DC, DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

MY SCROOGE IS GONE

Tad Stones, producer on "Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers" and "Darkwing Duck," offered his tribute to Alan Young on Twitter over the weekend.

pic.twitter.com/SrLPKkanbj- Tad Stones (@TadStones) May 21, 2016

To the consternation of many old school Duck fans, I'm sure, I came to Duck fandom through DuckTales. I never knew of an Uncle Scrooge who spoke in anyone's voice other than Alan Young, even going back a bit to "Mickey's Christmas Carol," which I had seen earlier.

Sadly, Young died this week at the age of 93. He continued to be the voice of Scrooge up until a couple of years ago. The new "DuckTales" series will have to go on without him, which will take some getting used to. Let's hope they don't just hire Mike Myers (Shrek) to be the new Scrooge. He needs more than just the Scottish accent and the ability to properly pronounce "The heather in the loch goes round and round the block."

The funny thing is, I knew Alan Young as Wilbur before I knew him as Uncle Scrooge. Sit back, kids, and let Grandpa Augie tell you a short story: In the early '80s, when Nickelodeon was new, the station didn't program a never-ending diet of Dan Schneider-created tween sit-coms. Schneider wouldn't even don the guise of Dennis Blunden for a few more years.

HISTORY OF COMICS IS A FOOL'S ERRAND

WHO'S COPYING WHO?

This is a question I ask every so often as the landscape of (mostly superhero) comics shifts:

What style is everyone copying today?

25 years ago, it was easy. Everyone was trying to be Jim Lee, who was already just trying to be Art Adams. That style took hold fiercely not just across Homage/Wildstorm, but particularly poorly at Marvel and DC.

Joe Madureira came around and a new wave of artists tried that manga style.

Bryan Hitch inspired the photorealistic/cinematic knock-offs.

But who's the artist that everyone coming up next wants to be now? Who's the influencer?

Has comic art fragmented to such a degree now that we don't have that one style anymore? That would be a good thing.

Lots of people express their admiration for the likes of Darwyn Cooke or Frank Quitely or Chris Samnee or Art Adams (still), but are there lots of copycats of those styles? I don't think so.

Has the industry matured to the point where the entry point is so high that such copycats don't have a chance to get through? Those Jim Lee rip-offs came at a time when Marvel was expanding super fast in the face of mad money to push everyone else off the racks. We don't have that issue these days.

Do we need to look at DeviantArt and other on-line sites to get a grip on what that new Wannabe style is?

I don't have an answer to this one. If you have any ideas, please tweet them at me or leave a message on the Pipeline message board. The links for both of those are at the end of this column.

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