Thursday, December 17, 2020

Baby Huey The Baby Giant!


I have to admit right up front that I am not much of a Baby Huey fan. I've always found the character unattractive and limited in terms of the comedy. The doofus-who-doesn't-know-his-own-strength is a but one-note for me. That said there's still some fine artistic craftsmanship to found in these pages for characters such as Herman, Katnip and Buzzy the Crow who are more directly taken from the Paramount stable. 


In point of fact I guess no single comic was more directly drawn (literally and figuratively) than was Baby Huey since Paramount animation talents were directly enlisted to illustrate the earliest misadventures of the world's biggest, strongest and dopiest duck. Apparently Baby Huey was dreamed up by an animator for the Famous Studios but before the cartoon itself could materialize debuted in the comics. Such was the synthesis of the two mediums at the time. 


I confess one of the things that annoys me about Huey is the diaper. He is so clearly wearing a diaper and it's such a voluminous bit of apparel that I cannot stop thinking about it. It distracts me from the narratives they try to weave around him. It's a symbol of his unshaking innocence I know, but it's also a symbol of incapacity and helplessness and I don't like my protagonists to be helpless. Down and out from time to time for certain, on the ropes once in a while for sure, but not perpetually helpless. And I know Huey with his immense strength is not helpless but he presents as if he were all the time. (And don't bring up that Hot Stuff wears a diaper too and I like him a lot...I'm not consistent on this point.)


Harvey Comics Classics Volume Four Baby Huey the Giant Baby is a bargain for so much diverting comics material. Still and all these were some funny tales, and in black and white the diaper doesn't bother me as much. 

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