"Bob's Book"

 

Having by some inexplicable fluke of fortune gotten my little volume A Grave on Deacon’s Peak published with suspicious ease, I began writing, in October 2019, a proposed sequel, which would follow the further adventures of Bob Bellamy as he went to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the Department of Extranatural Affairs, or, as it is more informally known, the Bureau of Shadows. I had already produced a whole book’s worth of Bureau stories (many of them dealing with the Bellamy family) and spanning the centuries of the Bureau’s operations, and now I wanted to see if I could write a more direct, novel-length sequel to the first book. Unfortunately, I bogged down around Chapter Four nearly a year later. It had been coming along slowly, and I gave up in frustration, and let it go on hiatus.

Now, feeling antsy and thinking of taking up a summer project, I turn back to the provisionally title “Bob’s Book” and look at it once more. As I had it planned out, it would cover the first year of Bob’s apprenticeship at the Bureau, and involve his fellow apprentices and teachers, at first in a series of short adventures, but with an underlying plot below the surface that sneaks up and takes over the last few chapters.

I took out Chapter One, polished it up a bit, and present it here. Whether I do indeed take up the book again is at the moment a moot point; it depends partly on what (if any) reaction I get.

My Shippey Has Come In

 

Today I got Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction (2016) by Tom Shippey in the mail. When it first appeared on my Wish List it was going for $120; it has since come down to about $50, which allowed me to finally order it. It is a collection of Shippey’s essays on Science Fiction spanning over thirty years on the subject and features his insights on a genre beyond his more well-known subjects of Medieval Literature and the work of J. R. R. Tolkien. As the summation on Amazon has it:

“The fifteen essays collected in Hard Reading argue, first, that science fiction has its own internal rhetoric, relying on devices such as neologism, dialogism, semantic shifts, the use of unreliable narrators. It is a "high-information" genre which does not follow the Flaubertian ideal of le mot juste, "the right word", preferring le mot imprévisible, "the unpredictable word". Both ideals shun the facilior lectio, the "easy reading", but for different reasons and with different effects. The essays argue further that science fiction derives much of its energy from engagement with vital intellectual issues in the "soft sciences", especially history, anthropology, the study of different cultures, with a strong bearing on politics. Both the rhetoric and the issues deserve to be taken much more seriously than they have been in academia, and in the wider world. Each essay is further prefaced by an autobiographical introduction. These explain how the essays came to be written and in what ways they (often) proved controversial. They, and the autobiographical introduction to the whole book, create between them a memoir of what it was like to be a committed fan, from teenage years, and also an academic struggling to find a place, at a time when a declared interest in science fiction and fantasy was the kiss of death for a career in the humanities.” – Amazon.

While I obviously have not had time to read much of it yet, my eye was drawn during a preliminary flip to an essay on Ursula K. Le Guin and the first three books of Earthsea. I felt compelled to read it, and found it to be so insightful and perceptive, clarifying certain inchoate thoughts about the books that had been lurking on the brink of my brain for years, that I cannot help but feel I am in for quite an experience. Both about what I have read and about works that I have not read yet, but which might be pointed out to me here.

The book is beautifully bound, and the pages themselves of a dazzling whiteness that casts a bright shadow down the line of binding between leaves. Why do I mention that? Just because it seems an unusual circumstance to me.

Present Mood

Just found out you can order old Walt Disney Comics Digests for quite reasonable prices on Amazon.

WDCD: Statistically Speaking

So, this is how the Walt Disney Comics Digest tally works out: we originally had fifteen scattered copies when we were kids; I bought thirty issues in the mid-Oughties that we never had (also replacement copies of the ones we used to have); and I need twelve more issues to complete the original run of fifty-seven.

Had: 1, 6, 16, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 41, 43, 48

Bought: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 54, 57

Don’t Have: 12, 14, 19, 20, 22, 31, 42, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56 

Walt Disney Comics Digests #51 - #57

 

                     Walt Disney Comics Digest #51 (January 1975)

Walt Disney Comics Digest #52 (April 1975)

Walt Disney Comics Digest #53 (June 1975)

                    Walt Disney Comics Digest #54 (August 1975)

                      Walt Disney Comics Digest #55 (October 1975)

                   Walt Disney Comics Digest #56 (December 1975)

Walt Disney Comics Digest #57 (February 1976)

I don’t remember seeing any of these issues back in the day; perhaps Baenziger’s, our usual supplier, no longer carried them; perhaps we simply averted our eyes because we could no longer expect such treats because we were growing up or getting poorer; it is even possible that our growing critical faculties may even have perceived the diminishment of an element of quality and decided to let them go by. All I know was that in those years I started middle school and life was suddenly about much wider things. A certain kind of innocence was left behind. A certain kind of wisdom was painfully begun.

As I say, we never had these issues at the time, and I only have two today (#54 and #57). What we can divine of most of their contents must be observed from their covers. But I think some attention must be paid to #57, this “Special Issue”, as the last in the series, and one that I do have.

It is labelled on the cover ‘A Year’s Supply of Fun’, perhaps because they knew there would be no more new Digests that year. The stories within are titled after the months themselves, going from “January Jimjams” to “December Dunking”. There is quite a lot of themed games, articles, and activities for each month, and much more about the astrological signs of each month than I would have expected (but this was the Seventies), and it ends with a calendar for the year 1976 (which was, of course, the Bicentennial year). Perhaps most significant for me is that it reprints ‘Bubble Trouble’, a little activity featuring Donald Duck that had appeared all the way back in Issue #1, thus bringing it all full circle.

That was the end of the Walt Disney Comics Digest original run. “If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred…” But in December of 1986 (only ten years later, but it seemed an eternity to me) Gladstone Comics began publishing, of the same dimensions but at a slim 96 pages per issue, a new run of Walt Disney Comics Digest, along with three other digests featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Uncle Scrooge, a new volume published every two weeks! But that is a tale for another time …

Disney Digests: The End is Nigh

                      Walt Disney Comics Digest #46 (April 1974)

The Alice in Wonderland adaptation. Gyro invents a walking stick … that walks! Goofy encounters a sea serpent. And so much more. Didn’t have it; now I do.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #47 (June 1974)

Disney’s Robin Hood had come out in 1973; not only did we see it in the theater, we had the LP record. Note Donald Duck’s crossed eyes on the cover. What’s up with that? That’s not like Disney! Didn’t have this issue and now I do.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #48 (August 1974)

Now this issue we had, and if I remember correctly, it was the last one we ever got as kids. Possibly bought for camping or a trip to the beach. Scrooge buys a pearl of great price and almost loses it, Brer Rabbit has his doubts about astrology, Minnie and Clarabelle pick up a hitchhiker who isn’t what she seems, and Dan’l Boone and Little Hiawatha cross paths. And the price went up to 59 cents, and the page count is down to 128! Damn inflation!

Walt Disney Comics Digest #49 (October 1974)

No particular memories attached to this issue (didn’t have it then), though it does have the story of Stephen F. Austin. Otherwise it’s the usual hijinks with the Disney gang (and Bucky Bug).

Walt Disney Comics Digest #50 (December 1974)

And now it’s up to 69 cents! Although the theme of the Mouse Family Album seems vaguely familiar, I have my doubts somehow that we ever had this issue. It does contain the reprint of a story about the Reluctant Dragon meeting the three Fairy Godmothers from Sleeping Beauty, which I remember reading in a comic book at Nanny’s old beauty shop and coveting. Of course she wouldn’t let me have it. Business, not sentiment. 

Only seven more issues to go!

Walt Disney Comics Digests #41 - #45

 

                     Walt Disney Comics Digest #41 (June 1973)

Another themed issue, featuring stories with the Disney characters travelling along, giving shows, and encountering adventures, including attacks by Captain Hook, the Wicked Witch, and the Beagle Boys. True Life Adventures features a praying mantis encounter and cannibalism! Had and have.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #42 (August 1973)

Never had it and don’t have it yet. It would not have been appealing to us boys because we did not particularly care for Disney movies with actors and had no attachment to Mary Poppins. It seemed out of our wheelhouse at the time; too much musical whimsy. How tastes do change.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #43 (October 73)

Goofy and his Goof Cart feature in a series of adventures. We wanted a Goof Cart; it just seemed so doable and easy to handle and nicely eccentric. Also: April, May and June make a series of ‘themed’ cakes to win a contest (“Yummy, Mummy!”), Komodo dragons eat all the rats in True Life Adventures, Donald and the Nephews once more encounter a wayward parrot, and Gyro tries to relax and enjoy a Gyro Burger (which inspired our own version, the John Burger!). Had and have.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #44 (December 1973)

Just what it says on the cover (note the Ducks encounter another parrot!). Didn’t have it at the time.

Walt Disney Comics Digest #45 (February 1974)

Several circus or snow themed tales. Plus, Bucky Bug has a run of bad luck, Goofy tries to impress his nephew Gilbert as a detective, and this time Dumbo encounters the Seven Dwarfs and Willy the Giant! Didn’t have it then but now do.     

 

Also contemporary with the time: Susan was born in July. To put it in perspective, there were forty-one issues of Walt Disney Comics Digest between Kenny and Susan. Only around five years, but that was about half my lifetime!