: DUCKTALES #3 (July 2011, kaboom!)

TRAIN WRECK!!!

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

Now, I don't usually offer such bald, bad opinions of comics, movies, or anything else. I can usually mine something worthwhile out of any pop-culture dross that interests me. But DT #3 is SO badly put together that I'm forced to break my commandment in virtual self-defense. Where does the third chapter of the increasingly disastrous "Rightful Owners" fall short? Let us count the ways:

(1) Warren Spector still can't put a plot together to save his life. We finally get off the island of Rippon Taro -- that's one comfort -- and Scrooge gives the Candy-Striped Ruby back to King Fulla Cola. Now for a blitzkrieg of returns of Barksian artifacts all around the globe, correct? Not exactly. We close with Scrooge, HD&L, Webby, Farquardt, and Gladstone (huh?) traveling to return the Crown of Genghis Khan. Gluing the two strands together (does the proverbial "spit and baling wire" count as glue, I wonder?) is a return to Duckburg, during which Scrooge discovers that John D. Rockerduck has basically commandeered his museum, staffing it with Beagle Boys, no less. I have no earthly idea how Spector is going to pull all this together in part four, and possibly he doesn't know, either. But you can't tell me that the "return of artifacts" plot couldn't have been handled more cleverly, more artfully, or at a much sprightlier pace.

(2) After making such a big deal over his desire to meld the Barks, Rosa, DuckTales, and Darkwing Duck "universes" into one gigantic "heavenly hoagie" (there's my own spin on the Democrats' "talking point" of the day), Spector literally chortles right in our faces on page 14 for the sake of a dumb throwaway gag:

Launchpad: Aw gee, Mr. McDee, you've survived just fine while I've been over in St. Canard.
Webby: ...Speaking of St. Canard, how is it you're here with us instead of there? You can't be in two places at once, can you, Launchpad?
Launchpad: Of course I can't be in two places at once, Webby! That's just silly!

Okay, now... I would think that one of the FIRST things a writer trying to combine the DuckTales and Darkwing Duck worlds would do would be to establish a proper time line for Launchpad's departure from Duckburg for St. Canard and, if required, for Launchpad's subsequent return to Duckburg. Here, Spector simply punts the issue out of bounds. In this case, failing to make a clear decision on the matter was the WRONG decision. My hopes for a coherent DuckTales/Darkwing crossover story to end the kaboom! era just took a major hit.

(3) More old friends from DuckTales appear here, but, to anyone who's not at least reasonably familiar with the TV series, their appearances will be baffling in the extreme. Trying to escape from Rippon Taro, Camille Chameleon and her Beagle companions are picked up by Admiral Grimitz's aircraft carrier. Sure enough, Grimitz and "Seaman Donald Duck" are visible in the scene. Trouble is, they're visible ONLY in an extreme long shot, and you can only just make out the figures. The only way I could be absolutely sure it was Admiral Grimitz was the character's comment about something "going kablooey." A little later, Cinnamon Teal from "Spies in Their Eyes" returns as an ally of Rockerduck's (let's pause while I shed a silent tear at her falling back into evil ways...) and hypnotizes Daisy and Gladstone, the latter so that he can go with Scrooge et al. and foul up their Genghis Khan mission in some manner. (Since we're on DuckTales turf here, if Gladstone succeeds, then shouldn't he lose his luck as a consequence? Why do I think that Spector won't address this?) Cinnamon, however, is never identified apart from her first name, so, if you haven't seen or don't remember "Spies in Their Eyes," you may not fully capiche what's going on. I do appreciate Spector's effort in reviving these folks, but couldn't he have tried to prime people's memories a bit?

(4) You already know that the joins between Jose Massaroli's artwork and that of Magic Eye Studios have been a problem in the previous issues. Here, the "gap" broadens into a chasm. After some reasonably passable art at the front of the book, we go straight into the tank with some of the worst art that I've ever seen in a contemporary Disney comic. Seriously, I'm amazed that it passed muster even for a soon-to-fold comics line. Some of the most elementary rules of comic-panel staging are scattered to the four winds. For example, here's part of page 17:

What's with all the pointing to no purpose, anyway? And what's the point of Mr. Billups, the museum caretaker, appearing in the first panel just to stare into space? Adding insult to aesthetic injury, the bottom tier of this page (which I did not show) features art copied directly from panel two of page 14. Cost-cutting much?

Page 19 is even worse:

Gladstone is supposed to be hypnotized here, which at least partially explains that goony Super Duck look he's sporting. But the sketchy "airport" behind the Ducks makes the "blandness" of the work of the Jaime Diaz Studios look snazzy and with-it. And in the bottom two panels, Rockerduck is talking to "persons of hench" Billups and Cinnamon Teal, but it actually looks as though he's talking to thin air! Avoiding staging of this degree of ineptitude is elementary stuff, or should be.

The manifest failure of this title really pains me. It seems as if we are fated to NEVER have a totally adequate, totally faithful four-color version of DuckTales (Bob Langhans' "The Gold Odyssey" being the one arguable exception). kaboom!'s sorry effort is the unkindest cut of all, because of the yawning gap between what we were promised (An enthusiastic writer who really loves the Ducks! A magnificent artist!) and what we have been given. I'll hope for the best in the remaining handful of issues, including those devoted to the big crossover, but I've switched into "damage control" mode at this point.

Comics Review: RICHIE RICH: RICH RESCUE #3 (2011, Ape Entertainment)

This is easily the best, and the most satisfying, issue of RICHIE that Ape has published to date. Evidently, someone else besides me was impressed with James Silvani's work on the "Keenbean's Corner" gags, for the well-liked DARKWING DUCK artist gets to draw writer Quinn Johnson's lead story, "Just Desserts (strikethrough) Deserts." Sorry, but I don't have the application to make that headline look right. Not that it matters, as the correct spelling of the saying IS, in fact, "Just Deserts," and nothing in the story has anything to do with mealtime. Would that this were Johnson's only faux pas, but he also packs his tale of the gang's discovery and exploration of a mysterious upside-down pyramid (it's not quite what you think, TaleSpin fans) full to the brim with such well-established cliches as a rolling-rock trap, rampaging undead mummies, bad Egyptology puns ("Let's kick some Tut!"), ancient alien astronauts, and "The Big No." Much of this repetitiveness can be forgiven, however, as the tale brings back another classic RICHIE villain -- albeit in a barely recognizable form -- and hints at the imminent revival of yet another. I still don't see how the completely independent plots in RR #1, #2, and #3 are going to tie together in #4, but, if any villain in the RICHIE "universe" can do it, then the latter villain can.

Appearing here for the first time since the 1996 TV short "Dognapped" is The Onion -- here, renamed The Stench -- who has apparently (1) gone down on his luck over time and (2) been mutated in some incomprehensible fashion. He now resembles a malodorous peasant from a nightmarish version of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, and the power of "super bad breath" that he previously got from chomping on onions has now changed (or devolved) into generic "ultra-super bad breath" that he can call upon at any time to neutralize foes. The original Onion, while villainous, was also something of a comedic figure, even agreeing at one point to work with Richie's Dad on harnessing his powerful breath to "help solve the energy crisis" (1970s version). The Stench, by contrast, comes off like some sort of super-villainous alien. I can't honestly say that I completely approve of the change; it seems far more, well, drastic than the change that was made to Dr. NRG in the Free Comic Book Day issue. The Stench's particular purpose here shifts during flight; he announces at the start that his sole intention is to "destroy Rich Rescue," but, later, he begins getting orders to secure the ancient pyramid's off-world technology. Said orders come from a shadowy figure on a screen (think the F.O.W.L. High Command of Darkwing Duck) who is almost certainly The Condor, the RICHIE "universe"'s version of a big-league James Bond villain. Apart from the bird-symbol prominently displayed on the mystery-man's viewscreen, necklaces in the shape of a a member of "the family Cathartidae" are scattered about the pyramid. And if you think that the mutation of The Onion into The Stench was shocking, the unseen Condor hints that his ancestors, like him, intended to "conquer the world"! This may mean that The Condor is a descendant of the "evil clan of humans" who forced the pyramid aliens to hide their craft. The pieces don't all fit together just yet, but there's a lot to chew on in this story, and I look forward to the wrap-up next issue.

As for Silvani's artwork, it's easily the finest I've seen in any of this title's lead stories. While preserving the character redesigns, he downplays the anime-ish traits and instead draws the gang in more of an animated-cartoon style. The result is quite attractive. If Ape decides to create an ongoing RICHIE title, Silvani gets my vote as the man who should handle the lead tales, especially now that DARKWING DUCK will soon be going away.

The two backup tales are also excellent -- clever, modernized riffs on stories that might have appeared in issues of RICHIE RICH AND DOLLAR THE DOG or RICHIE RICH AND GLORIA had those titles continued to the present day. In Rob Worley and Armando Zanker's "Laughter is Not Always the Best Medicine," Dollar foils poachers' attempts to break into a Rich game preserve in a most unusual way (by which I mean, both the poachers' gambit and Dollar's counteraction are unusual). What gives this tale an RR&D flavor is that Richie winds up oblivious of Dollar's role in stopping the poachers, much to the Dollarmatian's chagrin. Thankfully, however, Dollar is NOT over-anthropomorphized here, as he so notoriously was in many RR&D tales (not to mention the Hanna-Barbera TV series). This is a caper that would seem to fit a character like Bolt every bit as well as Dollar. After reading so many "Dollar tries to fool Chef Pierre into giving him food with the help of cheesy disguises" stories back in the day, you can't realize how much I appreciated that.

Earl Kress (hey, speaking of Hanna-Barbera connections!) and Zanker handle "Uncommon Cents," a Gloria solo story. Gloria runs her Dad's candy store in his absence (Mr. Glad actually appeared "on camera" before Richie's parents did?! Who'd have thought...) and soon must contend with a pint-sized counterfeiter. Gloria got all too few chances to shine on her own during the Harvey era -- even in RR&G -- and the modernized version pulls the role off very well, displaying some of the traits of a young Nancy Drew (though the high-tech crime unit installed in the store does seem to be a bit of overkill). The ending gag appears to be a little off-color, provided that you assume that the object Gloria is holding is a bathroom plunger. Zanker's artwork for this, as well as the Dollar, story is a step up from his work in the previous issue, albeit still a bit on the angular side in places.

We end with another pretty decent Silvani-drawn "Keenbean's Corner" gag, which once again references the main story. I don't believe that Richie ever actually made use of the Keenbean-designed backpack, though. Then again, that is probably the whole gag (and, if so, it's certainly a better one than the lame pun in the final panel). All told, a really fine issue -- and if you'd said to me several months ago that I'd get much more entertainment value out of RICHIE RICH #3 than out of the concurrent DUCKTALES #3, I'd have said you were nuts. But 'tis true -- as you'll learn in my next review.