What’s Going On In Flash Gordon? Are you covering Flash Gordon regularly? January – April 2024

I’m hoping to make Dan Schkade’s Flash Gordon part of my regular rotation, yes, but I haven’t yet figured on a good spot for it. So for now it wanders through my schedule much as the rogue planet Mongo does. You can catch all my recaps of its plot at this link, though, and there’ll probably be a successor plot recap by July 2024 or so. For those not reading this in mid-April 2024. Now, let’s recap:

Flash Gordon.

14 January – 14 April 2024.

With the killing(?) of Ming the Merciless, the wedding of Barin and Aura, and the inauguration of both as co-rulers of a free Mongo what could go wrong? Other than Ming’s son, Ming W Merciless, crashing the wedding dinner demanding how he’ll take the throne, peacefully or by force. Flash, taking a walk to cool his temper, encounters him alone in a dark hallway and something something Ming II is stabbed to death.

Dan Schkade’s Flash Gordon for the 25th of January, 2024. Aegia makes a good case. I’m a little sorry the genre precludes the chance of seeing how the Mongo justice system — especially immediately after the Revolution — works. The suggestion of the inquisitors acting so completely independently of the rest of the government is an one I’d like to see more of.

Aegia, the Inquisitor, rules Flash Gordon a legitimate subject, and Barin and Aura agree they can’t interfere with the course of justice just because, c’mon, it’s Flash Gordon. The jailmaster “loses” the directions to give Flash decent quarters while waiting for trial, instead sending him to The Bellows, the subterranean mine/open battle royale pits that prisons always are in this genre. The viridium patch radio pin Dr Zarkov slips Flash isn’t much good for contacting anyone that deep underground. It’s even worse when it’s lifted by Bones Malock, a tough, energetic woman who gives me Tank Girl vibes. (Based on what I remember from seeing the movie in like 1997. I don’t know if I’m right.) Malock has an idea how to get out of there, and it depends on bringing Flash to the Death Pit.

The first Death Pit battle goes pretty well, considering. Flash doesn’t die at the hands of Death Pit champion Bok, a dragonman. Bok doesn’t want to kill him either, but, y’know, Bok was prematurely anti-Ming and that’s what his life is now. At the next round, Malock calls in a debt and has someone use a galvanic cutlass to smash the meter-thick window between the audience and the fight. Malock, Flash, and — with Flash’s encouragement — Bok escape.

Dan Schkade’s Flash Gordon for the 5th of March, 2024. Bok’s introduction put me in mine of one of the Flash Forward strips Schkade did back in 2021, for the anniversary side strip that might have been a test-run for the revival. The idea of a Death Pit opponent being touched by a bit of kindness is a straightforward one, but it does have me wonder if Schkade was sketching out ideas for the strip even back then.

Dr Zarkov and Dale Arden consider how to prove Flash’s innocence. Since Flash was the only one on the scene the obvious explanation is he was mind controlled by the witch-queen Azura. Arden sneaks off to find evidence, along the way encountering Brian Blessed hollering at someone how they can’t just murder whoever they like. You have to dislike them, at least a little, first. Azura’s delighted to catch Arden snooping around. Also to sneer at the “peasant thinking” Arden’s bringing to the investigation, as though whoever held the the throne of Mongo was particularly relevant to where power was. And then she shoves Dale off a hundred-storey balcony. She’s rescued by Thun on his hover-motorcycle thingy.

Azura’s talk about “peasant thinking” makes Arden realize something. Granted the assassin was there to kill a prince of Mongo — who knew that Ming W was going to be there? Nobody, that’s who. The target was someone else. And Bok notices something. There’s a Kiran Skel, invisible to you folks who don’t have heat vision like him, right there. With a whole party of space-opera heroes around it’s easy to catch one invisible assassin. Queen Fria of Frigia takes Flash and company under her protection and Aura accepts this.

Dan Schkade’s Flash Gordon for the 16th of March, 2024. I am very interested, yes, in why Vultan might want Ronal dead. And also that Aegia, introduced as what felt like a strong voice of integrity, is willing to be even more political than Barin and Aura were.

And we see Aegia and Brian Blessed talking. Aegia knows that Blessed accidentally ordering the killing of Ming W, when Prince Ronal — cousin to Barin — was the real target. Why Blessed wanted Ronal dead is, as yet, unexplained.

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From the 18th of March we journey to the ice kingdom of Frigia. Some curious major rumblings derail the magnetic rocket train and almost send Fria plummeting to death. But, you know, Flash Gordon. And they can at least see there’s some 300-foot-tall thing moving in the haze.

But that sort of thing just happens and might even be normal. Back to Frigia for the first time in a year Fria examines how her regent has been doing. Just the occasional spot of trouble, you know, witchcraft in Gwynedd and pirate miners and this walking mountain thing. So Fria begins a tour of her kingdom to see what all is going wrong and what she can do about it. And they find some pirate miners. So they have a project now, which is nice.

Next Week!

Still planning on the Sunday Phantom. See you then.

What’s Going On In Dick Tracy? Why was that library woman killing people? October – December 2023

Well, she was a serial killer, so if Xaviera “Ex” Libris weren’t killing people she’d be failing her role. But we never did get a direct explanation of her motives in the just-concluded story in Mike Curtis, Shelley Pleger, and Shane Fisher’s Dick Tracy. Instead, we got a solid story of detective work, Tracy and gang going over what they knew and what they could tease out from that until it pointed to, admittedly, the character who people talked about a lot more than she seemed to contribute to the plot. We do get a few bits, at least. Theft of rare books is right there; most of the murders we hear about were to acquire rare books or to kill someone who was leading the cops to her. There’s the hint there may be some ancient family relations tied into this. We never get a deathbed confession of Libris having been after, say, the one book her great-grandfather wanted and could never buy. There’s room for that, if you want that rationalization, though.

So this should catch you up to late December 2023 in Dick Tracy. If you’re reading this after about March 2024 I should have a more up-to-date plot recap at this link. I’ll also bring news about the strip there, if I get any. And now, on to what’s not going to be one of my longer plot recaps, if all goes well.

Dick Tracy.

1 October – 23 December 2023.

My last plot recap came as another of the mayor’s old friends got killed. It was the start of this story, where people turn up with pinpoint stabs to their chest and ancient, rare manuscripts missing.

As promised above, this is a fairly direct story of detection and deduction. If it ever lagged, it’s because Dick Tracy and his team, all of whom did stuff, reached the legitimate ends of what they could figure on one path. And my opening told you who did it. It was clear enough from a bit after her introduction that Ex Libris was the villain, but we had to read along to figure how she was doing it, how she was going to get caught, and what was supposed to be so ugly or weird about her. You know, that Chester Gould theme where people look as horrible as their morals are. She never does look bad, though, just uninterested in the people demanding time away from her from her pharmaceutical-industry ownership and her antiquarian-book library. And the killing and robbery, she wants to get that done too. But you empathize.

The threads that get us there. Sam Catchem learns the teacups at Wilhelmina Caxton’s murder scene have a small saliva sample from an unknown person. He eventually goes undercover as a waiter to snag drinking glasses that Ex Libris was using, which provide the samples to place her at that scene.

Lee Ebony finds an informant within the world of Tracytown’s bookbinder community. Half a year ago Xaviera Libris came in wanting the early-20th-century binding on a 13th century book replaced. But wanted the previous owner’s book plate discarded, something rarely done as you need those to show provenance. The informant has the old cover, just in case. And keeping his promise that she wouldn’t see him again, he gets murdered right after. Stabs to the chest.

Lizz Worthington-Grove finds a case from months ago, just across the state line, of someone murdered with the same stab in the chest. Electronic toll records place Libris’s car over the state line when that murder was done.

Mike Curtis and Shelley Pleger’s Dick Tracy for the 10th of December, 2023. I wonder if fencers are ever bothered by how whenever they’re in pop culture they’re either Captain Picard or a killer. I guess they have it better than ventriloquists and wax museum owners do. Ooh, you know, a wax-museum-owner who fences and does ventriloquy at open mike nights would be an unstoppable pop culture villain.

Sam finds, in security camera footage, a hooded figure with two cases approaching Caxton’s place. One’s the sort of rare book case that Libris explained to Tracy a competent rare-book thief would need. The other is a long, slender carrying case of unknown purpose. And he has later footage of Libris carrying the same two cases

And Tracy has the final insight, checking just what sport it was that Libris was an Olympics alternate for (information given way back in October, reader time). It was epee fencing, Now there’s a plausible-enough-for-the-comics explanation of how she’s killing and why it’s by pinpoint chest wounds. All that’s left is to confront her in her impossibly fabulous library.

She’s ready to attack Tracy with sword and rare-books case. But he’s wearing a blade-proof vest and a case-resistent hand. She’s only foiled when she runs up the spiral staircase too fast or something and falls to her death. Problem solved, including the need for a trial.

We do get a week of Tracy reflecting on the waste of all this, of people hurt and professional lives ruined and knowledge lost. Even the sadness that the heirless Libris’s library, one almost as good as The Phantom’s rare books collection, will be auctioned off and broken up. It’s more somber reflection than I’m accustomed to in these stories. It’s not a bad note to have, though.

And this wraps things up in suspiciously good time for my plot recap here. On to the next adventure!

Next Week!

We’ve had ghost cats in the sky and real cats on the boat. What’s on the agenda now? Selkies and hobgoblins? We’ll have more details on Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant sometime early next year, if the scrolls are speaking to us truly.

What’s Going On In Judge Parker? How was that a detective story? December 2022 – March 2023

The story, recently concluded, in Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker had Sam Driver investigating the murder of Judge Duncan’s family. But he didn’t do a lot of clue-gathering. It was more he drove around and saw who shot at him, which turned out to be, most everybody, until finally a witness explained what the heck was going on.

Do I accept this as a story? Oh, you know me; I’m easy and I’ll take most anything that doesn’t trip over some some vague lines. But I’m also accepting of stories where the detective figures who did it by seeing who shot at him the most. Done well, you get swept up in the noir-ish style and energy. Done poorly, you get those old-time-radio shows based on the adventures of Sam Spade where it’s all right if you don’t pay attention. There’ll be a fistfight or snappy patter soon enough.

This is another case, by the way, where the comic strip pretty well explains itself in the week or two before I come around. This is how a paranoid mindset develops, you know.

But this should explain stuff through to mid-March 2023. If you want to catch up on Judge Parker after about June 2023, there’s probably a more useful link here. I mean if you’re here after about June 2023. If we’re not that far in the future there’s nothing I can do.

And finally a content warning. This story is built around murders, including some grisly ones, and explained as being fueled by the drug trade. There are people shot, off-screen, and people battered on-screen. To respect your choice about whether you want to deal with that in your recreational reading, I’m putting the rest of the article behind a cut.

Judge Parker.

18 December 2022 – 18 March 2023.

What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Are you mad at Judge Parker too? October – December 2022

No, I’m not mad at Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker. Not yet, anyway. The story has been a big conspiracy-tinged murder mystery. I have no doubts about Marciuliano’s ability to create a big, confusing, messy scenario. He’s done it many times, often in interesting ways. But I agree he has a habit of jumping the action ahead a couple months, so we don’t see the exact resolution of the chaos. It’s an effective way to change what the default condition of things is, but it can leave mysteries under-written or under-motivated.

I can be okay with a mystery that isn’t perfectly explained. Heck, I love your classic old-time-radio mystery. Those are all attitude and action and fun dialogue. The story logic is a charming hypothesis. I understand readers who have a different view and understand if they have no faith in where this is going. We readers still don’t know Deputy Mayor Stewart’s reason for framing Abbey Spencer for her bed-and-breakfast’s fire. Whether you can accept that Marciuliano had one for Stewart, I imagine, tells whether you think this mystery has an answer.

So this should catch you up to mid-December 2022 in Judge Parker. If you’re reading this after about March 2023, there should be a more up-to-date plot recap here. That might help you more.

Before getting to the recap, a content warning. The story started with murder, and several murders or attempted murders are centers to the action. If you do not need that in your goofy fun recreational reading, go and enjoy yourself instead. We can meet back soon for the Alley Oop plot recap or whatever I get up to next week. I’ll put the recap behind a cut so people can more easily bail on it.

Judge Parker.

2 October – 17 December 2022.

What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Is there even a Judge Parker anymore? July – October 2022

There is not! We all supposed it already. But Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker confirmed that Randy Parker is no longer a judge. It’s hard to see how he could have kept his post, what with disappearing for a year or so to be in hiding with his superspy ex(?)-wife April. But this was, I think, the first time it was said on-screen that he’d been replaced.

Randy’s father, Alan Parker, retired from the judiciary a long while ago to write law thrillers. So there is, for now, no Judge Parker in the strip Judge Parker. It’s looking likely that Randy Parker’s successor, Matt Duncan, may not be in the post much longer. But it’s hard to see how Randy would get the job back given that whole “ran off to be with his fugitive wife for a year” thing in his recent history.

Also, I’m still not sure whether Randy and April are married. Another character referred to April as Randy’s ex-wife, but that may just be the reasonable supposition. I admit I don’t know whether you can get divorced from a fugitive, as April Parker had been for years. I would think it has to be possible; it’s abandonment if nothing else, right? But then I remember my parents teaching young me how to guess who was going to win a case on The People’s Court. Think of which party seems obviously in the right, and take the other side, as there’s usually something in the law that makes the ‘wrong’ thing right. It sets one on a path to a useful cynicism.

So this sets you on a path to understanding Judge Parker for the start of October 2022. If you’re reading this after about December 2022, there should be a more useful plot recap here. Thanks for reading.

Judge Parker.

17 July – 1 October 2022.

My last check-in with Cavelton’s favorite family came as Sam Driver told Abbey Spencer about the forged video. And that he had accepted as plausible that then-Mayor-Sanderson had a drone video of Abbey burning down her money-pit bed-and-breakfast. And had sat on it in trade for then-Deputy-Mayor-Stewart’s support in kicking the corrupt and bonkers Sanderson out of office.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 12th of August, 2022. Incidentally we still don’t know who did burn down the bed-and-breakfast, nor who forged the video. If Sanderson had done it he’d surely have used the video when he was mayor to drive Abbey Spencer out of town. Stewart knew the video was fake but that’s not the same thing as faking it. And the scheme of “burn down my boss’s rival’s business and fake a video of her doing it so her husband will support me when I become mayor” seems to me too risky for too slight a reward. He didn’t need to buy their help working against Sanderson. Someone else, though? We’re short on suspects.

Abbey is heartbroken. That her family knew about this and didn’t tell her for months, for one. That her husband thought she might have burned her place down, the more devastating thing. She decides she has to divorce Sam, who accepts the decision.

Amidst all this misery Sophie thinks of revenge. She wants Mayor Stewart to pay for blackmailing Sam. And Ex-Mayor Sanderson to pay for spying on Abbey. She turns to Toni Bowen, former Cavelton reporter and failed mayoral candidate, for advice. Bowen advises to talk to Abbey and Sam first. Revealing the forged video could humiliate Stewart and Sanderson. But it’s going to humiliate the Spencer-Drivers first, and more.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 9th of September, 2022. Have to say, Cavelton is having a heck of a time when “former mayor admits spying on the population with drones” is not the scandal. Anyway, enjoy the surveillance state, folks.

Meanwhile Abbey has decided to sell the Spencer Farms. Yes, they’ve been in her family for generations. But she’s fed up with town and with the complicated set of memories. Especially in the dramatic years since Francesco Marciuliano took over the writing. Sophie calls as Abbey is talking this over with the real estate agent. And then the news breaks. Someone’s told the news media about the doctored video. Abbey suspects Sam, but he’s innocent. It’s Sanderson who broke the news. (This suggests, but doesn’t prove, that he only recently learned of the video.)

This re-energizes Abbey. She cancels the sale and Marciuliano jumps the story ahead a couple months, keeping Abbey and Sam from having to be humiliated by this. Abbey has joined the special race for mayor, becoming the third major character to run for mayor of Cavelton in as many years. (Alan Parker and Toni Bowen made their tries in 2020.) Say what you will about Francesco Marciuliano as a writer: he loves his mayoral elections.

Francesco Marciuliano and Mike Manley’s Judge Parker for the 14th of September, 2022. That seems like a lot of podium for a press conference attended by four people.

And then, from the 16th of September, we settle in to a new story. And a new kind of story. The divorced(?) Sam Driver has a case, the sort of action-adventure detective stuff he was originally introduced to the strip to do. I don’t know what to expect in this shift. There has been crime drama in the strip before. The two big examples were the kidnapping of Sophie Spencer and her bandmates, and in Marie’s husband faking his death. But none of that was stuff that characters were expected to investigate. They were supposed to live through drama. This is about solving a mystery that the main cast could let pass by.

This story, by the way, involves gun violence and murder, so please consider whether you need that in what has been, for years now, a family-drama soap strip. If you do want to carry on with reading about this in your recreational reading, you’ll find the rest under this cut.

Seriously, What the Absolute Flipping Heck Is WRONG With You, Funky Winkerbean?

OK, I need to postpone my recap of Gil Thorp a day. First, it’s become a complicated strip and I’m adjusting to that. Second, while I don’t want to turn into a Funky Winkerbean snark blog — Son Of Stuck Funky is infinitely better than I could be at that, not least for their deep knowledge of Funky lore — I do sometimes need to holler when the story is getting somehow even more like that.

As has gone before, a content warning. The story was motivated by talking about the (fictional) victim of murder, and the strip I want to whinge about includes the gun used for that murder. If that isn’t your idea of recreational reading skip this and we’ll meet up tomorrow in Milford. Promise.

Somehow Funky Winkerbean Is Being Even More Like That

I remain absolutely gobsmacked at the goings-on in Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean over the past week and want to scream a little bit about that. Before I do, though, I repeat the warning I offered last week, that the story involves the discussion of the (fictional) victim of murder. Folks who don’t see why that should be part of their entertainment are probably making better choices right now. The rest of us, meet me behind the cut.

Again I Ask What the Flipping HECK Is WRONG With You, Funky Winkerbean?

So I am again angry at Tom Batiuk’s comic strip Funky Winkerbean. Before getting into why I need to warn people the story going on involves a discussion of gun violence and a fictional murder. If you don’t need that in your recreational ranting, yeah. Hoo boy do you not. But for people willing to consider it, come see what’s under the cut.

Reposted: The 24th Talkartoon: Bimbo’s Initiation, the only Bimbo cartoon you ever heard of

So here in this repeat performance we get to the one Talkartoon people who aren’t into black-and-white animation might have heard of. It’s really good. Funny, well-paced, weird, with snappy music and amazing technical skill. The only reason not to use it to convince someone of the worth of black-and-white cartoons is they might expect everything will be like this. And this comes right after the high point of The Herring Murder Case. The studio was having a great season. This cartoon has an edge over The Herring Murder Case and Swing You Sinners! by avoiding obvious ethnic or racial jokes.

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I knew when I stumbled in to reviewing the Talkartoons that there were few cartoons my readers might plausibly have seen. There’s The One That Introduced Betty Boop (Dizzy Dishes). There’s The One Where Cab Calloway is a Walrus (Minnie the Moocher). And then … there’s this. It’s always listed as the best Bimbo cartoon. It’s often listed on the top-50 or top-100 cartoon shorts. It’s listed as one of the best Betty Boop cartoons, on the basis of a few seconds of cameo appearances. I learned, almost memorized, it watching it on the eight-VHS Complete Betty Boop series in the 90s. The animator is uncredited. This is so unfair. Everyone says Grim Natwick. It was originaly released the 24th of July, 1931, and Wikipedia says it ended the 1930-31 film season for the Talkartoons.

Let me clear out the bookkeeping. There’s a Suspiciously Mickey-Like Mouse at 0:35, putting the cover on the sewer and locking Bimbo into his adventure. The strongest body-horror gag has to be when Bimbo’s shadow gets beheaded. I’m inclined to think all the jokes here are so well-framed there’s not a blink-and-you-miss-it gag. But I also remember the guy I hung out with weekends in grad school blinking and missing the bit where Bimbo reaches for a doorknob and it flees to the other side of the door, so that counts for that. On to the bigger-picture stuff.

There’ve been several Bimbo-trapped-in-a-surreal-landscape cartoons. I’d rate this as the best we’ve seen, but would entertain arguments for Swing You Sinners!. It’s certainly the most nightmarish. Previously Bimbo’s at least transgressed in some way, however minor, before getting tossed into the nightmare. Here he’s minding his own business and the weirdness comes out to eat him. Hurrying right to the craziness also means there’s plenty of time to stuff the cartoon full of it.

This cartoon shows an incredible amount of skill behind it. There’s no slack points. There’s some quieter moments in the craziness, yes. They’re deployed with this great sense of pacing, chances for the audiences to rest before the action picks up again. Too much frenetic action is exhausting; here, the tempo varies well and reliably enough that the cartoon stays easy to watch.

And the cartoon is framed so well. There’s a healthy variety of perspectives. There’s changing perspectives, several times over, as Bimbo comes to the end of a tunnel and gets dropped off into a new room. Changing perspectives is always difficult for animation. Even in the modern, computer-drawn or computer-assisted era it’s difficult to make look right. And Bimbo’s Initiation pulls the trick several times over.

The segment that most amazes me every time I watch it starts at about 4:45, after Bimbo’s swallowed by the innermost door. Watch the line of movement. Bimbo’s falling towards the camera, tossed side to side by the chute. He then runs toward the camera and to the left, in roughly isometric view, as axes fall. Then he hops onto the spiral staircase, running down while the camera rotates around his movement. Then he jumps off the staircase into a hall to run to the right. His second, beheaded shadow, runs up and joins his actual shadow. Then he turns and starts running toward the camera as steel doors snap shut behind him. This is all one continuous, seamless shot, without an edit until 5:26. And when it does edit it’s to zoom in tighter on Bimbo, with the doors behind. He keeps running toward the camera until he falls out that chute and the camera pivots to the side, at about 5:42. It’s such an extended and well-blocked sequence. That 57 seconds alone shows how misleading it is to say cartoons of this era were nearly improvised. There was planning going in to how much stuff would fit here, and how it would fit together. The music supports this too. I’m not sure there’s been a Talkartoon with as tight a connection between the tune and the action.

I’m not sure there are any poorly-composed or poorly-considered shots in the cartoon. The shot of Bimbo lighting a candle, seeing the rope snap tight, and then following that to the spikey trap above is as perfect as I’ve ever seen in any cartoon or movie.

Insofar as there are any weaknesses here, it’s that the setting does obliterate Bimbo as a character. There were a couple cartoons where he was developing into a low-key screwball character. He could be sort of an Early Daffy Duck that isn’t so tiring to imagine around. Here, he can’t say or do anything interesting enough to stand up to the setting. Looking at the list of future Talkartoon titles I don’t see any that feature Bimbo as much of a character. The studio’s shifting to Betty Boop. It’s an interesting choice considering she hasn’t had a good part yet. Bimbo’s moving to be her boyfriend or partner or the guy who’s around while she’s center stage. Shame he doesn’t get better parts, but at least he could be the star of this. How many characters never get even one good outing?

Reposted: The 23rd Talkartoon: The Herring Murder Case

When I first reviewed this one I mentioned its strange lack of a dedicated Wikipedia page. It still lacks one, for reasons not obvious to me. It’s one of the strongest Talkartoons. I might nominate it as the best-plotted one, too. It’s got a lot happening, almost all of which works. And it’s the sort of cartoon that shows why black-and-white cartoons get devoted fans. I’m sorry not to have a cleaner print, or one with better sound. But you can still enjoy a packed, almost over-full, cartoon here.

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I’ve been trying to watch these cartoons in the order of their release. And that I get from Wikipedia’s page about Talkartoons. Some individual cartoons have their own Wikipedia pages. Many of the earliest don’t, but as the series shifts from “any old thing with a song” to “Bimbo” and finally “Betty Boop Cartoons” fewer entries lack pages. This week’s hasn’t got a page and I’m surprised by that. It’s talked about in Leslie Cabarga’s The Fleischer Story in the Golden Age of Animation, the book on the studio’s history. Not much, but think of all the cartoons that don’t get even that.

Wikipedia does credit this as the first appearance of Bimbo in his “canonical” form. And as the first sound cartoon appearance of Koko the Clown, the character that made the Fleischer Studios and star of extremely many cartoons about him being drawn, getting into a fix, and then being poured back into an inkwell. Would really have thought those two points noteworthy enough for a page to be made. Anyway, the credited animators are Shamus Culhane (then listed as “Jimmie”; when he went into business for himself he took on a more distinctive-to-Americans name) and Al Eugster. Both have already had cartoons in this series before. Originally released the 26th of June, 1931 — more than a month after Silly Scandals — here’s The Herring Murder Case.

Quick content warning: there’s a pansy-voice character and a couple lines approaching (Jewish) ethnic humor. I don’t think they spoil the cartoon (one could even say the ethnic-humor bits are just characterization). But they are there.

So, for the record, the first words spoken aloud by Koko the Clown — at the time, a character a dozen years old and the flagship character of the studio — were “[ stammering gibberish ] my come — come on, the poor — poor herring- herring was sh- sh- shot, oh my, come on, help”. Not an auspicious start. But it is plot-appropriate, for the rare Talkcartoon that has a clear and direct plot.

That friend you have who doesn’t quite like anything however much he likes it has a complaint about Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And, like your friend at his most irritating, he kind of has a point. Toontown looks like a great place. But it has an inauthenticity to it. Actual cartoons of the Golden Age of American Animation weren’t so frantic and busy and packed as the Toontown sequence was. It’s defensible artistically. For one, the daily lives of each Toontown citizen is their life story with themselves as protagonist; that we normally only have to take six minutes of a character at once doesn’t mean the rest of their days aren’t like that. But it does mean there’s much more stuff happening visually than an actual cartoon of around 1947 would have.

Most of the time. Some cartoons do get that dense and packed with weird activity. And here, from 1931, is one that’s like that. Especially right after the Herring’s murder: the scenes of the city are full of everything happening, including buildings come to life and writhing in a panic. And then special effects get in the way. After Koko comes on, in animation I assume is swiped from an older Out of the Inkwell cartoon, he runs through a city street haunted by ghostly cat heads for the reasons. It’s one of a lot of showy bits of animation technique in the cartoon.

Another: Bimbo following footsteps up the stairs. It’s a walk cycle, yes, but it’s one that moves in very slight perspective. It’s well-done, and a bit hypnotic. They’ll do a similar walking cycle on steps in the next cartoon, one with more amazingly done animations. But there are a lot of extreme perspectives and stuff moving in on the camera and tricky camera moves throughout the short. In ranking of animation ability the studios have always been Disney first, and everybody else behind. But the Fleischers were often second, and this is one of those times they were a close second.

Among my favorite cartoon motifs is doing simple stuff in complicated ways. The short offers plenty of that, starting with the gorilla’s shooting a gun that itself shoots out a bird that does the shooting. Koko putting his head through the window twice while trying to lead Bimbo to the crime scene. Koko running ahead of his “shadows” and having to go back to get them. The elevator opening up to a set of stairs.

Did you blink and miss that the level indicator makes two full circuits while getting the stairs down to ground level? That’s my favorite quick little joke. But there’s plenty to choose from, such as the moon being blown along by the heavy winds as Bimbo and Koko get to the house. The secret panel offering Bimbo a short beer is too well-established to be a blink-grade joke. But it gets a little more charge when you remember the short was made in 1931, still during Prohibition.

The female herring gets Mae Questel’s voice this short, so there’s no figure who can at all be credited as a proto-Betty-Boop. A shame, since Betty’s involvement however fleeting would probably have got this cartoon more notice. Its got a clear story, quite a density of jokes, a soundtrack that clearly ties to the action, and even a sensible ending. I like 30s cartoons, especially from the less-than-Disney studios, but recognize that as one of my eccentricities. This is one I don’t think an ordinary person would understand as funny.

There’s another of those mice popping in, one with Happy Feet at about 5:21, and then possibly a different one fleeing the gorilla at about 5:50. I trust that “They shot me! Holy mackerel, is this the end of the Herring?” is an imperfect quoting of Little Caesar, which opened in January of that year and made Warner Brothers all the money in the world. Can’t blame the Fleischer studios for riffing on that.

What’s Going On In Alley Oop? Why was Lady Worthington killed? January – March 2021

Hasn’t been revealed yet why someone wanted to kill Lady Worthington at this dinner of inventors she’d summoned. Or why she summoned them. The obvious supposition is money, but the truth may be something sillier.

This should get you up to date on Jonathan Lemon and Joey Alison Sayers’s Alley Oop for the end of March, 2021. If you’re reading this after about June 2021, there’s likely a more up-to-date plot recap here. The link also will have any news about the comic strip which I notice.

Alley Oop.

3 January – 27 March 2021.

Alley Oop, Ooola, and Doc Wonmug had contracted a case of shrinking last we saw. This after getting zapped by shrink rays several times over. They first settled in at paramecium-sized. Then spontaneously re-shrank to bacterium-sized. Then to DNA-sized. Then into the subatomic, coming to be the size of quantum strings. Also, in the Alley Oop universe, it turns out string theory is right. Once shrunken so, though, they meet someone.

Jonathan Lemon and Joey Alison Sayers’s Alley Oop for the 19th of January, 2021. I liked Plank, who was a consistently pleasant character. They didn’t have the snarky or mean streak that so many Lemon-Sayers characters do. I imagine they’ll be back, and hope they keep this otherworldly niceness.

Plank seems to be a pleasant, all-knowing, mysterious entity. They’re able to show Our Heroes the wonders of alternate dimensions and the Theory of Everything and all that. And then it’s time to shrink some more. And what happens when you shrink smaller than anything can be? That’s right: you end up bigger than galaxies. Like in that ancient science fiction short story. Plank guides them to shrinking all the way back to Earth, and their proper size again. Wonmug hopes to chat physics with Plank some. Alley Oop and Ooola dash back for home.

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They get home the 2nd of February and get exciting news: Garg is getting married! He doesn’t know to who. He’ll find out at the ceremony. Also everybody else is getting married too. Why is everyone marrying at the same time? The Mighty Feather, their new spiritual leader, decreed it. So that’s looking creepy and evil, however much everyone denies their evilness, in unison. Also, the Mighty Feather talks about how everyone needs to jump in the volcano tomorrow, so this needs action.

Jonathan Lemon and Joey Alison Sayers’s Alley Oop for the 11th of February, 2021. Lemon and Sayers’s Moo is really developing this Springfield/Pawnee vibe for the mob picking up a goofy obsession of the week.

Alley Oop puts on his thinking feathers and realizes, why not pretend to be The Mighty Feather, cult leader, and guide Moo back to normal? And it turns out that’s all anybody needed. The story wraps up the 17th of February.

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From the 18th the new, and current, story starts. They get an invitation to a “gathering of geniuses” at the palatial estate of Lady Worthington. The butler greets them, with a warning against “the butler did it” jokes. She’s gathered the finest minds in the world as she’s lost the key to her safe full of riches and needs help. Alley Oop finds it underneath a fake rock in the bureau, so on to a nice after-mystery dinner.

Jonathan Lemon and Joey Alison Sayers’s Alley Oop for the 6th of March, 2021. And, look at that last panel. You can’t say they weren’t playing fair with the audience about who the killer was.

At the dinner it turns out all the guests but Ooola and Alley Oop are inventors. As Our Heroes ponder this strangeness, Lady Worthington admits she gathered everyone for a second purpose. Then the light flicks out a moment. When it comes back, Lady Worthington is dead, stabbed in the back.

It’s easy to solve a murder when you have a time machine like Doc Wonmug. The time machine won’t work. Another inventor has a post-mortem communicator. It doesn’t work. Another inventor has a reincarnator. it doesn’t work. Nor does the robo-cloner. Alley Oop’s club even acts weird. Wonmug deduces the presence of a Faraweek cage, interfering with the workings of technology.

Our Heroes explore the manor and find the Faraweek cage in the basement. Ooola snips the correct wire and all the technologies become available. The reincarnator, for example, is able to bring Lady Worthington back to life, only to die again of her stab wound. The post-mortem communicator gets Lady Worthington’s spirit demanding that nobody get her money and hangs up. The robo-duplicator produces a dead robot Lady Worthington. Finally we get to the time machine.

Jonathan Lemon and Joey Alison Sayers’s Alley Oop for the 27th of March, 2021. Alley Oop picked up the Sherlock Holmes hat as he got into solving this cozy mystery the old-fashioned way. I enjoyed seeing him be enthusiastic in this little weird way.

So, yes, the butler did it. And since they went back in time and interrupted the murder, Lady Worthington now isn’t dead and we get another bit of timeline-changing.

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In the Sunday strips, there was one Little Oop comic where Penelope took herself and Alley Oop back to Moo. This teased a resolution of the scenario where Little Alley Oop’s in the present day. But it wasn’t followed up on the next week. So there’s not a real story resuming there.

Next Week!

What’s got a lucha wrestler police deputy chief from Mexico breaking into a Rhodian prison? Who is Towns Ellerbee and where has he got off to? Tony DePaul and Mike Manley’s The Phantom (weekday continuity) gets a recap, if things go like I hope.

What’s Going On In Prince Valiant? And Can Queens Solve Murders? January – April 2018

It’s always a good question what’s going on in Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant. I’m writing what’s my best explanation for as of mid-April 2018. If it’s later than about July 2018 for you, maybe look at or near the top of this page and there’ll be a more recent recap.

Also, if you like mathematics and comic strips I try to keep up with each week’s thematically appropriate comics, on the other blog. Do enjoy, I hope.

Prince Valiant.

21 January – 15 April 2018.

Last time you’ll recall, Prince Valiant, Karen, Vanni, and Bukota were sailing the rivers of what is now Uzbekistan on their way back home. They saw a raven, joking how it was a messenger for Karen’s mother Queen Aleta. So it was, and carried the report that the team was fine. So the next week their rafts came upon some rapids, in a sudden squall. This all smashed the rafts. The four climbed onto a ledge. And there we left them; we haven’t seen them since the 4th of February.

The story has instead moved to Queen Aleta of the Misty Isles. Which led me to realize the place was a Vaguely Roman territory. Here I have to confess: I only resumed reading Prince Valiant a couple years ago. And only started reading it seriously for these What’s Going On In series. I had always supposed that Valiant’s home base was England somewhere around the early Heptarchy. You know, the era when pop culture thinks we don’t know who ruled England or whether anybody did or if there even were people there. And I guess not; the Misty Isles are somewhere in the Mediterranean, says Wikipedia. Valiant himself was from Thule, off the coast of Norway. I think I kind of knew that.

Since the 11th of February the story has been Queen Aleta’s. It opens on murder: two servants of a noble house are dead, as is Ingolf, first mate of one of the Norse shipbuilders. The bodies are barely discovered before Senator Krios is at the market. He denounces the Queen’s refusal to protect the Misty Isles from violent, opportunistic foreigners. And cites the murder of two of the island’s natives by “one of [ her ] drunken Norse bullies”.

A suspicious Aleta turns to the CSIatorium. She observes the “precise, deep stab” under Ingolf’s ribs. And how he holds a strand of black hair tied by a gold ribbon. She sends her daughter Valeta out to ask into the Ingolf’s whereabouts. Aleta also asks Krios to explain his deal. He complains the growing trade partnerships put too much foreign influence into the homeland. He hopes to have trade confined to a single district, with foreigners excluded outside that area. He proposes the islet of Kythra. Aleta runs a check of the records. Krios has been buying up properties there, all right. But it’s a mystery how he’s doing it, as he’s deep in debt. But he’s leading a mob into the Senate to demand protection from foreign threats.

Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant for the 4th of March, 2018. Yes, yes, I know that “trade negotiations” have a bad reputation in science fiction and fantasy readerships. I don’t care. I am also a micromanaging grand-strategy nerd who would, in all honesty, love a game that was all about running an efficient exchequer in a state with primordial, if any, bureaucracy and standing institutions. So if you’re edging around the developments that lead to the Cinque Ports I am there. So never, ever, ever put me in charge of designing games. Also, ask me about the time zone game concept sometime.

Meanwhile Valeta visits Haraldr, Ingolf’s captain and also her crush. Her rival Zulfa is there. That promises to add some needed awkwardness to the proceedings. Haraldr confirms Ingolf had a relationship with some woman of the Misty Isles, but not who. That’s all right. From the gold tie of the hair locks Valeta already suspected Krios’s daughter Andrina.

Valeta needs to confirm Andrina had something going on with Ingolf. Zulfa volunteers to bodyguard, under the pretext of being Valeta’s handmaiden. The confrontation goes well. Valeta pretends that she and Ingolf were very much in love. The jealous Andrina pulls out a dagger and attacks. Zulfa moves to stop her, but Andrina’s brother Antero rushes from the curtains and grabs her. Antero begs forgiveness for her “tortured mind”. Valeta says of course, and promises to speak no more of Ingolf. As Valeta leaves, Zulfa drops a flirty smile and a bracelet to Antero. He sends her a note, setting up a date.

Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant for the 8th of April, 2018. It’s so hard to provoke a suspect into a violent action that proves his or her guilt, especially when there isn’t a troupe of actors in to perform The Murder of Gonzago. But we’ll make do.

And that’s the current situation. Krios is trying to lead a populist faction to close the Isles to foreigners and get himself out of debt. Ingolf was murdered. It seems by someone within Krios’s family. Also two islanders were killed. This may be to cover up that murder. Zulfa has some secret rendezvous with Ingolf’s girlfriend’s brother. Oh, and I bet Prince Valiant and all have managed to have an adventure, build a new raft, and get that one wrecked too. We’ll follow how things go.

Next Week!

Is it ever possible to summarize three months’ worth of Joe Staton, Mike Curtis, Shelley Pleger, and Shane Fisher’s Dick Tracy? That’s such a good question. I’ll give it a try. I’m going to be re-reading and making note for like four days straight. Spoiler: the plan to kill Dick Tracy didn’t work. But there is a Minit Mystery to ponder!

Robert Benchley: Opera Synopses II

[ Since the first of Robert Benchley’s Soap Opera synopses last week was reasonably well-received, let me follow up with the next from Love Conquers All. It’s some lighthearted fun, and should let me break in this new theme I’m trying out in place of Clean Home. ]

IL MINNESTRONE

(PEASANT LOVE)

Scene: Venice and Old Point Comfort.

Time: Early 16th Century.

Cast

Alfonso, Duke of Minnestrone	Baritone
Partola, a Peasant Girl	Soprano
Cleanso Young Noblemen of Venice.	Tenor
Turino Young Noblemen of Venice.	Tenor
Bombo Young Noblemen of Venice.	Basso
Ludovico Assassins in the service of Cafeteria Rusticana	Basso
Astolfo Assassins in the service of Cafeteria Rusticana	Methodist
Townspeople, Cabbies and Sparrows

Argument

Il Minnestrone is an allegory of the two sides of a man’s nature (good and bad), ending at last in an awfully comical mess with everyone dead.

ACT I

A Public Square, Ferrara.—During a peasant festival held to celebrate the sixth consecutive day of rain, Rudolpho, a young nobleman, sees Lilliano, daughter of the village bell-ringer, dancing along throwing artificial roses at herself. He asks of his secretary who the young woman is, and his secretary, in order to confuse Rudolpho and thereby win the hand of his ward, tells him that it is his (Rudolpho’s) own mother, disguised for the festival. Rudolpho is astounded. He orders her arrest.

ACT 2

Banquet Hall in Gorgio’s Palace.—Lilliano has not forgotten Breda, her old nurse, in spite of her troubles, and determines to avenge herself for the many insults she received in her youth by poisoning her (Breda). She therefore invites the old nurse to a banquet and poisons her. Presently a knock is heard. It is Ugolfo. He has come to carry away the body of Michelo and to leave an extra quart of pasteurized. Lilliano tells him that she no longer loves him, at which he goes away, dragging his feet sulkily.

ACT 3

In Front of Emilo’s House.—Still thinking of the old man’s curse, Borsa has an interview with Cleanso, believing him to be the Duke’s wife. He tells him things can’t go on as they are, and Cleanso stabs him. Just at this moment Betty comes rushing in from school and falls in a faint. Her worst fears have been realized. She has been insulted by Sigmundo, and presently dies of old age. In a fury, Ugolfo rushes out to kill Sigmundo and, as he does so, the dying Rosenblatt rises on one elbow and curses his mother.