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[Robb_K]

As you've all probably been expecting that I'll be unable to resist the temptation to introduce at least a few funny animal titles, your expectations were correct.  I hope this one will be interesting to you.  Animator, Irv Spector had a very unusual "wacky", semi-chaotic style, in his few comic book stories and gags, as he did in his animation.  He only worked on two "funny animal" comic book series, "Lucky Duck", and "Muggy-Doo (Boy Cat)", but they both have a similar wacky style, even similar to his style used in his one Human-figure comic book series, "The Farmer's Daughter (from Stanhall).  "Muggy-Doo" was written by Hal Seeger, and I think "Lucky Duck" was not written by Spector, but I'm not sure.  Grand Comics Database lists "Lucky Duck" as being drawn by Jack Bradbury with a question mark, and lists no writer.  So, it is clear they don't have the accurate information.

Spector worked in animation for Fleischer Studios, Warner Brothers, Paramount and Hanna Barbera, and also drew and wrote the syndicated newspaper comic strip, "Coogy", about a comical Native American "Indian" and his sidekick, in The American Southwest, (a similar setting to that of "Krazy Kat" (The Navajo-Pueblo-cliff-dwelling tribes).

I've chosen the introduction issue of "Lucky Duck" (#5), so you will have the advantage of understanding the context behind the two lead characters' (Lucky and Rocky Rabbit) strange relationship.

Here's the link: https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=75895

I hope you all enjoy it, or, at least, it brings you a lot of fodder for analysis and critique.

[SuperScrounge]

Gold Rush Daze! - Was not impressed with the story, although there were some cute gags, and the art was a lot rougher than I was expecting (did he feel he wasn't getting paid enough so didn't put in the effort?)

Half-page short - Cute. Kind of Smokey Stover-ish.

Mountain Madness - Okay.

Two's Company - Tree's a Crowd - Okay.

Full pager - Okay.

Pleasant Screams - Eh, okay, I guess.

Second full pager - Eh.

Rodeo Rampage - Not bad.

[Morgus]

One of the cooler things about this site is learning more about artists I never heard of until now. Irv Spector is one. Have to check out his stuff when he worked for all the studios you mentioned.

Lucky Duck kept me reading to the end, which isn't bad for a  'funny animal' comic. The stories were okay, and the site gags made me smile and snicker now and then. Probably would have been a favorite of mine if it was around when I was a kid.

Let's see...five bucks for a Red Ryder BB gun. I guess that twenty Lucky won in the first story would have gone a long way back then.

Thanks for posting and giving me someone new to find out about.

[Robb_K]

One of the cooler things about this site is learning more about artists I never heard of until now. Irv Spector is one. Have to check out his stuff when he worked for all the studios you mentioned.

Lucky Duck kept me reading to the end, which isn't bad for a  'funny animal' comic. The stories were okay, and the site gags made me smile and snicker now and then. Probably would have been a favorite of mine if it was around when I was a kid.

Let's see...five bucks for a Red Ryder BB gun. I guess that twenty Lucky won in the first story would have gone a long way back then.

Thanks for posting and giving me someone new to find out about.

In 1953 gasoline was 17

[The Australian Panther]

I was going to let this one wait for a while, but I trying to find excuses for not doing something I really don't want to do, but have to do.
I can see why you picked this book for some feedback. 
First question - Why a green Duck? And was the colourist confused with the lowest Smoke Bubble?
Gold Rush Days.
I don't have a problem with the Art, it effectivly communicates what he wants it to say. But for a professional old school animator, this comic is probably the equivalent of a preliminary breakdown for a cartoon.
Too much dialogue, although without the words, Rocky Rabbit comes across as totally unlikeable and meanspirited. This is a Donald and Gladstone situation, but the Donald figure here is just malicious.
Donald always personally loses out to Gladstones luck, but he never goes out of his way to hurt Gladstone.
Irv Spector is one of those artists who can't hold back his creativity so we get the 'Footstool' and the 'Tree House'. Interesting but adds nothing to the narrative.
Why would Lucky want to be "tricked' ? Is he a masochist?
Lucky appearing with Covered Wagons and different sized dogs with no explanation is straight out of Saturday Matinee cartoons, so the message is, don't take any of this seriously folks!
But you do need to take it seriously up to a point. The Audience needs to emphasise with the characters and be at least interested in what is happening to them. That is entirely missing here. 
If Lucky is 'lucky;, why should he be desperate to buy back the phoney claim? Gladstone wouldn't bother.  There is inconsistency in the characterization.
Story ends with Lucky stealing the money and throwing a rock at Rocky. Not funny!
Mountain Madness
Visual Gags and Slapstick. Not too bad! And a narrative structure too.
Twos Company, trees a crowd.
Why does he need a tree when he's already got one growing through the roof of his house?
Nice reveal at the end.
One page verbal gag - No visual gags. Same Artist?
Pleasant Screams - Premise, Rocky needs a nights sleep, Lucky sleepwalks so he can't sleep all night.HiJinks ensue. Busten Keaton would have made a short out of this premise.     
Rodeo Rampage - Lot of good visual gags, not bad at all.
Summation :- I don't know what he was getting paid for these, probably not much, so I don't think we are looking at his best work here.
These are all ideas which would work well on a screen - with sound effects and for a time limit of 5 minutes or so. But they fall flat on the printed page.
On the printed page I think he needed a writer to give him some character elements and a strongler narrative frame.
When you read Barks characters or watch a Bugs Bunny Cartoon there is a degree of familiarity because the characters and their relation to each other are consitent. We feel we know these characters and to some extent, relate to them.
That is missing here.
But thanks for introducing us to Irv Spector. He is a genuine creative artist for sure, Can you point us to any of his movie cartoon work?       

[Robb_K]

Thanks for introducing us to Irv Spector. He is a genuine creative artist for sure, Can you point us to any of his movie cartoon work?

People can find a lot of information on "The Spectorphile" website about Irv Spector, maintained by his son.  It has the largest, most complete source of information about him on The Internet.  It has a career biography and examples of his work in animation, comic books, and his newspaper comic strip, "Coogy".  Here is that website's URL: 

http://irvspector.blogspot.com/

[crashryan]

Welllll...yes and no. My general reaction is appreciation for the execution but dislike for the total product because the characters are so unlikable.

But my first reaction was, "So this is where political cartoonist Ruben Bolling got(/lifted?) the idea for his "Lucky Ducky" episodes over at BoingBoing!" Green duck and all. However Bolling stands the idea on end. Lucky Ducky ends each episode totally destroyed but his foil, wealthy conservative Hollingsworth Hound (no rabbit here), always interprets the disaster as a lucky win for the duck. For example Hollingswroth demands Lucky return to work despite the Covid crisis instead of "sleeping all the time" at home. But Lucky Ducky tricks Hollingsworth after all. Instead of working he's sleeping again...he'contracted the virus and is in a medically-induced coma. Drat that Lucky Ducky!

Now that's out of the way, on to the original. Irv Spector's artwork is zany personified. The loose finish fits the action perfectly. Spector throws in funny background bits, like the Bill Holman-inspired puns and Lucky's one-walled house. I like it when artists add these "plusses" rather than just following the letter of the script.

The humor grates on me. Lots of crash-bang-pow that would have worked better on the screen, but little by way of coherent story. The mountain-climbing story works best because it has a plot, sort of. The bizarre symbiosis between Lucky and Rocky is had to figure out. Rocky knows he'll he'll regret it if he tries to "trick" Lucky (though "trick" often seems to mean "beat on"), but he can't resist the need to try anyway. Lucky has a perverse need to be abused by his friend and is distraught when Rocky doesn't try to trick him. Of course this doesn't stop Lucky from trying to trick Rocky instead in the Gold Rush story.

The bottom line is that these two unpleasant connivers have serious mental issues.

I probably am tiresome in always harkening back to the Dell/Western Disney comics, but they were about the only publisher at the time that favored plotted stories upon which jokes were hung, rather than a cartoon-like series of loosely-connected gags.

By the way, we have Spector's Farmer's Daughter here at CB+. It's in the Stanhall section, not ACG. Spector's art is zanier than ever, but curiously all the figures of the cleavage-rich Daughter of the title are drawn by another artist, Bill Williams.

[Robb_K]

By the way, we have Spector's Farmer's Daughter here at CB+. It's in the Stanhall section, not ACG.

Sorry, I forgot that BOTH Spector's "Muggy-Doo (Boy Cat) and "The Farmer's Daughter" were published by Stanhall Publications, in Comic Book Plus' "Small Press" section. 

[Robb_K]

Gold Rush Daze! - Was not impressed with the story, although there were some cute gags, and the art was a lot rougher than I was expecting (did he feel he wasn't getting paid enough so didn't put in the effort?)

Half-page short - Cute. Kind of Smokey Stover-ish.

Mountain Madness - Okay.

Two's Company - Tree's a Crowd - Okay.

Full pager - Okay.

Pleasant Screams - Eh, okay, I guess.

Second full pager - Eh.

Rodeo Rampage - Not bad.

I see that you are a reviewer of few words.  I assume that an "Eh" rating means "not terrible, but far from something special", or, in other words, "not worth the time to look at it".  I assume "Okay, I guess" means a little better than a simple "eh", but still not worth perusing".

I'm guessing that several of us might appreciate a little (at least a slight bit) more elaboration, as to why, related to the story's or gag's attributes both good and/or bad.

[SuperScrounge]

Yeah, I have trouble reviewing things. Sometimes I'm just not sure why a story failed to grab me, I just know that it did fail.

I assume that an "Eh" rating means "not terrible, but far from something special",

Sounds about right.

or, in other words, "not worth the time to look at it".

No, that would be a "Bad".

My comments tend to be my feelings as I read them and to a degree what I say also relates to what I said about the other stories I read which can lead to weird comments like "Eh, okay, I guess" which means it fell between the stories marked "Eh" and the ones marked "Okay".

In order of best to worst, I'd probably rank the stories
Half page short
Rodeo Rampage
First full pager
Mountain Madness
Two's Company - Tree's a Crowd
Pleasant Screams
Second full pager
Gold Rush Daze!

If he had a strong story it could support a longer tale, but mainly random gags need less space to work.

I did get used to his art style as I read the book, but I still think it could have used some polishing.

[Morgus]

Just wondering...did Gladstone Gander get influenced by this, or something else? Or did Barks just think the whole idea of Gladstone on his own? I'm not insinuating plagiarism. After all, back in the sixties, there were two movies about the Hole-In-The-Wall gang out at the same time. Legit example of people thinking the same thing at the same time...I'm new to a LOT of things comics wise, and have the basics down, but don't know if the idea of an 'Unsinkable Funny Animal' goes back in the genre...

[The Australian Panther]

After all, back in the sixties, there were two movies about the Hole-In-The-Wall gang out at the same time. 

This is the norm for Hollywood. They never use their own money, so they pitch the movie to a financier, who will never be a creative person, so to play safe, and make sure you get the money, you pitch an idea that has already been done before. You don't pitch an original. The grapevine tells what the opposition has in pre-prodution, so they copy it. So, for example,   everybody remembers Kevin Costner's Robin Hood, but there were two Robin Hood movies that year, the other one, as far as I am concerned, is the better movie. Indiana Jones? lets do Laura Coft then. And it goes on and on. Disney now re-does all its classic movies. And now, you reduce the risk even more, you have franchises. So we have Fast and Furious [up to 11?] and spin-offs. Batman - How many actors have played the part - 7 now? and spin-offs [Joker, Catwoman]
We could go on and on ......... 
That's why Hollywood continually gets duller and more predictable.
Who came first, Gladstone or Lucky? Good question. I'm sure Robb will provide an answer.

I'm not insinuating plagiarism. 

Arguably, there is no such thing as a completely original idea.  There is a difference between blatent rip-off, when you just copy something with no change and creatively taking a concept and turning into something else which may well be better.
Cheers!         

[Robb_K]

Just wondering...did Gladstone Gander get influenced by this, or something else? Or did Barks just think the whole idea of Gladstone on his own? I'm not insinuating plagiarism. After all, back in the sixties, there were two movies about the Hole-In-The-Wall gang out at the same time. Legit example of people thinking the same thing at the same time...I'm new to a LOT of things comics wise, and have the basics down, but don't know if the idea of an 'Unsinkable Funny Animal' goes back in the genre...

Carl Barks invented Gladstone Gander in late 1947 (he first appeared in the January 1948 issue of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, as a rival of Donald for Daisy's affection.  At first, Gladstone was a slightly dishonest con- man, he believed everything is fair in love and war.  Soon, he started developing him, into a lazy lout, who cheated people for small sums, whenever he needed some money for something.  Barks called him a "Conossieur of the fast buck".  He once had false theatre tickets printed up, and sold them cheap to Donald, so Daisy would get angry with Donald when they were rejected at the theatre entrance, and Gladstone could move in and be her new beau.  In spring 1951, Barks had an idea for an economics and morality tale built around Uncle Scrooge and his hoard of money.  Donald and his nephews were working on Scrooge's farm.  Scrooge was paying them almost "slave wages" to feed chickens, and dig furrows, harvest eggs, and the like, to teach them the virtues of hard work.  He needed a catalyst to get Donald off the straight and narrow path, and to desert his post.  He used the the lazy, friDonald's volous Gladstone as that agent.  He gave Gladtone a new trait (or power) of unnatural, incredible good luck.  Donald's exhausting work in the hot sun, and jealousy over Gladstone's life of freedom, taking advantage of his good luck giving him anything he wants at any time, leads him to join Gladstone in the life of leisure and adventure, "living off the land".  The nephews remain working with Scrooge.  Donald, hoping to benefit from Gladstone's luck, has him wish for a million Dollars (no small amount in early 1951).  A weak cyclone spins directly over Scrooge's  giant money crib (roughly the size of his money bin-but with only sides, but no top covering.  The unprotected money is lifted into the air and blown all over the countryside.  Everyone grabs lots of money, and decides to quit their jobs and go on an extended holiday/vacation like Donald seeks with Gladstone.  Soon they all find that there is no food in the shops, and they are starving.  They all come to Scrooge's farm, and his money bin fills up once more, and he earns even more. 

Barks had now opened the jinn's bottle.  He had now given Gladstone a highly-memorable trait, which might be somewhat difficult to remove, IF he'd want to use Gladstone in the future.  But he DID want to use Gladston'e super luck in a few more stories, which, having done so, definitely cemented that trait into Gladstone's character.

Irv Spector's "Lucky Duck" was issued in early 1953, more than 2 years later.  If either of them were inspired by the other's work, it would have been Spector borrowing the idea from Barks.  But he changed it quite a bit.  Gladstone is a rival for Donald, and a model for him of how NOT to be a decent human being.  He is lazy, selfish, arrogant, and cares nothing for others, and has no real friends.  He is a warning to Donald to not value material things, as happiness comes from being able to look at ones self in a mirror, and like what he/she sees.

Spector's "Lucky Duck" pits two neurotic souls competing with each other to get the best of the other.  The egotistical Lucky Duck, who always ends up on top, wants Rocky Rabbit to try to trick him, and apparently that amusement is the main reason for his existence.  Rocky Rabbit, who desires to show his cleverness, lives for tricking Lucky, and getting the best of him.  This scenario is different enough from Barks' use of Gladstone Gander, to make it clear that he only borrowed Barks' idea of an unbelievably lucky person, OR, possibly, came up with that idea on his own.

In any case, as stated above by several posters, Lucky Duck's weak or completely missing storylines, hurt its potential entertainment value. As artwork is much more important to me in my enjoyment of comic books, I still enjoy "Lucky Duck"; but, of course, I enjoy Barks' comic book work thousands of times more.

[lyons]

Loose and lively brush work.  Plenty of gags and reckless action.  An offbeat comic that has wit, energy and style.  An entertaining read.  Thanks Robb_K.

[mopee167]

Can anyone here confirm or deny if the Marty Arnold who wrote text stories in Lucky Duck #7 (Jul 1953) and #8 (Sep 1953) was the Martin Arnold (May 14, 1929

[Robb_K]

Can anyone here confirm or deny if the Marty Arnold who wrote text stories in Lucky Duck #7 (Jul 1953) and #8 (Sep 1953) was the Martin Arnold (May 14, 1929

[Robb_K]

Well, I suppose it's as good a time as any to add my own analysis of the individual stories.  I've already commented on the book, and Irv Spector's artwork in general.  As I stated above, I'm not sure if he wrote the stories himself, or another writer did; but I think that the same writer wrote all the stories, and probably all the gag pages, as well.  GCD doesn't have that information.  So, if anyone on this forum does know who the writer was, I hope they will enlighten us with that knowledge.

Gold Rush Daze (Lucky Duck & Rocky Rabbit Introduction Story)
Clearly, the writer was inspired by Krazy Kat, and patterned the lead pair's masochistic symbiotic relationship loosely after Krazy's and Ignatz's, also the sparse background setting, except with normal temperate climate vegetation, rather than cacti.  But the sparse backgrounds help highlight the fact that there is little storyline, and the comedy is driven by the needy, masochistic relationship between the two, emotional action and poses, and sight gags.  It's basically an action-driven cartoon, with no plot that makes any sense no story to tell with any value, nothing to learn about life, or the reader's fellow man.  It's a feast for the eyes, especially fans of off-kilter drawing styles, - but not much entertainment for those who like to be entertained by a good story.  I agree, that it is boring to read a "so-called story" that has NO characters with whom one can identify.  And I was also disappointed that the author wasted a chance to really let the reader get to know the main characters, and identify empathetically with one, or both - OR, if the author wanted us to hate both, he failed.  The only other possibility would be that we readers would feel sorry for both as pathetic characters, but everything related to the "stories" is so unreal, that even that is impossible.

Lucky Duck Half-Page Untitled Gag
This is a very basic, silly gag, which, although drawn nicely, is a waste of comic page space, and, to my taste, unworthy of Lucky's writer's abilities.

Mountain Madness
Well, at least this story had a plot.  I like how the author breaks through the 6th wall, having the characters talk about this action taking place in a comic book.  And the ending was not the only one which could be expected.  Lucky came out on top due to his luck. But, to be fair, we didn't know which one of many ways that could happen.  It was interesting that Lucky's luck didn't kick in to save him from spending a terrible sleepless night out in the snow.  So, he "deserved" to be rewarded in the end, because Rocky was mean to him by grabbing his unwilling "friend" and shanghaiing him on his dangerous outing, and then punishing him for coming along to aid him, by not allowing him to sleep in the 2-man tent.  So, the morals in this tale were correct (when they certainly weren't in the series introduction story (Gold Rush Daze)).

Two's Company - Tree's A Crowd (2-Pager)
The visuals are nice, and some of the gags are wacky and unexpected.  And the other ones are very clich

[Electricmastro]

Nedor was probably the biggest publisher of funny animal comics at the time, second only to Dell. The art

[Robb_K]

Nedor was probably the biggest publisher of funny animal comics at the time, second only to Dell. The art