I take it that Panther chose these 2 books as a pair, because they were both written with tongue in cheek, and both intended as updated versions of earlier works, to be funny and interesting to current eyes and way of thinking of the current readers.
I was a teenager in 1960, when both Rocky and His Friends TV show and comic books started in Canada. I was very close to the end of my comic book purchasing, occupied by playing organised hockey and high school. But, I DID like the TV show, which was liked by most of my friends. It was something of a "cult" item among teens, being a little high-brow on the higher of its two levels. Unfortunately, for me, the Rocky and Bullwinkle comic books fell far short of that high, tongue-in-cheek standard. I just bought the earliest few, and was sorely disappointed. I DO have digital copies of ALL the Dell and Gold Key Jay Ward/Bill Scott comics now.
As far as Bullwinkle Mother Goose Nursery Pomes goes, to me, it is the still graphic representation of The Bullwinkle's Corner segment of The Rocky and his Friends and Bullwinkle TV shows, which involved Bullwinkle reciting classic American versions of traditional English Nursery Rhymes, and being interrupted by The TV show's announcer, with clever quips or baiting him, and Rocky trying to tell him when he made mistakes in the wording. The jokes were not funny, in and of themselves, but the humour came out in Rocky's frustration, some clever digs by the announcer, and clever comebacks by the supposedly ignorant Bullwinkle. The comic book, not being able to express those emotions as easily and convincingly as tone of voice, fell flat, as rather dull, and boring. As Crash stated above, having listened, again, to the sounds of the characters in the TV show, from memory, a reader, who has experienced the TV show, can bring the characters to life, 'hear the repartee, and experience the comedy in the timing and emotional reactions.
Sing A Song Of Sixpence
The jokes in this acted out poem are abominable. Despite the tone being tongue-in-cheek, they fall flat.
The Owl And The Pussycat
Same level of boring fare as the first poem.
Old Mother Hubbard
Just as bad as the first 2 poems, and the ending gag was weak, too.
The House That Jack Built
The poem's story was weak, and the jokes were flat, but the ending joke was clever, and brings to mind the formulaic endings of all The Fractured Fairy Tales episodes from The Rocky and Bulwinkle shows.
Little Miss Muffet
Similar to the TV episode of Bullwinkle's Corner. I tried to hear the TV voices to recreate it.
There Was A Crooked Man
TERRIBLE! JUST TERRIBLE!
Mother Moose Medley
Also terrible.
I'm very disappointed in this book. It's all tongue-in-cheek, all expected, but not clever, and to my taste, not funny. And the artwork isn't very good, and so, can't even approach saving it.
World's Greatest Stories 1 - Alice In Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass
Overall, this version of through The Looking Glass was disappointing. As several other posters mentioned, the story seemed disjointed, because the backgrounds changed suddenly, with no warning or inkling of why they were doing so. I also agree very strongly with Crash that the limit of 30 comic book pages is way too small a number of pages and panels to show enough of each chessboard space and poem to do it the justice it deserves, or even to give it the flavour the reader gets when reading the book and conjuring the images of it in his or her mind, given unlimited time to dwell on it. The chaotic/slapstick drawing style, chosen by the artist to provide a surrealistic feel and mood, and the changing of the backgrounds and/or movement from background in one panel to empty space in the next, the transitions from one chessboard space to the next became indistinguishable from random changes in background scenery. All of which made it difficult to follow the story flow. Had I drawn this story, I'd have described visually, in the background art of one transition panel between each chessboard square, the magical changing from one universe with its unique physical set of rules to the next, using some type of motion lines, providing a demarcation, and movement to a different existence. And to do each poem justice (e.g. get enough room to provide the reader with, at least, a feel for the atmosphere of each poem featured), I would want AT THE VERY LEAST, the 68-page full book size, of standard comic books published in the early 1940s. Ideally, the 100 to 132 page size given to Giant comic books during The War Years (1939-1945) would have been better, providing perhaps 3 to 5 pages per chessboard space.
To me, the reading of Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland, and United Features' Single Series version were more enjoyable experiences, simply because the artwork was much, much better drawn, and showed much more detail, and was drawn in an old fashioned style, which much more fit the style and mood of Carrol's original version.
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Topic: Reading Group #256 Bullwinkle and Moose and Alice (Read 1774 times)
