And it made me miss blogging! So here I am, blogging like it's 2009.
My son and I have been reading The Phantom Blot's Double Mystery, a story I was a big fan of when it ran in the pages of Gladstone's Mickey and Donald.
It was nice to read the whole thing in one shot, without the weird edits that the monthly pamphlet format required. I had really vague memories of reading this story as a kid about 9 or 10 and finding it unsettling-- the Blot is a creepy villain, of course, but it was also my first encounter with Eega Beeva, who, let's face it, is a disturbing character to stumble across. I mean, he's half naked and has mittens for hands and ptalks plike a pweirdo. It was a lot to take.
I read the story again in my late twenties when I bought the whole run of Mickey and Donald on Ebay and was impressed by how much it looked like a Gottfredson story artwise, and by the aura of vague menace throughout the story. As the great GeoX and others have pointed out, the story doesn't make a lick of sense, but it does have a dreamlike quality that suits the Phantom Blot, with his spooky visual, death traps and mysterious disappearances.
Because I'm a dinosaur I like the Gladstone version better; the old color printing process and cheap paper is "realer" to me than the modern glossy editions. This is also why I will shell out for old Marvel Tales reprints rather than fancy pants omnibuses or god forbid Comixology of stuff like Fantastic Four. What can I say besides get off my lawn.
"The Blot's Double Mystery" made a big impression on me all three times I read it, so for that Scarpa has a lifelong fan in me (although I don't think my kid was all that impressed, all that Minecraft or whatever must have ruined his brain). NINE THUMBS UP.
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