Terror of the Transvaal comments

[Wilmer Rivers]

A few comments on U$ # 290, which I just now got around to purchasing
(so flame me for my tardiness, already!):

cover
-----
The things one learns on this list!  Had I not read Don's posting, I
never would have noticed the top of Mickey's head among the menagerie
of ferocious beasts surrounding Scrooge.

Kimberley
---------
Just in case you're wondering, the depiction of the Kimberley diamond
mine as a hole going straight down is geologically accurate.  Diamonds
are found in "kimberlite pipes", narrow shafts of rock that have shot
straight up from the earth's mantle (where the great pressures permit
the formation of diamonds).  Probably the pipes rose vertically through
the earth's crust like bubbles rising vertically through a liquid, in
response to some crustal fracture that allowed the pressure of the
mantle underneath to vent out.  So diamond mines like the great one in
Kimberley do go straight down, and the miners do indeed excavate the
entire kimberlite pipe, leaving a gaping vertical hole behind them.  Who
knows, maybe some kid reading this story will be inspired to learn some-
thing about mining and geology from it!

"I'm a Boer!"
-------------
I remember that we discussed this joke when LO$ # 6 was published in
Europe (although I don't remember how the translators handled it).  I
suppose it was necessary to have Flintheart say this line, but I still
wish it had been saved for some pig-face to say, thereby making it a
**double** pun (Boer = bore = boar).

campfire scene
--------------
I do like this coloring.  It makes the art look almost 3-dimensional.

"I'm not in Kansas any more!"
-----------------------------
Don Thompson once wrote in Comics Buyers Guide that the 2 jokes he was
the most tired of seeing were references to the classic movie lines
"I think we're not in Kansas any more, Toto!" and "Is that a gun in
your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?".  [Remember "Who Framed
Roger Rabbit"?]  However, the gag works in this context, since it's
uttered in response to sighting a lion (who turns out to be somewhat
cowardly, at that).

"Buck McDuck rides again!"
--------------------------
The scene of Scrooge riding into Johannesburg atop a lion immediately
brings to mind the scene in "Blazing Saddles" where the citizens of the
Western town flee in panic as the wild cowboy Mongo rides into town on
the back of an ox.  Was the picture of Scrooge supposed to be a refer-
ence to the Mel Brooks movie, or am I reading more into this than was
intended?

stable scene
------------
It was fun to hear Scrooge refer (unknowingly) to Flintheart as "the
chickenheart".  But it seems unlikely to me that the stablehand would
just let Scrooge take the six-guns out of another man's trunk to go
have a shoot-out with him.  A pretty lousy property attendant!

"Do not foresake me, oh mah..."
-------------------------------
With all the Kurtzman-esque detail in a Rosa story, are we supposed to
be thinking about how this song was used originally in "High Noon" or
in the famous Mad magazine parody of it?

"a band of warriors with big, nasty spears"
-------------------------------------------
It is interesting that Disney won't even allow a **mention** of the Zulu
tribe.  (In the upcoming "Pocahontas" cartoon, will anyone be able to
mention that the characters are Indians?)  How, then, was Gladstone able
to reprint the following dialog from "Christmas for Shacktown" in DDA
# 30?  Daisy: "My club has got to have fifty dollars!"  Donald: "In
pennies, nickels, or Comanche wampum?"  For that matter, how were they
able to continue calling the economically depressed part of Duckburg
"Shacktown"?  Surely this is an insult to the poor and homeless!  And a
pig-face says, "Let's build the track on the corner by crippled Joey's
shack, so he can see the train go by!"  Crippled Joey!!!!!  Do you
suppose the parking spaces closest to the entrance of Disney World have
a sign saying "Reserved - crippled parking"?  I think not.  So did Glad-
stone sneak this reprint past the powers-that-be while no one was look-
ing, or what?

Scrooge and guns
----------------
I thought Don once said, in reference to an earlier story, that Disney
would not allow Scrooge to be shown pointing a gun at someone.  Do I
remember that correctly?  If so, how can Scrooge be shown to shoot at
Flintheart's feet, to make him "dance" in the street?

tarring and feathering
----------------------
I agree with the posts on this list that point out that feathering isn't
a particularly humiliating punishment for a duck.  It would be more of
an embarassment to Flintheart to be **plucked** rather than feathered!
However, the line in the stablehand's thought balloon about "a giant
chicken" will bring chuckles to readers of this list, when they recall
all our discussions about whether Gyro is representative of water fowl
or poultry.

Mail Bin
--------
Who's this "David Gerstein" letterhack, anyway?   :)

a final thought
---------------
It would have been fun to see Scrooge's old Montana buddy "T.R." make a
cameo appearance in some panel of this story, since Roosevelt spent so
much time hunting big game on the veld.  In fact, one of the best known
protraits of the future President shows him standing next to the carcass
of a water buffalo that he had just shot there.  (And there's a line in
"Arsenic and Black Lace" that makes a play on words between "Roosevelt"
and "on the veld", since Teddy was so strongly associated with that area
of Africa.)  Or was T.R. actually in this story lurking somewhere within
the tall grass there, and I just missed him?

Enough wasting of bandwidth, and I now promise to return to lurking
within the tall grass myself!

Wilmer Rivers