Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Beard and Harper Mickey Mouse Serials

I.N.D.U.C.K.S. credits "The Red Wasp Mystery" to Cecil Beard, which gave a starting point. As mentioned in the comments to my previous post on them, I think it's easier to assume Beard and wife Alpine Harper, per his text page for Murray Boltinoff, collaborated at this point to a greater or lesser degree on everything rather than to assign stories solely to one or the other.

'Bourf! Bourf!


Pluto's "Bourf! Bourf!" in WDC&S 330 echoes the Hounds in their untiled Hounds and the Hare story in The Fox and the Crow 83 (Dec-Jan/64). Goofy echoes so many Fox and Crow (as well as Hound and Hare etc.) stories' "Ooo-hoo-hoo" in #358. (The Crow says it on the first page of F&C 83.) Note the nonstandard hyphenization of "Hoo-Doo" both here and in the Scooby Doo story "The Fiery Hoo-Doo."

There are a number of serials later in this run, setting aside these and Carl Fallberg's, that I can assign to one writing style, but can't be sure enough to say it's that of Beard & Harper. Maybe more on their style from other features will merge my two lists of writers' data and I can credit those stories to them in the future.

Beard & Harper Mickey Mouse serial scripts
in Walt Disney's Comics & Stories

Oct/66 to Jan/67 #313-316  The Treasure of Oomba Loomba
Feb/ to Apr/67 #317-319  The Red Wasp Mystery
May/ to Jul/67 #320-322  Lair of the Zoomby
Aug/ to Nov/67 #323-326  Trapped in Time
Dec/67 to Feb/68 #327-329  The Mystery of the Wiki-Waki Wot-Not
Mar/ to May/68 #330-332  The Mystery of the Dazzling Hoo-Doo
Dec/68 to Feb/69 #339-341  The Strange Case of Professor Zero
Dec/69 to Feb/70 #351-353  The Sorcerer of Donnybrook Castle
Mar/ to May/70 #354-356  Chief Bigfoot and the Ghost Warriors
Jun/ to Aug/70 #357-359  Journey to No-No Land
Sep/ to Nov/70 #360-362  The Sign of the Scorpion
May/ to Jul/73 #392-394  Flight of the Dragon

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Sal Trapani Pencils for Himself?/Not Yet, He Ain't

Wild, Wild West 3

On Gold Key's TV tie-in The Wild, Wild West #3, here's yet other Sal Trapani ghost that I can identify. Try to unimagine the Trapani inks; apart from the poses, the faces of James West in the second and sixth panel are probably the places where José Delbo's style best shows through. Delbo's first work in the U.S.A. was in 1966 at Charlton and Dell; he didn't show up at Gold Key without Trapani inks until around 1970, so I think we can assume that these are ghost pencils paid for by Trapani.

On his blog Lee's Comic Rack Lee Hartsfeld has identified Bill Molno as Trapani's ghost on issue 4. After that issue, I have yet to ID the pencillers.

Leo Dorfman uses captions like A startling moment later... and In the next astonishing moment... throughout the series.

The Wild, Wild West—written by Leo Dorfman

June/66 #1  Outlaw Empire a: Alden McWilliams
Nov/     #2  The Phantom from the Past a: McWilliams
June/68 #3  The Stolen Empire p: José Delbo  i: Sal Trapani
Dec/     #4  Montezuma's Gold p: Bill Molno  i: Trapani
Apr/69 #5  The Night of the Tongs p: ?   i: Trapani
July/     #6  Maximilian's Treasure p: ?   i: Trapani
Oct/     #7  The Night of the Buccaneer p: ?   i: Trapani