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.
I only occasionally wrote about
Couchey's work in my
RICHVILLE RUMINATIONS column for THE
HARVEYVILLE FUN TIMES!; he did a fair number of RICHIE RICH stories, but not a lot of adventure tales, which tended to be my focus. But one of his rare long RICHIE stories made
such a marked impression on me that it was one of the first adventures I discussed in considerable detail. I already mentioned it in my previous
Couchey-related blog entry, but, in tribute to Sid, here's my
complete writeup on
"Crash Landing" (
RICHIE RICH #43, March 1966), freely adapted from my original article in
THFT! #15 (Summer 1994). After reading my piece, I think you'll appreciate my observation that this tale "seems to inspire a weird fascination in those who learn about it." The
specific feelings of fascination that are felt will be, of course, up to the nature and beliefs of the reader.
When Richie's new "atomic jet" crashes on poor, desolate, Communist-bossed Port Atlantic Island, Richie and his crew (faithful butler
Cadbury, tough-guy pilot Bull
Dolan, Chef Pierre, and a few Rich Aviation grunts) are taken prisoner by "the people," a.k.a. a wild-haired, nasty, Moscow-trained ideologue named Quagmire, who has the "Republic"'s ineffectual President
Belden under his thumb. Richie and friends seem up against it, but, at a show trial, they quickly win the hearts of the people by proudly describing their lives in America. Richie's employees boast of the possessions and rights that "working men" can have in America, while Richie praises his great, "far from rich" friends Gloria, Freckles, and Pee-Wee. Not satisfied with merely justifying the capitalist lifestyle, Richie proposes that the islanders build a dam to catch rainwater for their crops, using the gunpowder that Moscow had sent the island to protect it from "imperialists." In the course of the dam-building, Richie shows his character by (1) saving a young man from a fall off a cliff and (2) cheerfully dancing with a peasant girl, who is amazed that someone so rich would do such a thing. The fulminating Quagmire determines to foil the dam plans, using characteristically Orwellian phrasing to justify the deed.
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.
The pilot Bull
Dolan provides a humorous counterpoint to Richie's earnestness by displaying a "hit 'em in the gut" approach to confronting the Reds. Not that Bull actually does any
real fighting; his "combat" is pretty much confined to verbally sticking up for his boss Richie and his fellow crew members. In the funniest scene of what is a pretty poker-faced story, Bull slaps down the well-meaning, but weak-kneed,
Belden's claim that "you have given the lie to
Red propaganda... yet the
idea of Communism still sounds good to us" with a sarcastic "
Born losers, eh, Mr. President?" Even Richie calls Bull out for that crack, but it's hard not to chuckle at its comical straightforwardness.
Couchey's RICHIE, DOT, and LOTTA tales very rarely included memorable one-shot characters, but Bull is one of the very best.
The weirdest thing about "Crash Landing" may simply be the bare fact that
Couchey drew it. His minimalist, stylized artwork, which works just fine for five-page gag stories, would seem to be out of its element in the service of a tale like this, yet Sid somehow manages to pull it off. The simplicity of the artwork seems to complement the earnestness of the story line in a most unique manner. Anonymous and frequently patronized
Couchey and his fellow Harvey artists may have been during their primes, but the "classic" Harvey titles are chock-full of intriguing little gems like these.
Thanks, Sid, for all the memories.
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.