Obnoxious Gal

Welcome, welcome, welcome, gals and guys to the first installment of The Disney Afternoon comics, published by Marvel Comics from 1994 to 1995. Yes, such a short run for what could have been a fantastic series, but as you’ll soon see, it was probably very wise of some executive to bring down the ax.

I was the tender age of 12 when this series came out, so I was the target audience. Preteen Ellie might have been thrilled with all the wacky hijinx and daring goings-on simply because they included some of her favorite characters. But she would have been sorely disappointed in the way one character got shafted. You’ll see in part two of this article.

It says fun-filled, but I’m not optimistic.

We open the first issue to the legendary terror that flaps in the night as he prides himself on being St. Canard’s savior of slumber. If there’s anything Darkwing is famous for–besides crime fighting and an impeccable taste in fashion, of course–it’s his galaxy-sized ego.

Strangely, Launchpad is no where to be seen, as he is probably repairing the last craft he crashed. But our favorite plucky tomboy, Gosalyn Mallard, is by DW’s side, as snarky and petulant as ever.

DW gets onto Gos for calling him “Dad” while he’s in costume. Gos says that they’re in his “ultra-super-secret headquarters” if you can call one of the St. Canard towers ultra-super-secret. DW reprimands Gos once again, who just pouts: “Aw… What good is a juicy secret if you hafta keep it secret?” Everything, you ignorant dink.

It’s been years since I’ve watched the show, so I can’t really remember too much of Gos’s personality, though a reliable source (AKA my husband) tells me that Gos was pretty bratty and prided herself on being the adopted daughter of a masked hero. He says she was probably just funning DW, but her expression here says otherwise:

Petulant Snot Mode activated.

Anywhoodle, DW goes on about how privacy is important–no, necessary–to the survival and well-being of heroes and their families. Why, if every hero had their secret identity revealed, they’d be spending the rest of their days swatting away raving fans. And knowing how the Darkwing Duck fanbase fared among the fangirls, I can understand DW’s concern.

Just then, a helicopter flies up to the tower. Special delivery! But why would Darkwing have something sent to the headquarters and not his suburban home? Is it something the neighbors shouldn’t know about?

FredEx: When you absolutely need to have Disney Princess porn
discreetely delivered to your secret hideout.

Thing is, Darkwing doesn’t even know what it is. He didn’t order anything. And when he shakes the box, it makes a funny sound. HEEE HEEE HEEE. That wasn’t me being deliberately lame. The box actually makes that sound.

DW thinks they should detonate it from a distance. Wise choice, my man. That’s what I do with all the letters from churches advertising their holy get-togethers. But Gos, being Gos, tears right into the package. And what does she find?

• A canister of peanuts (DW: “Well, whoever sent this certainly knows my weakness!”)
• A jug of water (Gos: “This looks like plain water! But I guess that goes with peanuts!”)
• A flowerpot full of dirt (Gos says the exact same thing)
• A light bulb (DW: “Hmmm… This should give me an idea…”)
• And a mirror (gets no comment)

Our heroes are baffled. Darkwing sets a fist on a tabletop muttering about how there MUST be a clue in the package somewhere. There must be!

Water. Dirt. Light bulb. Peanuts. Mirror. GO EVIL!

By their oddness combined they are THE PHANTASMIC FOUR!

And here’s our first evildoer, straight from the peanut gallery: Quackerjack!

Can you spot the inappropriate touch?

Next up is my personal favorite, that head-bangingly, teeth-gnashingly obnoxious shill: The Liquidator!

After a long dirt nap, he’s turned over a new leaf–say hello to Dr. Bushroot!

Would it have been that hard to make sure DW was the correct color?

And he’ll put the spark back in your life: Megavolt!

Don’t mind the Liquidator. He’s just weird like that.

You done with the puns? So am I. Ugh.

But we’re not through yet. Someone had to bring these frazzled felons together and organize the hell out of them. Because, let’s face it, these four clashed constantly, and they needed some sort of glue to keep them focused on their task of destroying Darkwing Duck…

EEEEVVVVIIIIIIIILLLLLL!

Negaduck! Possibly one of Disney’s most popular, most evil characters ever. And a renewable source of fetish fuel, if that mind-scarring fanart was any indication. (No, don’t ask me where to find it. You don’t want to see it.)

Darkwing is outraged! How could his arch-nemesis discover his super-duper-ultra-mega top secret hideaway? It’s only the most top secret thing, right behind the Kentucky Fried Chicken seven herb recipe. Not as highly desired, but it’s still pretty damn secret. Or it used to be, before Negaduck started hanging around the schoolyard and eavesdropping on a certain girl… which, these days, would land him in prison quicker than he can blink.

What dastardly plan do these five have for our not-at-the-moment intrepid hero and his adopted tax deduction? A sinister scheme which Negaduck refers to as “Plan W,” which involves the Four scattering to the four corners of the hideout, with Bushroot quickly returning to scatter seeds at DW and Gos’s feet while the Liquidator rains himself all over them. “Think it’ll rain, beau?” he asks.

Even for the Liquidator, that’s pretty damn lame.

But, oh–horrors!

I posted the whole page, because this can only be appreciated in all its dumbness. I mean, a fucking bush? Okay, there are thorns on those branches… but a fucking bush? C’mon! This is the Phantasmic Four, led by Negaduck. There should be more deadly awesomeness involved here! Didn’t the writer watch any of the cartoons?

The Liquidator’s comment about real estate gets a grimace, considering the state of the housing market these days. (That’s what we Tropers like to call a Funny Aneurysm Moment.)

Also, I love how Bushroot looks like he’s going gay for Negaduck. He sprouts a little heart and everything!

Despite the incredibly shoddy trap, Darkwing and Gos are hopelessly stuck. Guess they’re afraid of a few scratches and rips in their clothes. Nevertheless, DW has a plan, and it calls for “subtlety.”

He yells that he and his kid can’t be left alone in the bush–they’ll starve! Gos gets into the act, screaming that she gets hyper when she doesn’t eat. Naturally, the villains take delight in this. It just makes me cringe, because I know that something really stupid is going to happen.

DW laments how they’ll waste away, just mere feet away from a fridge just packed with all sorts of goodies.

The Four spaz out at hearing this. What villain doesn’t enjoy a tasty treat every now and again? But the way they’re reacting, you’d think that they hadn’t eaten in days. (Well, Megavolt only had juice that morning, but that doesn’t excuse his suddenly wimpy ass… Wait, juice? Oh, hell, I just got it.)

Then DW recites a list of all the wonderful edible delights just waiting to be devoured. Since I’m in a wall of text kind of mood, I’ll list ‘em all: pate de frog grass, gnu stew with truffles, stuffed mongoose with all the trimmings, pickled persimmons, raspberry cream torte, enriched mono and di-glycerides, marinated mango parfait, eel en brochette, cold pimento pizza, marshmallow surprise delight, barbecued blowfish… damn, now I’m craving popcorn ice cream with a side of clams.

The Four must be on some sort of starvation diet, because they totally ignore their wise leader’s demands that they leave the fridge alone. No such luck, Negs. There’s probably some newt bladder pudding to be eaten. But just as Negs starts to get through to his minions, DW agrees with him. “Maybe he’s right, guys, it might be a bad idea to open the fridge!”

Like a typical two-bit villain, Negaduck falls for it. “Stop that! How dare you say the same thing as me??!!” He’s got a point; it’s not often that a mirror version of you from an alternate dimension would say the same thing. Enraged by this, Negaduck tells his henchmen to open the fridge…

I know it was done for laughs–I’m guessing–but would Darkwing actually let his fridge get that bad?

With the villains so originally disposed of, Darkwing produces a pair of hedge clippers and snips himself and Gos out of their botanical prison. When Gos asks why he didn’t free them earlier, his response his quite simple: “Two birds in the bush are worth more than in the hands of those clowns!” Such wisdom.

Gos gets the Burperware containers (GET IT?) and DW shovels all the crap into them. With everyone nicely sealed away, DW throws the containers into the package, writes “Return to Sender” on the side, and chucks it into a mailbox, conveniently located inside the hideout.

With that, I leave you this final image, because I can’t think of another way to wrap up this first story:

Hyuk!

Speaking of which, here’s a shortie, presented in all its one-page entirety:

It doesn’t surprise me that Pete might have kids just so he could sit on his morbidly obese ass all day and think of ways to scam people into buying his crappy cars–though in the cartoon, he actually pushed PJ into doing most of the chores while Pistol was spoiled endlessly. Still, it makes it all sweeter when Goofy does him in… in his adorably ignorant way, of course.

That’s all for this installment. Tune in next Tuesday for part two, which will be uploaded on time, dammit.

I’ll be updating on Tuesdays from now on.

Because I don’t like working on Mondays, that’s why.

Of course, due to the snowstorm we had Saturday and Sunday, I have to make up some of my hours today. Well, due to being out for my trip to Florida, I have to make up those hours, too. Twenty-four hours in total. Ugh.

But I have been reading the first issue of The Disney Afternoon, so I’m not slacking off. Just so you folks know, these types of posts will be mostly text. There’ll be a few scans of individual frames, not entire pages. Because I don’t need the Disney/Marvel legal team coming after me. And since I’m concerned with the length of posts, I’ll be writing these in two or three parts.

After reading all the issues I have, I think I prefer the Disney Adventures Comic Zone comics.

That was a mostly uneventful trip. But next time, we’re flying. I can’t handle another 13-hour road trip both ways; I’m too old and cranky to sit in a vehicle for that long.

Naturally, no post for this week. Turns out that I was wrong about our return day, which was actually yesterday. We stayed in Florida on Sunday and took advantage of the opportunity to check out Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Holy shit, they really went all out for Islands. I could have spent all day there, just snapping pictures of the buildings. (No, not a lot of riding for me. The older I get, the less resistance I have for high-speed coasters. Though the Revenge of the Mummy ride was pretty cool… and I was trapped on the ride once it got started, so I really had no choice but to go through it.)

But getting back to business. There are only so many posts I can make about books and writing, and I know those aren’t nearly as interesting as, say, other things. So I’m going to write about other people’s writing. No, trust, me, this’ll be great! And I won’t be talking about just books, either.

Okay, people 20+ years or older: do you remember the Disney Afternoon? Do you remember all the crazy, cool toons? Do you remember envying Darkwing Duck’s fashion sense donning a purple towel and fedora? I sure do. I also remember the Disney Adventures magazine and all the great comics therein. I’ve spent weeks doing research on said publication and came across these:

And they’re mine, all mine! (Except for the last two issues.) Not only do I plan on embarrassing myself in trying to recapture my childhood, I plan on recapping these comics. Why the hell not? Someone had to write them, and I am trying to keep this as a writing blog.

Next week, I’ll recap Ish #1. And if you like Darkwing, you’re in luck, because these comics are about practically no one else. Goddamn, that’s too much purple. What fun!

Woof. No update yesterday on account of running around the house to get ready for our road trip this Thursday. After 30 years of service, my dad’s retiring from the Coast Guard, and the three of us (Mr. Ellie, Rain the Cat, and myself) are heading down to Florida to congratulate him on finally escaping the federal government. (It is federal, right? I can’t expend the energy to open another tab to Wiki that shit. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I was just a military brat, I didn’t work for the Coast Guard.)

Perhaps my biggest dilemma is choosing which book to take with me. I doubt I’ll have time to read, but I like to be prepared. Now, do I want a book where I’m currently trapped in a long, uninteresting campaign against the Romans to secure land or some other crap I’ve forgotten about (because it’s been months since I last picked up the book), or do I want a book where all the characters are mean, snarky, generally unlikable, and possibly rip-offs from other and better characters?

Or do I just go with the safest option?

From How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman (Collins, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2008):

It is difficult to render foreign English without falling into unintentional comedy. Some errors, however, can easily be avoided.

Do not have a foreigner address everyone as “Señor” or “Monsieur” despite speaking otherwise perfect English. Do not sprinkle the conversation of a Mexican with the few Spanish words you have picked up along the way. These are generally the same words that the Mexican would have learned in English first, like the words for “yes” and “hello.” [Original emphasis.]

It is also generally a bad idea to try to render foreign accents phonetically. An Italian saying “He’s-a gotta pretty-a daughter-a” may offend some people, but it will convince no one.

[skip skip skip]

No matter how good an ear you have, and how perfectly you’ve captured it, it soon becomes a task to read. The reader is forced to sound out each word, like somebody studying ESL, and will soon grow impatient. Instead, one or two well-placed words sprinkled throughout are enough to flavor the whole thing.

Okay, so it’s not 500 or more, but it’s still a great lesson. And a terrific book. I highly recommend it to writers of all stripes.