As
their line of costumed heroes faded from the scene, publisher MLJ
looked for new genres to replace them and adjunct their popular
Archie properties. One that they tried was Funny Animals.
In the
summer of 1943 the cover feature to JOLLY JINGLES was a character
called Super Duck.
During
his tenure in JOLLY JINGLES, SD was just another ‘super-animal’,
much the same as Mighty Mouse or Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. I haven’t
read much of these early stories but what I’ve seen was less than
inspiring. However MLJ found the right man to transform the strip
into something interesting in the person of Al Fagaly. Al turned SD
into ‘the cockeyed wonder’; an ersatz Donald Duck that struggled
with the frustrations of contemporary living. Al amps up both the
slapstick and the violence in Super Duck.
Fagaly
gave SD a bizarre uniform of sorts with his red lederhosen and his
feathered, Alpine hat. However I suppose that it’s no more unusual
than Donald’s sailor outfit. SD copied a number of aspects from the
comic book version of DD. He too had a troublesome boy in his life in
the form of Fauntleroy.
Supes
also had his doppelganger to Daisy with his gal-pal Uwanna.
The
comparisons to Carl Barks are inevitable but in one area I found
Fagaly to be a good match and that was his draftsmanship. In my
opinion the strip is extremely well drawn and distinctive. Where Al
falls short is in the stories themselves and while they are
entertaining enough, they don’t have quite the same power as
Carl’s.
Pat
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