Let's do some Sunday Morning Funnies continuing from yesterday. Oh, sure - we might have a PM post time, but i've been up for less than an hour, so it's still Sunday Morning for me.
And i'm still fairly groggy - first cuppa didn't do it at all. So let's keep it simple. Here's the next three adventures of Super Duck from his time in Jolly Jingles before getting his own title.
Things changed quite a bit when the Cockeyed Wonder graduated to his own title. We'll take a look at that soon, but i suspect we'll meander along the way.
And i'm still fairly groggy - first cuppa didn't do it at all. So let's keep it simple. Here's the next three adventures of Super Duck from his time in Jolly Jingles before getting his own title.
Things changed quite a bit when the Cockeyed Wonder graduated to his own title. We'll take a look at that soon, but i suspect we'll meander along the way.
page art by Dave Higgins from Jolly Jingles #s 13-15 (1944)
I saw you'd posted this, but it took me a while to find the time to read through them all. I only discovered Super Duck in the last few years, but I hadn't seen any of the Super Super Ducks. He starts off rather heroic, but even in these few stories he's morphing into the mean-spirited loser he would eventually become. No insult, that. Those stories are great!
ReplyDeleteThese stories are nice, too. I think that last one was the best. I really like that looser art. It kinda reminds me of later art by Red Holmdale on Cubby the Bear, that alternate-reality version of Super Duck featured in Super Duck's own comic.
Actually, I kinda lie about when I discovered Super Duck, because I did have that R. Crumb one with the simultaneously lame & insane Viagra joke. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but it does kinda encapsulate peak Super Duck: lame & insane, I mean. Though Super Duck somehow makes it work.
A lame & insane, mean-spirited loser. The ticket to success, I say. As you noted, it worked for 10 years, at that.
No worries - i write to the future, so you're actually kind of early.
DeleteAs you noted, Super Duck loses the Super before long and it gets to be hard to figure out why he's got that name if one is reading the later comics. Somehow, trading his powers for family didn't work out quite so well for him as it did for Clark in Smallville.
But, y'know... that 'insane, mean-spirited loser' being the ticket to success might apply to another duck, too.
I take it you're going outside comic books to refer to Daffy Duck. The latter Super Ducks by Al Fagaly are easy to contrast with Carl Bark's Donald Duck, who is bad-tempered but good-hearted. With these earlier ones, I could imagine some Warner brothers influence going on.
ReplyDeleteStill, Daffy's universe can be crazy and he can be put upon, but he wins at times, too. Later Super Duck comics have a cast of oddballs, but the universe isn't that nuts (putting aside the whole sentient, talking animals thing, of course). No, I don't think Super Duck's universe is nuts. It's an evil, malicious universe, though, to match it's evil, malicious star. It's a lot like a lot of classic underground comix, actually. Greg Irons' Darnold Duck springs to mind, for example, and his Gregor the Purple-Assed Baboon.
I was thinking Donald. Yes, the two characters contrast dramatically, but they contrast well because they're also quite similar.
DeleteWhen he started in his own title, the Duck was still quite Super. I think next time we may focus on that shift. We could compare the first and last covers to see the difference. But that's not necessary - it shifted by issue #2 on the covers, and the vitamins faded away somewhat more slowly inside.