Comic Review #66: Count Duckula #8 (1989)

 

Holy hot Hannah! I'm sorry if I promised a different review somewhere else but I was just reminded of this and well it's the perfect time of year to discuss a comic book like this. It was clearly tailor made for me. It's about a semi-obscure cartoon, a conservative dope reporter that I can make fun of, and it's a comic book! How is there anything more perfectly made for me? It'ts awesome. That's the reason I plan to review it. There's also another reason. After the next 3 Final Episodes go up I want to put that on hiatus until The Comic Review and Movie Review columns get up to the same number (#86 is where I will stop the Final Episode) and I'm sorry but Count Duckula just didn't make the final cut. Thankfully I still have this comic book so I can discuss it anyway!

Count Duckula for you out of the know was a cartoon series from the late 1980s. It started in 1988 and ended in 1993. It was joint created by Nickelodeon and Cosgrove Hall Studios in Great Britain. I could Count Duckula as the very first NickToon and I don't care what the rest of you hooligans think. I haven't seen too much of this show as an adult but I did really enjoy what I saw. It also has the greatest theme song ever and the greatest ending theme too. This is something I will not argue about ever. If you don't agree I don't care. Count Duckula ran on Thames Television (the British may call the river the Tames or Timmies or something else but damnit theres a H in there and in my house we respect the letter H so it's the damn Thames studio, you fucks). I don't know how many shows we brought over here from Thames Television but holy shit I remember the ident like there's no tomorrow. it is the best ident ever. 

I know I talked about Care Bears #1 and all that but I feel I should talk about Marvel and Star Comics and Licensed comics for a bit in this paragraph. Marvel got into making licensed comics in the late 1970s with Star Wars. It seemed the second they got Star Wars and it was a hit they tried every license in the universe. 1978 came Micronauts based of the toy line. ROM, Spaceknight over a short lived toy in 1979. Then came G.I. Joe in 1982. 1984 brought the world the sheer wild insanity of the Marvel Comics Transformers. So around this time they decide to give  licensing like every 80s cartoon they could under the sun. They even created a few new characters (some of these "new" characters were insane ripoffs of Harvey Comics. They even got sued) They put all of this stuff under an imprint called Star Comics. Star Comics gave us Care Bears, Top Dog, Heathcliff, Silverhawks, Visionaries, Master of the Universe and ThunderCats. I don't know if that's all of them but those are clearly the ones I think of right away. 

Now comes the paragraph where I talk about some of the people who made this comic book. The first guy is Michael Gallagher who wrote stories for I'm pretty sure for Care Bears, Top Dog, Heathcliff, Count Duckula and Alf. Yes I'll talk about the Alf comic book sometime after Halloween.  He also wrote for the early issues of Sonic the Hedgehog. He is also the nephew of the creator of Heathcliff. He is cool as hell. Warren Kremer did the art and it's nice and cartoony. Sadly he worked and created several Harvey Cartoon characters so I can never truly love him. Grace Kremer worked on this comic too and she might be related but I don't know. She also worked on some Ewoks and Droids. Bill Sinkevitch a very wild and out there artist on stuff like The New Mutants did some work as a inker. 

This comic starts with Geraldo Rivera and his film crew talking about Al Capon and what could be in this room he lived in! This is a big old take on his "Al Capone's Vault" special. He pretty much fucked up and not a single thing was in the vault. I would like have to seen that because it sounds pretty funny because Geraldo Rivera is kind of a doofus. He of course runs into Count Duckula who tells him that his Great Grandfather Count ChristopherDuckLee gave him a room. He uses it now to keep his salad oil safe. He says he is a  Vampire Duck which freaks Geraldo out. They end up going to the castle to meet Nanny and Igor. Igor tells Geraldo the story of how Count Duckula became a vegetarian vampire duck. It was because Nanny gave him Ketchup instead of Blood. Now Count Duckula likes heads of lettuce instead of human heads. Igor is very sad about this. Nanny is a big dumb brute. Think of a British Duck Hulk. 

Geraldo then says he should come on the Geraldo Show and talk about well being a vampire duck on his Halloween Special. We then see Doctor Von Goosewing who is very angry about a commercial for the upcoming special. Doctor Von Goosewing is the Van Helsing of the Count Duckula world. Count Duckula uses his castle to transport him and everyone else to New York. All of the New Yorkers there are stupid assholes and don't want to look at this cool castle that just appeared out of no where. New Yorkers, more like New Jerkers. Yeah I told them!

They find Geraldo and they start taping the show. His guests are Steven Kink (In his books the monsters and the main woman have sex) Elivrus (I assume she's like Elivra and Elvis. That would be cool actually!) , Roger Water Meterson (I don't know?!) and a special guest. The special guest turns out to be Count Duckula. Geraldo introduces him and then tells them they will get his story AFTER a word from out sponsors. After the commercials and Geraldo starts talking to Count Duckula, FUCKIN GOOSEWING jumps out from behind the special guest thing Duckula was behind earlier and causes a big ruckus. Trying to shoot Count Duckula with some stakes and EVEN Geraldo gets in on the fight. Nanny breaks Goosewings gun. Goosewing runs away and Igor fuckin breaks Geraldo's nose. 

Geraldo is informed that his other guests have run off and then asks what will go wrong next? The producer guy tells him that there are some technical difficulties and people want to see Geraldo. Oh man you know what happens! It turns out that since he is a vampire duck he cannot be seen in mirrors or on Video. This pisses Geraldo the FUCK off and he kicks Count Duckula and Igor out. He tries to kick Nanny out but breaks his foot. He then goes to tell his audience of weirdos who wanted to hear about  Steven Kink's weirdo stories about monster sex that there's no Halloween special now. Igor, Nanny and Count Duckula all go back to the castle. 

FINAL VERDICT: This comic is an incredible amount of fun. The art is very fun and expressive just like the cartoon. The comedy is pretty amusing but some of it misses. Still this is another really fun Star Comics Comic. Try saying that three times fast!