Okay so the local publisher of the Lustiges Taschenbuch anthology, who did published these in the late 90's and early 2000's before stopping for at least a decade has began publishing these localy again. And due to the fact I only have a handfull of the ones I had when I was a kid I decided to buy these from time to time, out of a sense of nostalgia.
The most recent issue, local version of LT # 438, has a few things I thought worthy to point out. For example that Phantom Blot has had his face revealed for god know's how long ? I did not know it was common knowledge he looked like that.
Also, in addition it seems that them going from bi-monthly to monthly to bi-monthly resulted in them skipping # 437 entirely. Which, if they ever do release it and I find out it was actualy better then what we got, oh boy will I be annoyed. Cause issue 438/17 (Localy, Second printing) is kinda not all too great.
Allow me to indulge and do a bit of a rundown of the newest issue, even if no one cares.
Anyone wanting to know more about what I'm talking about can check here
http://coa.inducks.org/issue.php?c=de/LTB+438
The first story: A rather predictable "guy they needs comes outa nowhere and says he'll work for free" type story that leads exactly where you know it will, even when you're 9. Only funny bit is how Daisy and the old actress talk in this cold, deadly sarcastic tone with one another. Also the resolution is kinda dumb if you know anything about making movies but meh, whatever.
The second issue, featuring impossible-to-take-seriously-Phantom Blot (his face and ears are stretched so much he looks like he's made of rubber and is melting) is kind of a setup that recquires alot of impossible to do good timing on the villain's part to even get going, and the fact it's all just the effect of a random accident makes that a bit silly.
The third story is a Doubleduck story, which spans 120 pages and originaly came out in four parts. I was actualy leaving this one till the end hoping that they'd be able to pull something off with all that extra space, but not realy. For starters, the fact that, aside from Duck Avenger/Papernik we have normal everyday Donald have yet another super secret identity aside from his regular one, wherehe goes around fighting villains and saving the world, is kinda amusing, for all the wrong reasons. We've had "alternate Donalds" stories in the magazine in the past, where we have ersatz Donald, not a part of the McDuck family circle, but just some random shmuck going around doing random things at random places and in random time periods, usualy running into an ersatz period/regional variation of Daisy and foiling some villain of some sort, so why do we need this kid-friendly Bond expy, except that maybe the Bond franchise has started to be popular again ? Not to mention that there's a very obvious twist here, and a red herring which recquires a guy to travel from Germany across two different countries, beyond the arctic circle, keeping up with a cargo plane on a motorbyke, all because the bow tie he was given kinda chokes.
Also random vikings. Random unexplained vikings. In the middle of nowhere. Doing god knows what.
The Pete thing is short and to the point so no complaints there.
The next story, dealing with Magica, is, well, not that great. Mainly because it's basicly an excuse for the artist to draw whatever the hell they want cause magic. I've seen stories in the past where that worked well, but here most of the art is kinda uggly, with only one or two visualy interesting things.
The last story, dealing with Donald, Scrooge and Van Drake is interesting for a couple of reasons. Back in the day, in the late 90's, the LT series had shorts with Drake, along with both Donald and Fethry (who was alot more promiment in the 90's, alongside Umperio/Humphrey who actualy was in # 437, yet Fethry has yet to crop up in a single story of the new batch I've , in what I read so far at least), Drake always appeared as this book smart, yet completely inept person who would come to completely wrong conclusions, stating his immense expertise, and then have everything blow up in his face. Here he's basicly treated as infalible. Still I do like the clever way in which the Beagle boys ask him what they need to know without it ever realy being obvious that it has something to do with them wanting to rob places. Granted the actual advise is silly, but it's that kinda silly you're not supposed to think about.
Also while browsing inducks, I found this
Anyone else think that looks…..weird ?
(And if it doesn't display then tell me :P)