No subject

Ferioli's beautiful art. It makes me want to frame it and hang it on the 
wall - but that would of course make a strange gap in the magazine.

Mickey and Goofy are in a country called Nibet, to see a monk called 
Damai Lali fly. This monk is a young child, and he has the ability to 
empty his mind of all thoughts - obviously the requirement for a flying 
career. Mickey finds this difficult to do, while Goofy... well, you know. 
He floats in the air, telling that he doesn't believe it's possible to 
fly.
Then enters The Phantom Blot. And this is the real one, not that 
handkerchief from the eighties. He kidnaps the young monk, because he 
wants to learn how to fly. Our two friends follow him into the mountains, 
and with the help of Goofy's flying and a spherical stone Mickey finds 
in the ice, they manage to save the kid.

The story is pretty good, but at first I didn't quite like that stone 
suddenly appearing. It seemed like a too easy way out of a story, just 
like that Donald Duck story in the last issue... er... something I'm not 
getting here? A third stone story the next week did indeed tell me there 
was more to these stones.

Number five is an old one-pager (KF 07-15-51).

Story number six is a Junior Woodchuck story (D 98093, 6 pages), written 
by Paul Halas and Jack Sutter, and drawn by Millet.

In this story the Woodchucks have a trip in the forest with their parents, 
and in HDL's case, Donald Duck. As usual this Duck brags about his 
abilities to survive in the forest, which attracts some angry looks from 
the other parents.
In good accordance to his personality, Donald starts on a short cut, 
and... gets lost. He hurts himself on a bush, and hurts himself more when 
trying to heal it with a poisonous plant. It starts to snow, and it all 
looks rather bad. Then, for some reason, a truck appears, and it is pulled 
up from whereever it was by another truck.

I don't think I've ever seen a story being ended in a simpler way. Here 
we have four Ducks, cold, angry, hungry and lost. Then, standing in deep 
snow is suddenly a truck there, and they can just let themselves being 
saved by being pulled up by another truck. Er... something missing here? 
Will I soon see another truck mysteriously appearing in a story about 
Mickey's nephews? (none so far...)

Number seven is about Mad Madam Mim (D 98072, 2 pages), written by 
Per Hedman, and drawn by Millet. Hedman is writing a _lot_ of stories. 
Sometimes I like them, but usually I think they are too simple. There's 
got to be a few stories of that kind, I guess, since a great part of the 
market is young children. But still, I didn't like that kind of stories 
myself when being a bit younger than I am now.

In this story Mim has the noble intention of helping a rather miserable 
actor imitate a gorilla by doing some magic through a closed door. But by, 
accidentally, actually making him a gorilla, she scares the producer a 
little too much.

Number eight is another old one-pager (KF 01-21-51)

Number ten is a story about Scrooge McDuck and Goldstein Glomgold 
(D 98285, 12 pages), written by Paul Halas, and drawn by Colomer.

Usually Scrooge doesn't care much about aristocracy, but when Glomgold 
suddenly becomes a baron, and starts to frequent in circles that are 
closed to McDuck, it becomes a bit too difficult to swallow that he 
doesn't have any titles himself. More so when he thinks about all the 
money belonging in those circles.
Scrooge starts to hunt for a title for himself, but the only possibility 
he finds is an ancestor who once lost his title. The lord who now owns 
it, whom Scrooge visits, seems to be as careful with his money as McDuck
himself. But then it shows up that he actually doesn't have any. He does 
have one thing though - a permission from some king to sell titles. And 
he has sold one recently, to Glomgold.
This makes Scrooge happy, since he believes that the real aristocrats 
then won't take Glomgold's title seriously. He goes to a party for the 
aristocracy, dressed as a servant, to observe what happens. And he finds 
that he's actually wrong. The aristocrats are very interested in Glomgold, 
since he's the only one at the party (except for Scrooge) who has any 
money. They all attack him with demands that he should pay all their 
expences so the aristocracy can keep up the appearance - to Scrooge's 
great joy.

I like this story. Halas draws up the lines for several possible plots, 
and not until just before the ending do we see what really happens. And 
Colomer has done an excellent job with the art.

Number eleven, another old one-pager (KF 12-25-60), makes a nice ending 
to the issue.

Also with this issue was the first part of this year's Christmas calendar.



   Jorgen