Trying to identify a strip

[mbc1955]

Phoenix

Once again, many thanks. Strange to see that the two stories all but overlapped each other.

I wonder if the text version was a little less unsubtle at its final Crime Does Not Pay moral?

[Phoenix]

I wonder if the text version was a little less unsubtle at its final Crime Does Not Pay moral?

Not really, if we are simply dealing with a sequence of events. There were obviously more events in the text tale, and more details about the various relationships, but that is fundamentally down to the inability of a picture strip to deliver narrative. It merely selects the most interesting plot elements and converts them into pictures. Readers of the text stories did that for themselves in their imagination, and still had all the breadth and subtlety that the writers put there in the first place. If we then factor in, in the case of Crib Carson - Fighter, that the text story is roughly twice as long as its picture repeat, you can clearly see the way the strip is disadvantaged.

To be honest, I'm not that convinced anyway by your view that the last two panels are sympathy-reversing, unlike those in Sohrab The Warrior. From the outset Carson was cheating, so for me it was just a question of how long it would be before he got found out and received his just deserts. A reader who was genuinely surprised or shocked by those last panels must have approved of Carson's underhand and illegal activities throughout the story. A sign of the times? Crime does not pay in Thomsonworld, but I will admit that it is unusual for the protagonist to be the criminal.

[mbc1955]

That's a very valid point, and all I can say in response is that, as a mid 9 year old reading the story, I smply don't recall getting any sense that we were suppose to disapprove of the 'hero's actions. Not having read the story since 1965, I'm in no position to be authoritative, but my recollection is that the various dodges and things that the hero got up to were not cheating per se, but a form of what we'd now call gamesmanship: which is, according to Potter's definition, "the art of winning without actually cheating" (my italics).

I remember it as being invited to applaud the 'hero's cleverness, week in, week out, and that there was nothing whatsoever that even approached the penultimate panel reversal of the announcement that Carson was disqualified for sticking his thumb in his opponent's eye: I mean, his dodge for that match was to rub chalk-dust into his face to make himself appear a little ill and weaker than he truly was.

It's the abruptness of that reversal, from 12 weeks of being invited to admire Carson's ingenuity, to a two-panel crash from the sudden descent into unforgivable cheating to the dole queue which has left the ending impressed on my mind all these years and a certain amount of puzzled re-reading of the whole story, trying to work it out. If we were meant to suspect Carson from the off, then the story represented a level of sophistication above my head at 9.

Am I correct in assuming that you read the text story first, on its publication? I wouldn't even have been 2 at that time.

[philcom55]

I can't help feeling it's a shame that nobody has written an authoritative history of the classic DC Thomson story papers such as Adventure or Wizard. Of course it would be a monumental task, and might possibly require the efforts of more than one dedicated archivist. Nevertheless, we can at least dream.

Maybe one day...!

- Phil Rushton

[Phoenix]

It's the abruptness of that reversal, from 12 weeks of being invited to admire Carson's ingenuity

This is where our views differ. I don't think we are being invited to admire Carson's ingenuity at all. Observe, yes. But it is important to see the wider picture by taking a look at Thomsons' real sporting heroes such as Alf Tupper, Bernard Briggs, William Wilson, Wally Brand, Rob Higson etc, because none of them would ever have entertained the idea of using any underhand tactics to gain unfair advantage over any opponent or rival. Carson is guilty of using fourteen of them during the twelve episode serial. Actually, the thrust of the story is repeatedly emphasised in the initial text introduction to each picture strip instalment with comments such as ...he took no chances and used shady tricks to make sure of winning his fights. The difference between the legitimate tactic and the illegitimate one can be easily seen if we compare on the one hand, the one of the boxer who stands his ground and sways back to draw his opponent in, knowing that his own counter would have a good chance of knocking said opponent out, with, on the other hand, Carson's instruction to his corner to put snuff on his hair so that in a similar close confrontation his opponent, Gus Henkel, would start sneezing, opening himself up to the knockout that followed. It is worth remembering too that Carson wasn't actually winning some of the bouts in which he employed such questionable tactics.

Am I correct in assuming that you read the text story first, on its publication?

Yes, but like you I was reading The Wizard, The Rover, Adventure and The Hotspur at the age of nine, but I was never in any doubt which were the goodies and which were the baddies, although many of the characters were unsure, but then that's what makes for a good story. These have been my final comments on this topic.

[mbc1955]

Thank you for discussing the matter, and for the additional information you've given. I've no doubt that if I read the series again now, I'd come to the same conclusion, and please don't think that I've been arguing with you over it, merely trying to relay impressions and vague memories almost a half century old. It would seem I wasn't as careful a reader as I might have been.