# 187’s cover story is yet another “Duck Dodgers” adventure, written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Walter Carzon. It’s interesting that while the Duck Dodgers TV series these comic stories are based on has long since vanished, the comics themselves keep getting published and given the cover-story treatment. I speculate that the comic stories, which started showing up in the books at the time of the show’s run more than five years ago, were originally supposed to be given their own series of books. For some reason, that never came to pass, and the stories wound up being thrown into the main LT book because, well, they’re THAT good. No offense to the writers and animators of the “Duck Dodgers” TV show, which wasn’t bad at all, but the comic book stories are better. Perhaps someday these stories will wind up in a trade-paperback format compilation, because they really shine on their own.
The rest of the issue consists of two great reprints, both drawn by David Alvarez. Wile E. Coyote steals Marvin the Martian’s gadgets in “Chariots of the Clods”, and Henery Hawk goes after Sylvester and Tweety in “Brown Hawk Down”.
# 188 features a cover story involving Sylvester and Son. Taz and Hippety Hopper escape from an Australian attraction at a circus, leading Sylvester to mistake Hippety for a giant mouse (of course) and Jr. to think Taz is Sylvester. Strange as it sounds, Bill Matheny’s story and David Alvarez’s art are fantastic.
Reprints include “Tazzy Doo”, a “Scooby Doo” parody written by Jesse McCann and drawn by David Alvarez. Foghorn Leghorn plays Fred, Lola Bunny plays Daphne, Petunia Pig fills in for Velma, and Daffy Duck dons the guise of Shaggy, alongside “Tazzy” Doo. “Ragin’ Cage” (Craig Boldman/David Alvarez) is a crazy Sylvester/Tweety chase.
# 189 is, in short, lame. Sylvester and Tweety duke it out as movie critics in the cover story by Arie Kaplan and Walter Carzon. Reprints include a Lola Bunny adventure (By Sean Carolan and Jen Moore with art by Leo Batic) in the land of sea monkeys (don’t ask!) and a 1-page Roadrunner gag by Brett Koth and Mike Decarlo.
NOTE: Beginning with # 188, is seems DC has decided to print the LT books with glossy pages instead of newsprint pages.
3 comments:
Maybe some of the Duck Dodgers scripts were commissioned while the cartoon was still in production. When the back half of the comic became reprints, stories that were meant for a single issue (like an all Dodgers issue) could have ended up being published over several years. Or they just really like doing Duck Dodgers stories.
The entire Johnny DC line (i.e. all the comics advertised on Looney Tunes' last page) had its paper upgraded this summer. I suspect it was something of a consolation prize for their being bumped up in price. You might also have noticed that starting with I think #188 the price increased from $2.50 to $2.99.
Speaking of book collections I wonder why Warner Bros. hasn't done book collections of the Looney Tunes comics.
The Taz/Hippety teamup sounds like a natural ... why Bob McKimson never thought of it, I'll never know.
That's what I like about the DC Looney Tunes comics - they're done by people who grew up watching the classic cartoons, unlike much of the Dell/Gold Key comics (and the Bugs Bunny newspaper strip).
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