Ashley Quach's 'Das Wampyr' cards

A while back I contributed to the Kickstarter for Mark Sable and Salgood Sam's Dracula: Son of the Dragon. One of the rewards I signed up for was a set of three 'Das Wampyr' cards from Ashley Quach, the wonderful cartoonist behind Sassquach. They arrived this week, and they're so awesome that I have to share them.

Backers could choose any vampires they wanted, so being a movie fan, I asked for each card to have an element from the three most iconic film Draculas.

First, I asked for old school Nosferatu:



Then, instead of Bela Lugosi as Dracula, I asked for his three brides:



And finally, I asked for Hammer Dracula:



Ashley is pretty great.

Merry Christmas. At Your Service.

This scene from Alastair Sim's Scrooge has always stuck with me. Sim's version adds a bunch of extra stuff in Christmas past, including the first meeting between Scrooge (on the right) and Marley. What's stayed with me though is their greeting. "Your servant, Mr. Scrooge," says Marley. And the proper reply is, "Your servant, Mr. Marley."

This wasn't the first time I'd heard that. I read enough Victorian literature as a kid to have had it drilled into me, and there's also a notable variation of it in The Hobbit:

He hung his hooded cloak on the nearest peg, and "Dwalin at your service!" he said with a low bow.

"Bilbo Baggins at yours!" said the hobbit, too surprised to ask any questions for the moment.

According to History.org, the greeting goes back to the 18th century and was common between people who were more or less social equals. That means that an actual servant would never have used it on his employer (because that would be ridiculously redundant) and it was pretty much only used between men. Of course, like with any social ritual, it eventually lost it's meaning, so saying "your servant" or "at your service" didn't actually mean you were ready to serve. No more than asking, "How are you?" today means that you're really willing to hear the honest answer to that question. It became merely a politeness.

But what if it wasn't?

On this Christmas Day, after spending a lot of time thinking about A Christmas Carol and particularly the scene with the charitable solicitors, it feels right to think about service as well. In the story, the portly gentlemen put themselves at the service of the poor for that one day, if no other time. Dickens wrote eloquently in that scene and others about the need for human beings to serve each other, regardless of how "deserving" the recipients of that service are.

And not just at Christmas, either. As Scrooge tells the final spirit at the end of the story, "I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year." And it occurs to me that honoring and keeping Christmas all the year is best done in the saying to people, and meaning it, "At your service."

Something I'll be thinking about as I make New Year's Resolutions.

Santa hates cephalopods

By Jose Alves da Silva.

Oh sure, he looks delighted, but I'm pretty sure that's actually fear and hatred.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

"You Wish to Be Anonymous?" | Graphic Classics, Volume 19: Christmas Classics (2010)

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After breezing quickly through the first two scenes, Alex Burrows and Micah Farritor slow down a tad with the solicitors and give them two full pages. It's still heavily abridged, but like some of the other short adaptations, that can work in its favor. The solicitors don't come off nearly as clueless as they do in the full Dickens.

Other than that, there are a couple of things worth mentioning with this one. The lead solicitor has a sad, weary look to him. That could be meant to convey depth of feeling for his cause, or it could just mean he's had a long day, but it's a different approach to the character.

There's also a quick flashback panel to Marley's funeral when Scrooge mentions that Marley's been dead these seven years. This is the first time Marley's been mentioned in this version, so it's a good spot to put a look at the lonely scene with only Scrooge and two officiants (the priest and the undertaker, I presume) in attendance.

And that's that! Thanks for following along. This was another fun exercise for me and I hope you enjoyed it too. Happy Holidays!

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | Campfire’s A Christmas Carol (2010)

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Re-reading my posts on this adaptation from the last couple of years, I see that I was presumptuous about the parts that writer Scott McCullar was responsible for and which parts were by artist Naresh Kumar. One of the things I've been reminded of this year is that it's difficult to know what kind of collaboration an artist and writer have. I know that Jason's made suggestions that have changed the script of Kill All Monsters and I've had input to some of the visual elements, so it's not always as clear as it first appears. I should have known better, so from here out I'm going to quit blaming Kumar for all the visual flaws of the Campfire edition and simply write about the work itself.

There do continue to be major flaws in the scene with the solicitors, but it opens with something that I mentioned last year that I like. As Fred is leaving Scrooge's office, Scrooge insults Cratchit for celebrating Christmas on his miserable salary. That's straight from Dickens, but in the original text Scrooge is muttering it to himself. In the Campfire comic, he's saying it out loud and the word balloons spill into the next panel where the solicitors are greeting Scrooge. What that suggests is that Scrooge is badmouthing his clerk - and revealing his salary - in front of potential customers. That's a bold, dickish action and I kind of love Scrooge for it.

I also like the perturbed look that the lead solicitor (on the right) gives Scrooge in the first panel above. Rather than seem confused by Scrooge's comments, he appears to get it. Sadly, that doesn't make sense with the rest of the scene when the same character (inexplicably white-haired in the next panel) continues to press on with his pitch. There's also some awkwardness with the balloon placement in that third panel, making it look like Scrooge's "Nothing" is a response to the offer of anonymity.

There are a couple of other oddities in the next two panels, but like Scrooge's jerkiness at the scene's opening, they can be read in a way that enhances the story. When Scrooge dismisses the men, he waves a friendly goodbye while talking about decreasing the surplus population. He's not just mean; he's cheerfully mean.

And then there's the end of the scene with Scrooge seated, thinking, "Good afternoon, gentlemen." Like the stuff above, we can either read that as a mistake (which I imagine it is), or accept it as the way this version is told and just read it as it is. The second option is way more fun and what that does is create a Scrooge who is so pleased with his own meanness that he's savoring the idea that he's just ruined the rest of these guys' day. Read that way, McCullar and Kumar's Scrooge goes beyond just being miserable and mean; he's actively evil. That should make his redemption - if he is redeemed - very interesting.

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | Jim Carrey (2009)

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In Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol, the charitable solicitor scene has a couple of things in common with TNT's Patrick Stewart version. Instead of a pamphlet, Zemeckis has the solicitors offer Scrooge a card as credentials, but there's also a shot where Cratchit looks rather nervous at what's about to happen and sneaks away back to his little office. Gary Oldman plays this Cratchit as kind of a simpleton though, so we get an idiotic smile from him first as he approvingly listens to the solicitors.

When Scrooge corrects the gentlemen about Marley's death, he does it with a dramatic, ominous flourish. He not only wants to set them straight, he wants them to be uneasy about it. And this is before they've even mentioned why they're there. Jim Carrey's Scrooge is aggressively offensive. Stewart's Scrooge has built walls to keep people out, but Carrey's also has soldiers atop them to shoot at anyone who stops to show interest.

He calmly listens to their pitch, sliding his candle closer to look at their card, and when they finish, he responds in a careful, measured way. "Are there no prisons?" he purrs, holding the card close enough to the candle that it starts to sizzle.

The lead gentleman snatches the card away before it can burn. He's skeptical and cautious at first in how he answers Scrooge, obviously thrown off his game, but then he rallies and continues his pitch until Scrooge growls that he only wishes to be left alone. He asks the men to leave and they comply.

Overall, there's not a lot new here, but that's been the way with most of the adaptations. The solicitors generally show some hesitation when Scrooge asks about prisons and workhouses, but soldier on, thinking that they must have misunderstood him. They're simply not used to this kind of response. In addition to showing us more of Scrooge's attitude about the world, the scene highlights the contrast between his view and the rest of correct-thinking society.

In reality, Scrooge's view wasn't so different from a lot of powerful men in Victorian London, but Dickens writes as if it is. These portly - in Zemeckis' version, extremely portly - gentlemen may make merry all year round, but at least at this one time of year they think beyond themselves and consider those less fortunate. And they're used to seeing that attitude in everyone they talk to. It's not a radical kind of compassion, it's simply the baseline that any human being should be expected to possess. But Scrooge doesn't even have that.

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

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One of the things I've paid attention to the last couple of years with Classical Comics' A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel is how closely the adaptation adheres to its claim that it's the "original text." In previous scenes, there have been some abridgements, but for this one we get the whole thing.

It works rather well, too. Writer Sean Michael Wilson and artist Mike Collins give the scene four pages with plenty of room for reaction shots like the one above. I quite like that beat with the solicitors' looking at each other to see if they're reading Scrooge the same way. Other than that, the reactions are all ones that we expect - Scrooge is grumpy; the men are perplexed - but I like that the scene has room to breathe even if it doesn't add much new to our understanding of the characters.

One other thing I was reminded of though as I revisited Dickens' text to compare it with this one, was that Dickens has the lead gentleman present his credentials to Scrooge. Wilson and Collins include that (and Scrooge's handing them back), but it only now occurs to me that that's also what was going on in Patrick Stewart's version with the pamphlet. And we'll see it again in Jim Carrey's tomorrow.

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | Patrick Stewart (1999)

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Like with a couple of other adaptations, TNT's movie starring Patrick Stewart gets clever with the introduction of the charitable solicitors. They stop Scrooge's nephew on the street after he's left his uncle and ask him for directions to the office. They tell them that they're new to the area (something that will come up again shortly) and are collecting charitable donations for the poor. Fred is confused at first, but figures out that they're completely unfamiliar with Scrooge. Oddly, he doesn't warn them, but gives them directions and watches them go with a bemused, "those poor bastards" expression. As we noticed in the last scene, this Fred can be kind of a jerk.

True to their newness in the area, the men don't know if they're addressing Scrooge or Marley, so Scrooge corrects them in the traditional way. Stewart gives it an interesting twist though by making Scrooge seem to recollect just at that moment that Marley died seven years ago that very night. It's a little weird since Scrooge and Cratchit were talking about Marley's death before Fred came in, but maybe Scrooge didn't connect that it was the actual anniversary. Stewart's Scrooge doesn't seem to hate Christmas so much as he simply dismisses it. (Scrooge's specific feelings about Christmas and why the various adaptations suggest that he feels that way is something I want to look at next year when we cover Cratchit's asking for time off. Hopefully I'll remember.)

The lead solicitor introduces himself as Williams - his companion is Foster - and hands Scrooge a pamphlet that Scrooge doesn't yet look at. The men offer their sympathy, which immediately makes Scrooge suspicious. He nervously asks if they're relatives and I wonder if he suspects them of looking for an inheritance from the business. He's relieved when they explain that they're not, but his suspicions go up again when they use the word "generosity." He finally looks at their pamphlet and hands it back with a sigh.

As the gentleman continue to explain why they're there, Cratchit looks uncomfortable about what he knows is about to happen and slinks back into his office. With a sneer, Scrooge says that he takes it that the gentlemen are new to the district. He obviously has a reputation and he's rather proud of it.

The rest of the scene proceeds pretty much as Dickens wrote it, with Stewart alternating between perfectly sincere delivery of his lines and making faces during theirs. Scrooge is doing everything he can to let them know that he's not interested, but they don't seem to grasp it. When they finally ask him what they can put him down for, his "Nothing" is a harsh challenge to continue the conversation.

Of course, they still can't believe it and ask if he wishes anonymity. He tiredly whispers, "I wish to be left alone" like he means it. I noted in the last couple of scenes that Stewart's Scrooge is a severely lonely man. He seemed to have some emotion connected to Marley at the funeral, but displays none of it seven years later. He's throwing up walls all over the place like he's desperate to push people away, but I can still see sadness occasionally peeking through in Stewart's performance. It's a genius bit of acting.

He talks about decreasing the surplus population very matter-of-factly and makes Cratchit show the disbelieving gentlemen out. There's no emotion in his dismissal. The walls are firmly in place.

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | Michael Caine (1992)

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I mentioned this last year, but The Muppet Christmas Carol is unique in that it has the charitable solicitors' visit overlap Fred's by a considerable margin. Other adaptations may have the two men come in as Fred's leaving, but here they get to interact quite a bit. As Fred's just finishing up his speech about how wonderful Christmas is, Gonzo cuts in to introduce the audience to the "well-meaning gentlemen (who) call upon businesses collecting for the poor and homeless." Cue Professor Honeydew and Beaker.

It's great casting since in Dickens the second gentleman remains silent for the entire scene anyway. Most adaptations correct this by sharing the dialogue between the two characters, but the Muppets don't have to since Beaker simply meeps behind Honeydew. Honeydew himself makes an interesting solicitor, but I'll come back to that in a second.

It's interesting that there's no confusion about whether Scrooge is Scrooge or Marley. In spite of Marley's name on the sign outside, Honeydew presumes he's Scrooge. Maybe he's done a little research and learned that the Marley brothers are dead?

Scrooge's reaction to them is interesting. His "Who are you?" is curt, but not offensive. If he thinks they're customers, he's not excited to take their money like Scrooge McDuck is, nor is he outright rude with them like Reginald Owen. He knows that they need something from him and he exerts that power right away in the relationship while still leaving the door open for them to do business. It fits with Michael Caine's portrayal so far of a Scrooge who has obtained his power and money through smarts and cleverness.

(Interesting, but meaningless side note: Honeydew gives Scrooge the name of the organization they're collecting for. It's the Order of Victoria Charity Foundation. )

Since Fred is still there, he has some more fun with his uncle by gleefully misrepresenting Scrooge to the solicitors as a generous man. That gets a growl from Scrooge, but he regains his humor for most of his conversation with Honeydew. That's similar to what we saw in the Alastair Sim cartoon and with Scrooge McDuck, but we've also already seen that humor in Caine's Scrooge in the first couple of scenes. Again, he's a smart, clever man and that means that he also has to be somewhat self-aware. When he says horrible things, it betrays the darkness of his heart, but he often does it with a chuckle, so he's at least attempting to disguise his wickedness as humor.

That only confuses Honeydew though, who on The Muppet Show traditionally also had a dark sense of humor in the way he let horrible things happen to Beaker during experiments. Even though Honeydew is playing a character here, he does it with his typical mannerisms and one of those is that his response to horrible things is sometimes laughter. Since Scrooge is also laughing at unpleasant things, Honeydew can't really tell if they're kindred spirits or not. He has a hard time figuring out if Scrooge is serious and the offer of anonymity is a result of that.

Scrooge gets serious with his, "I wish to be left alone," which leads into one of my favorite exchanges in the whole movie. Scrooge says that he doesn't make himself merry at Christmas, to which Fred replies, "That certainly is true." But then Scrooge follows it up with the traditional, "And I cannot afford to make idle people merry," to which Fred replies, "That is certainly not true."

This causes Scrooge to turn his attention back to Fred and finish up their conversation that we talked about last year. There's a nice, final moment between Fred and the solicitors though when Fred drops some coins into Beaker's hand and says that he's leaving Scrooge to make his donation.

Possibly because Fred has hinted that Scrooge will still donate, or possibly because Honeydew and Beaker are a little dense anyway, the solicitors stay at Scrooge's desk, patiently (and hilariously) waiting for his offering. That finishes his patience and we see him finally lose his temper on the way to the door to show them out. When he talks about the surplus population, he's shouting furiously.

Another unique aspect of this version is that the solicitors are equally frustrated. In most versions, they're saddened by Scrooge's attitude, but Honeydew is clearly flustered and Beaker actually scolds Scrooge on the way out. There's an emotional level in the parting that isn't reached in other versions (so far, anyway), so it's natural that Scrooge is still angry when he closes the door and sees the wreath that Fred left hanging on the knob. Scrooge picks it up and opens the door to throw the greenery at the solicitors (a la Scrooge McDuck), but what he finds on the other side... is something we'll wait until next year to discuss.

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | George C. Scott (1984)

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Yesterday I went on about how Scrooge McDuck is the most relatable Ebenezer Scrooge, completely forgetting that I'd already awarded George C. Scott that distinction last year. I should quit making it a contest, because each character is believable in different ways. The joy with which McDuck celebrates his wealth feels familiar and human, but it's an exaggerated, comical glee. The way Scott relates to his money is more subdued. He's a smart businessman and I get the feeling that he finds more pleasure in a shrewdly negotiated deal than in wealth for its own sake. That becomes really apparent in a scene that the '84 Christmas Carol adds to Dickens' text.

This version moves the charitable solicitors to a little later in the story and by the time we get there, Scrooge has become less sympathetic than he was in the first two scenes where he seemed put upon by Bob Cratchit and Fred. We'll cover Scrooge and Cratchit's time-off negotiation in detail next year, but Scrooge makes some good (if entirely selfish) points about paying for work that's not done. As I'm still sort of reluctantly nodding my head at that though, Scrooge has a couple of moments of pure meanness. The first of which involves Tiny Tim, who's waiting outside the office for his father. I think I'll cover that more next year.

The second moment is what I was alluding to above about Scrooge's attitude towards business. He leaves the office to finish his day at the Exchange and we see him playing hardball with some other gentlemen. Scrooge has corn that the others desperately want, but they haven't yet agreed on a price. Scrooge demands five percent more than what he asked the day before and threatens to raise the cost another five percent the following day if they don't agree to his terms. They point out that if he doesn't sell to them he'll be stuck with a warehouse full of useless corn, but he doesn't seem to care. I suspect he's bluffing, but he's very good at it and they cave. He's thoroughly convincing that he'd rather eat the cost of the corn than not be able to exploit these men and in turn their customers who - though poverty stricken - will have to pay more as well.

With that act of ruthlessness still fresh, the charitable solicitors (one of whom is played by Alfred from the '90s Batman movies) approach Scrooge. Still pleased from his victory over his peers, Scrooge is immediately rude to the solicitors before they even explain what they want. Unlike Reginald Owen's version though, the incivility of Scott's Scrooge makes sense. That's partly because the encounter is at the Exchange and he doesn't know of any business he needs to conduct with these guys, but even if he did have business with them, we've already seen the incivility with which he conducts his affairs. People do business with Scrooge because he's powerful and they have to, not because they want to. Dickens says that Scrooge is a powerful man on the Exchange, but unlike adaptations where Scrooge comes across as petty and pathetic, Scott makes me believe it.

Though Scrooge is mean to them, he does it with a perfect, gentlemanly smile until they mention giving to the poor. At that point his grin drops and it's clear that he thinks they're complete lunatics. The conversation follows Dickens closely, which means that it's a little weird and the two, kind-hearted gentlemen come off as clueless at best and doddering at worst. They don't pick up on the clear message that Scrooge not only isn't interested, but is morally opposed to helping anyone but himself. With that, I'm back to understanding him again. I may not like him, but I get why he feels superior when surrounded by such fools.

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | Scrooge McDuck (1983)

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Possibly because Mickey's Christmas Carol puts as much value on humor as on faithfulness to Dickens, its Scrooge is arguably the most relatable version ever. As I've mentioned before, Disney's Scrooge isn't a miserable miser; he's a merry one. Unlike most other Scrooges, he gets joy out of his wealth and has a robust sense of humor. That's never more evident than in his encounter with the charitable solicitors, played in this version by Rat and Mole from The Wind in the Willows. (I used to get Rat confused with Basil from The Great Mouse Detective, because of his pipe and hat, but that character looks completely different.)

When Rat and Mole enter, Scrooge first thinks that they're Fred, coming back to irritate Scrooge some more. And why not? He quickly realizes his mistake though and warmly welcomes the pair, now thinking that they're customers. And again, why wouldn't he? For all his silliness, this Scrooge behaves more rationally around prospective customers than either Reginald Owen or the cartoon version of Alastair Sim.

Of course, when their true purpose is revealed, Scrooge changes his tune, but not dramatically or even noticeably. He has this in common with the cartoon Sim: he has a private joke at their expense. In Disney Scrooge's case, he cheerfully defeats them with logic, pointing out that if they give money to the poor, they won't be poor anymore, which means that Rat and Mole won't have to raise money for them anymore and will be out of a job. "Oh, please, gentlemen," he concludes. "Don't ask me to put you out of a job. Not on Christmas Eve!"

As he does this, he shows them outside, almost without their even realizing it. Once there, he turns nasty and throws Fred's wreath at them, saying that they can give that to the poor. Finally rid of them, he states outright his problem with charity: "What's this world coming to, Cratchit? You work all your life to get money, and people want you to give it away." It's the most clear - and again, relatable - rationale for Scrooge's bad behavior that we'll ever get in any version.

I'm not saying that a rational, relatable Scrooge is preferable to the more sinister, dramatically wicked versions, but it's a unique take and I'm glad it exists.