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.
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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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