I have featured Stein several times in this blog. He was one of the moonlighting animators who brought a lot of those skills to the panels of his comic book stories.
In honor of the day, settle back with something green while reading. I would never suggest green beer, but if you must drink, don’t drive. (Especially do not drink and read while driving.) Perhaps a nice salad would do. (Horrors! Celebrating St. Pat’s Day with a salad...What am I thinking?) Be patient. It takes a few pages to get to the leprechauns in this 16-page tale. Oh, and I looked up the word “spalpeen,” thrown around in the story. It means “rascal.”
The Grand Comics Database credits the script to Joe Archibald. From Supermouse #20 (1952):
4 comments:
It seems as if those who worked as animators for Paul Terry carried the Terrytoons style into their other work. Not that it should be surprising that most commercial artists would simply maintain a style across efforts.
I believe that Supermouse were acting as Übermaus when he effectively pardoned Terrible Tom on condition of his leaving the country. Tom had committed a number of crimes from late 1948 up to early '51, of which Supermouse and Mabel were not the only victims.
One of my neighbors has a child who likes very much to pretend that he believes in various sorts of wee folk, including Leprechauns. I don't step outside of that game, but I do infuse it with some historical realism, explaining that those who we've come to call and depict as Leprechauns were the people of Ireland before some of my ancestors invaded and conquered them. He asked me if the Leprechauns were motivated to mischief by the actions of my ancestors, and I said that this might be the case.
BTW, I like to explain the American version of St Patrick's Day as Irish-American Kwanzaa.
BTW yerself, O'Daniel, Irish-American Kwanzaa is as good an explanation as any.
Years ago (when I was in my twenties, which is a lot of years ago) I imbibed in too many green beers on St Paddy's Day, and I saw leprechauns until the moment I lost consciousness.
I believe my education in leprechaun lore came from Darby O'Gill and the Little People from Walt Disney. I was quite impressed by King Brian, and of course in stories of pots o'gold at the end of the rainbow. Darby had an early singing Sean Connery, and ooooo, that Janet Munro...I had such a 12-year-old crush on her.
I also see Ubermaus in in that rat, and something equally unpleasant in the way Tom is portrayed and in the story he tells.
Makes me think of an old, old Italian comic where a Jew called "Assalonne Mordivo'" [Absalom Wannagobble, or something like that, tries to deceive a youngster telling him a sad story, in order to get his food and his money.
As we had no balloons back in the 30's, the story is told as a nursery rhyme. I try to translate:
Absalom Wannagobble
Cries as loud as he can
And the cunning Jew
Makes such a whimpering
that good Petey, deeply touched,
gives him his meal and his purse.
Absalom, in a jiffy,
eats the meal and nabs the rest.
But a friend of Petey warns him:
"Wait a minute, pal.
Look at the gold that's hidden
under this dirty coat!"
The Jew, exposed, is properly fixed.
Swearing to Zachary (?), he loses the gold
and running til dusk, the border he crosses.
We had to live with this crap ...
Aside from that, how about absinthe to celebrate?
I's green and brings in the Leprechauns. The word "Cushlamacree", I bet was invented after a couple of shots of absinthe:
http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/purple/miscellaneous/cushlamochree.html
I forgot to post the link to "the story of Absalom Wannagobble":
http://www.afnews.info/deposito/2008/10/razzismo/images/assalonne%20mordiv%F2.jpg
And sadly, I forgot to check my grammar before posting my comment, too.
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