Austin J. Jenkins

The Beagle Boys; Cosmic Con-Trick (1988)

Synopsis: In order to rob the bank without being spotted by streetlight, The Beagle Boys trick everyone in Duckburg into thinking a never-before seen comet will pass by that night, but the town must be blacked-out first in order to see it.

Cosmic Contrick (D 9118) | I.N.D.U.C.K.S.

“Cosmic Con-trick” (Which is a very stupid name that’s not even spelled correctly on Inducks), if one of the many hundreds of comic stories that not only feature Scrooge’s #1 worry, The Beagle Boys, but also makes them the main characters of the story. While this does sound like something completely unique to Europe, with how much they heavily adore any of the characters Carl Barks created, this was actually originally done first in America. When Western Publishing’s comic book division was now under Gold Key, they started new different comic book series and spinoffs to get as many kids’ attention as they could. While I argue that Looney Tunes had the biggest amount of these (why in god’s green name is one of the spin-off series of issues “Daffy Duck and The Roadrunner”), Disney was no stranger to these, with The Beagle Boys having a good amount of solo issues to their name. When places like Italy and Denmark slowly got ahold of these stories, naturally, they figured it would be cool to create their own solo Beagle Boys stories. That’s where this story comes in, as the only characters presented here are the titular criminals. No ducks, ganders, chickens or geese present.

As for this story itself, It’s alright. Xavier Vives Mateu is the artist behind this one, who originally started out doing mostly nothing but stories and front covers of the Beagle Boys for a couple of years in the late 80s. His artstyle, while nothing completely unique or different compared to most of the other solid duck artists in Denmark, still is very clean, solid and expressive with just the amount of detail on the characters to make them fully formed. The actual story itself is… fine. I’m not sure why they thought that the entire Duckburg police squad would stand around watching comets and not be on the lookout for the same exact criminals that always pull off some crazy heist, get arrested, get out and then repeat the never-ending cycle. Then again, they keep letting these guys OUT of jail every single time they try to steal something, so they probably just like going after them like if they’re all playing a game of Cops-and-Robbers. I mean, their biggest worry is an insanely hot-tempered Duck who can’t hold a job for a single day without burning half the town down in the process, so The Beagle Boys are probably alot easier to handle for the police.

Everyone in Duckburg must have no worries in life if a literal firework shop, with uncovered and unprotected loaded rockets and missiles no less, has their empty store door unlocked and completely wide-open. Either they ain't making any kind of cash or they just legit do not care. I'm going with the latter.

I don't know why but an official Disney comic ending with one of it's characters having massive stomach pains and implying that he's gonna have the runs later is so oddly gross, it's fascinating to me.