(1) "Bowyang Bill" in "The Mystery of Wombat Gully"In this story, Mercier uses his outback setting to exaggerate the Bush Country Australian character traits, mannerisms, and unique speech "Aussieisms". Perhaps that is why some posters on this thread have noticed and complained that the basic story, as laid out in the 3 complete episodes we have available to read, has little action for its length, a lot of standing and talking, and moves along at a snail's pace. Part of that "problem" was caused by the fact that we have the bad luck of likely only having the dullest 3 episodes available, and the other part is that Mercier cared more about demonstrating his fascination with the everyday, rural Australians' culture, mannerisms, and speech patterns and idiomatic phrases, so different from those of his French countrymen. It is clear to me from reading the narratives on the first pages of the 2 episodes that follow "Wizard Magpie", that most of the action and really interesting occurrences take place in the missing episodes, such as Bill and Dad being recaptured by The Nazis, along with their skeptic neighbour-friend, Soup Plate, and given an audience with Adolf Hitler, no less! Funny, I don't recall Der Fuhrer spending time during the middle of The War, Downunder! I really hope that Downunder Dan, and/or any other Australian member will eventually find all these great Australian Golden Age books containing the missing Mercier story episodes, and other whole stories. We can bet that Bowyang Bill becomes a national hero either by bumbling into it, or being heroic and lucky, by somehow thwarting The Nazis' planned sabotage or plan to conquer Australia in this saga's climax, all in a humorous way.
I really love Mercier's loose artwork, and comedic slant, and his filling his stories with Aussie idiomatic phrases, and giving his characters slightly exaggerated strong characters. He's got all that down quite well ("to a T") (or is that "to a Tee" ? This story, unlike those of his detectives, secret agent, superhero, American cowboys, magician, (and perhaps politician?), which are more comedic parodies, is more of a showcase of what he thinks of "Australian Average Joes". We can see that he likes to poke fun at people in general, but he also is fascinated by their differences from the people with which he spent his youth.
(2) "Mudrake and The Plotters of Skroomania"This was a weak attempt to make a farcical parody of Mandrake The Magician. I like that Mercier makes fun of all the Mandrake copycats in film and comic books and comic strips ("Beware of immitations!")
I am used to the heavily stereotyping artists were giving to the dark races (especially those still in The 3rd World, or still with close ties to it (like Australian Aboriginies). He certainly didn't hold back doing a job on Lophar! The Princess is quite a character too. She got Popeye-style musckles "from pushing conspirators out of the way!"
Mudrake is like Ibis with his magic wand. He can do ANYTHING he wants to do. Stone The Crows!!! Mercier putting the lily white princess in "Blackface" with a mud pack is given away by his also giving her "liver lips. I assume this story is, at least, partly a parody of Australian politics, but as I know virtually nothing about that subject, I can't tell what is funny. The Ziffs secret society members all sporting superlong black beards and wearing tall, widebrimmed hats is, at least, visually funny. This story has a few funny scenes, but it gives me the feeling that Mercier was trying too hard to make it funny.
(3) "Wocko The Beaut - The Case of The Haunted Wheat Silo"Just the idea of an overmuscled, wrestler-type wearing tiny pants, acting like an amateur detective travelling about over The Australian countryside looking for crimes to solve, is funny in itself. Unfortunately, we have the same problem with episode availability we had with the Bowyang Bill story. Apparently, this was meant ton be a parody of the stereotypical super amateur detective.
A rural village's citizens are scared from weird events around their wheat silo, as a witch has been seen flying and screeching at the top of her lungs above it. They ask Wocko to help them, as he is apparently well known for solving mysteries that baffle the local police. Wocko was set up by the perpetrators of the crime, to become jailed (and thus, off their trail), by leaving 2 guns where he would find them, and hoping he'd point them at someone while enquiring about them. And, lo and behold, he does just that, and gets thrown in jail (gaol?). Farcical enough fer yer? Senator Ogwog, whose rubber balloons were found near the vsilo, had Wocko put in jail. Wocko finds The Senator operating the machine that propels the witch, sand he also found a printing press in the silo with counterfeit money on it. The ending was a disappointment. Everything went as normal, and was telegraphed, as well.
(4) Padlock Holmes in ""The Case Of The Haunted Piecrust"Again, we are missing several episodes of this story. A pie thrown out the window screaming for help! What a funny idea! A man giving himself up to the police for murdering a pie! Now Mercier is really getting into the farce mentality. of course, the police send him to the "Nut House" ("Funny Farm", "Bedlam" (one of my favourite Boris Karloff films). Naturally, famous private detective, Padlock Holmes, here's about this Looney, and questions him about the talking pie, leading to his taking on the mystery. This might have been a good 1930s farcical Marx Brothers film, with Groucho as Padlock, Chico as Watson, Zeppo as The Madman, and Harpo as a Red Herring (The villain (Dr. Mortuarty), more than any other character, needs to have a talking part.
This story is too zany and illogical to take seriously enough to even try to follow the general storyline. Mercier has some truly good starting ideas, but doesn't seem to know how to work them out. Even the silliest farce needs a logical plotline. The sillyness should be in the details of a farce, not in the logic of the plotline. A mad plot to drive The World's entire population mad, so that a madman could take over. This also reminds me of the 1930s film, "Bedlam", - specifically the scenes inside the prison, of the nutcase "patients" babbling nonsense. The grizzled, mad Dr. Mortuarty is a great idea for a parody of SherlockHolmes' villain. And as mentioned by Crash Ryan, having Padlock look so much like him was a bad mistake. The crooning Holmes to death by Frank Sinatra was a brilliant idea, too. "Mad as a wet bandicoot!" now there's a great visual idiom. But, all in all, this Mercier long story suffers from the same weaknesses of all the others - too much dialogue, with not enough action. The artwork is comedic enough, and the language is brilliant, as is the characterisation. I think they are unique enough and funny enough to be worth reading. As in most cases, I'd rather read them in full colour.
(5) Dags & Co. - Daily Newspaper Strip CollectionThese are fairly standard newspaper daily strips for the 1930s-1940s, especially those of normal office work situations. The artwork is very expressive, and that is its best feature. The humour is fairly standard. His later one panel cartoons for The Sun are quite a bit better, and more unique to him as a creator.
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Topic: Reading Group #349- Australian Cartoonist Emile Mercier's Comics (Read 482 times)
