Hi Gang, I'm new to this website and forum, so I'm late to this thread. But, I'll give my input anyway, especially because I've been a Funny Animal comics fan since the late 1940s, and I've been a storywriter, storyboard artist, and cover sketch artist for Disney Comics for the past 35 years, and also a story editor for some of those years. Collecting scans of ALL 1940s and 1950s Funny Animal Comics from USA (as an historian, I collect all "Monkeyshines Comics", and Ace's related "Fun Time" Giant Comics).
I must say that this particular issue of "Monkeyshines" is about as weak in both storyline and artwork quality as I can remember (although, I do admit that the overall quality of all issues of "Monkeyshines" is pretty poor when compared to Disney, WB, MGM, Walter Lantz, The Sangor-Hughes Studios, and the other top Funny Animal purveyors.
(1)
Marmaduke Monk: Very disappointing for the lead story and the iconic standard-bearer of Ace's funny animals characters. The story tries to be a clone of Carl Barks' late 1930s-early 1940s Donald Duck cartoons and early comic book stories in which Donald's ego has him bragging he's better at something than his Nephews, and gets punished for that by being the victim of increasingly painful and embarrassing accidents caused by his lack of knowledge, poor judgement, and stubbornness. Unfortunately, all the gags are almost the same, and wouldn't have been funny the first time. The gags should be different, increasing in their severity of mistake on Marmaduke's part, more painful, more embarrassing to him, more unexpected by the reader, and more funny. Marmaduke's nephews (taking Huey, Dewey, and Louie's part) neither make fun of their uncle (like the ego rivalry between Donald and his nephews, nor do they play the part of the adult ("voice of reason") to their uncle's childish behaviour.
The story has virtually NO redeeming features. It is extremely boring and unfunny. The artwork is fairly sparse, and not very good. The lead character is terribly constructed (way out of proportion for a monkey, and way too long legged for a Human.
(2)
"It's About Time:"
Nutty Squirrel TWO-Page Gag: Taking 2 full pages for an inane gag that even a 3-year old wouldn't find funny, is really reaching. Pathetic pun for the story title is the BEST feature of this "story".
(3)
Pete The Peke:This story stars an extremely nasty and downright mean little kid, who cruelly tries to injure his uncle merely to have fun. It's tough to root for a cold-blooded lead character like that. The story has him playing a few unfunny tricks on his uncle that result in slapstick pratfalls, and the uncle's growing frustration. The uncle doesn't even try to teach the boy a lesson. The boy, trying to play another trick, makes a mistake that backfires, and gets paint all over himself. The uncle enjoys the kid's discomfort, and the fact that he learned his lesson.
The story's morals are correct. But, there are no interesting characters, and the events of the story are all too predictable. Unfortunately for the book's readers, this is probably its best story. The artwork is about average for the early 1940s, but not interesting, at all, and the backgrounds are extremely sparse. The uncle's body proportions are wrong. He's way too long-legged (as Marmaduke Monk was). I think both stories were drawn by the same artist.
(4)
Harry The Horse Story: This was about a lazy, henpecked husband, who would do anything to avoid work. It was not very consistent to its premise, because he does work - building a wagon to carry groceries, to avoid carrying the heavy load. But, it's all sight gag driven, and there are no nice and funny surprises. Everything is
happens as expected. The art is better than most of the other stories. The attempt of work to avoid other work ends up in him needing to do even more work, and Harry is bitter. He doesn't learn his lesson.
(5)
"When Knighthood Was in Flower" -Nutty Squirrel:This is the first story in this book to actually have a plot twist, with a coincidence, with the paths of different characters crossing to produce an unexpected result. Nutty tries on his ancestor's suit of armour, and gets trapped inside it. He wanders helplessly, and comes across two criminals. He accidentally knocks them unconscious, becoming a hero, but must suffer the pain (heated rear-end) from the blow torch, needed to help open the suit of armour (melt it?). Better story (relatively only-mind you), and better art (also relatively).
(6)The Dog and The Bone (Aesop's Fable): Good art. A one page gag stretched to 3 pages. Story has all the right elements. A highlight in a low-quality book of this calibre.
(7)Tuffy Bear Story: A ridiculous plot - Tuffy professes his uncontrollable love for candy canes. The owner of a candy factory has to leave his factory (He has no daily workers? He can't lock the doors?) He asks 3 young boys to watch his factory until he can return. Tuffy volunteers to take on that task (as expected). He plans to help himself to several of the large candy canes. He gets a painful shock finding that the owner put electrified wires across the boxes of candy. Next, he falls into a vat of candy syrup, and is trapped. The owner returns, and fills a giant candy cane mold with liquid candy from the vat. As expected, Tuffy falls into the mold with the liquid.Later, the candy factory owner opens the mold, but sees a giant lump in the dried candy cane (caused by the trapped boy (who should have died of suffocation). He realises that he can't use the misshapen cane, so gives it to Tuffy's 2 friends. Tuffy, still inside tries hopping away, bouncing the cane like a pogo stick, which breaks it. His mates tell him he's got what he wanted - he can eat up all the giant broken pieces. But, as expected, Tuffy complains that he never wants to even SEE candy again, after his ordeal. Too unbelievable a story, and too expected.
(
Carrot Top Cabot - "The Rhyming Rabbit":This story is an old-time(early 1900s football story told narrated in rhyming verse (copying "Casey At The Bat". It stars Ferdie Fieldmouse*, who is put into the game to carry the ball, running in circles stalling on the last play, with only seconds left, as his team is leading. But, like Mighty Casey, he becomes the goat, when he tries to become the star of the game by scoring a touchdown, but runs the wrong direction - scoring the winning touchdown for the opposing team. No surprises. Everything too predictable. No real characterisation. The artwork is halfway decent, but backgrounds are very sparse.
The entire comic book reeks from the feeling that this company wanted to get in on the bonanza of selling hundreds of thousands of 10 cent magazines to parents who want to keep their kids entertained, and the little, non-discriminating youngsters won't know the difference between well-told and poorly-told stories, or sensible vs. non-sensible plots, or well-drawn vs, poorly-drawn artwork. Unfortunately, back in the early 1940s, comic books were just starting out, and the story writers and artists were just figuring out how to tell stories in that format (which was different from short cartoons and feature-length cartoons, and also different from few-panel newspaper comic strips, and even different from telling longer stories in serialised continuation of short daily comic strips.
Disney found the best way to do that by getting highly dedicated, clever former animation artists and skilled and dedicated storywriters like Carl Barks. But, many of the other major publishers didn't put as much emphasis on ensuring the quality of their "Funny Animal" series. Ace was one of those.
*Interesting use of the name: Ferdie Fieldmouse, because Floyd Gottfredson was already using that name for one of Mickey Mouse's two nephews. But, if I remember correctly, his "Ferdy" was spelt with "y", rather than "ie".
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Topic: Week 207 - Monkeyshines Comics 12 (Read 1408 times)
