Lament for Uncle Scrooge
Uncle Scrooge #326
February 2004
Published by Gemstone Publishing
Disney Enterprises
Uncle Scrooge, as published by Gemstone*, was a wildly uneven comic book. Often the best stories published were reprints from the days prior to Gemstone handling the property (for example the copious Carl Barks reprints). Far too many stories run under Gemstone's auspices were either poorly edited or simply were not suitable for kids to read. I don't mean they contained sexual or violence more typical of an older audiences comic book, rather that the jokes and general story line seemed designed for the understanding of an audience of 40 or 50 year old men.
Because of this, many tales were rendered incomprehensible to a younger age group - - having read a couple of dozen of issues from Gemstone, or that is, having tried to read them to my young son who enjoys Uncle Scrooge, I came across stories that were complete rubbish and utterly boring to my son. Now, you've got to imagine the ardor of my eight year old child who would put up with having to comb through story after story of this foolishness in order to get to the one tale that fulfilled it's mission. I doubt there are few kids willing to focus on such a task.
Gemstone has stopped publishing Uncle Scrooge, because I suspect their market dissolved from this kind of abuse (and with a $6.95 cover price, the economics of alienating the public are quickly achieved).
When it comes to comic books, it pays to have elastic standards, but Gemstone seemed to have been clueless on how to make an Uncle Scrooge comic book. How many books were sold simply because of the infrequent Barks reprints?
Old Jack Island, Uncle Scrooge #326
Having said all that, the page shown here from the Marco Rota story "Old Jack Island" from issue #326 of the Gemstone Uncle Scrooge, is well done and contains the winning elements which make Uncle Scrooge enjoyable: size of scope to the adventure, well done art, a gentle hand with the humor and enough human foible that an adult can sense the actual issues at hand, while a younger person can understand and follow the plot.
Rota uses classic comic book techniques to tell the story. The artwork is clear and well-rounded, especially the heavy, inky shadows and rounded brush strokes. The tale itself concerns a time-warp in which Uncle Scrooge and Donald, along with Huey, Duey and Louie in tow, start off with the intentions of investigating an investment property in the Caribbean for Uncle Scrooge. While in flight, they pass through a storm which lands them on "Old Jack Island" where pirates from an earlier century have hid their treasure. It's a simple story and Rota runs it through its paces with an easy efficiency. There's no innovation here, only competence in every quarter. (Color, however, is simplistic and adds very little to the tale. The psychedelic rainbow hues on some pages isquite distracting.)
Perhaps the artists and writers that Gemstone had to pull from to get Uncle Scrooge off the blocks each issue were simply not up to the task of working for both an adult and kid audience, and ended up annoying and boring both.
* It is being reported that Gemstone has lost the Disney license and will no longer be publishing Disney theme books. An article at Newsarama from March 29, 2009 has more info.
For a look at a comic book which functions well for both an adult
and kid audience, read about Tintin The Black Island on this web site.
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