Carl Barks' comics about Donald Duck and his nephews are full of humor and whit. I think its is important to note that whenever he has Huey, Dewey or Louie speak he has it as if they are three in one. They all finish each others sentences like true triplets. They are basically three ducks with the same brain. They are mostly doing the same action and are continuously right next to each other, no matter what. I also find it interesting that in some of his stories, each panel is exactly the same in width and height and are set in a grid format, while others are more old fashioned in the grid format. They are still equal in height (if in the same row), but are not all equal in width. This is seen especially when Barks introduces Scrooge. I love also, how Donald Duck is always getting out-witted (normally by his three clever nephews). For example, in one Barks has Donald Duck and the boys enter into a horse racing contest. Donald thinks he is smart when he gives the horse in the boys stable to much food so that it will be fat and slow in the morning. The boys, on the other hand, are clever enough to know their uncle, whom they call "Unca Donald", would try to play a trick on them so they switched the their horse with Donald's. In the end Donald ended up feeding his horse to much resulting in a sluggish, fat, slow horse for the race. Throughout this tale Donald tries anything to beat the boys, but all fails as always, and the boys win the race.
All I said above does not at all apply to how Herge's Tin Tin adventures are told. First, the Tin Tin stories are much, much longer. There are more characters and more science involved. Not to mention the fact that Tin Tin is not a talking duck, but a boy who can venture to the moon. It is written more like a book than a comic in some areas, where you have long paragraphs before delving into the actual comic part of the story (the parts which have world balloons). Herge illustrates his comic using a more realistic approach unlike the extremely cartoon style of Barks. Tin Tin also uses material that is more mature. For example, in one of the stories Tin Tin finds himself on the way to the moon. The rocket ends up having zero gravity and the captain is drinking. He has had so much, in fact, that he finds it funny that his whiskey has turned in to a ball and is floating about the rocket. Also, in Tin Tin, crazy things take place. For instance, these two scientists, who happened to be twins, end up taking some type of medicine in which they do not know the effects of. They soon find out that the pills cause their hair to grow rapidly and to continuously change color. As well, the space station on earth is consulting with Tin Tin , a young boy, to help get the rocket back to earth. I am not sure i am a huge fan of this particular comic myself but I can see the appeal it would have for comic lovers who are also lovers of science.
Lastly, I will discuss Art Spiegelman's "Jack Cole and Plastic Man". This comic is neither a story of talking animals or of adventurous boys, it is of the depressed man turned super when his bodies chemicals change. He finds himself able to stretch any distance and therefore becomes...Plastic Man. In this comic the material is definitely more mature than both Barks' work and Herge's. Men die and kids get napped. Plastic man is there to save the day but he can't always save everyone. For example, in the story of "Bright Eyes" a little boy with bright blue and irresistible eyes is kidnapped, or so we think, and is told if he does not corporate they will cut his arm off. Later in the story the two henchmen who are tasked with smuggling bright eyes and other children to an unknown location end up killing each other due to bright eye's innocent gaze. One shoots the other and the other bits the one that shot him in the neck. The one with the gun screams out, "No.your biting my jugular vein, No! No! No!". This comic is more graphic than any we have looked at thus far. I feel like it is a comic that inspired video games with its Plastic hero and violent rescues.
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