Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Jules Verne, Part 20

(Continued from Jules Verne, Part 19)

THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN NEMO
Episode 5  /  "MR. MALISON'S MANSION"

Now it gets complicated.  I had to do some research.  I used the search engine at the GCD site to locate all the remaining episodes, and found that the first 4 stories had all been reprinted in the Walt Disney's COMICS DIGEST anthology, out of sequence.  Following them, a new 5th episode made its debut, some 6 YEARS later.  It was only after completely cleaning up the scans, and then double-checking at both the GCD and Inducks sites that I realized there were actually 6 episodes, and I was missing the 5th one!  (The GCD does not have the 6th one listed at all-- but fortunately, the Inducks site does.)

At first, I thought the later ones might have been sitting around unpublished for several years, but on closer inspection of the art, I've come to the conclusion it was actually done NEW just for the digests.  Dan Spiegle's art, which I could barely recognize before, has noticeably evolved into the style I'm familiar with here, and, he's only using 4 panels per page, which to me, strongly indicates the story was created specifically for the smaller digest format.

Suffice to say, I'm rather proud at being able to re-present them here, all beautifully cleaned up, and in the proper sequence!

The shame is that, as far as I can tell, the last 2 Dan Spiegle episodes have never been printed in America in a regular, full-size comic-book.  Somebody who licenses Disney material should really look into correcting this.  I can easily picture a collection of all the Dell / Gold Key CAPTAIN NEMO material-- all 6 episodes by Dan Spiegle (clocking in at 60 pages plus covers) and the earlier 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation by Frank Thorne.  That would make a nice package, I think!  Until then, this blog will have to do.

Walt Disney's COMICS DIGEST  4  /
Cover by (??) & DAN SPIEGLE   (October 1968)
     reprints "Doom Island" from WORLD OF ADVENTURE #1
Walt Disney's COMICS DIGEST  8  /
Cover by (??)   (February 1969)
     reprints "The Mysterious Birdman" from WORLD OF ADVENTURE #3
Walt Disney's COMICS DIGEST  13  /
Cover by (??) & DANI SPIEGLE   (July 1969)
     reprints "Dr. Neptune's Sea Monsters"
          from THE HORSE WITHOUT A HEAD
Walt Disney's COMICS DIGEST  19  /
Cover by (??)   (January 1970)
     reprints "Lightning Justice" from WORLD OF ADVENTURE #2
 And now, finally, the first of two of these that's really essential...

Walt Disney's COMICS DIGEST  26  /
Cover by (??) & DAN SPIEGLE   (December 1970)
"MR. MALISON'S MANSION"  /
story by Gaylord DuBois (??)  /  art by DAN SPIEGLE
     (As I said above, I am currently MISSING this entire story.
          I'll keep a look-out for it...)
From the Inducks site:
     "Mr. Malison uses orphans as slaves to mine for gold"
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
(Continued in Jules Verne, Part 21)

Copyright (C) Walt Disney Productions

Cover scans from the GCD site
Raw scans of the story from the Nemo Nautilus site
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

Special thanks to Cory Gross for his blog article,
     & ?? for the scans of the story.

For More:
Read about Dan Spiegle at Wikipedia
Read about Dan Spiegle at Comic Book Resources
Read an interview with Dan Spiegle at the Dan Gheno site

See the 20,000 LEAGUES overview!
Read the Jesse Marsh 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Frank Thorne 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Wally Wood 20,000 LEAGUES parody!
Read the Jack Kirby 20,000 LEAGUES parody!
Read the Dan Spiegle CAPTAIN NEMO series!

Read the Jim Fair CAPTAIN NEMO series!
Read the Bill Baker 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Gary Gianni 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!
Read the Ernie Colon 20,000 LEAGUES adaptation!

See the JOURNEY overview!
See the MYSTERIOUS ISLAND overview!

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