Review by Ian Keogh
Nuft and his family are a bunch of friendly dragons whose adventures have delighted Danish children since the 1980s, during which these stories also appeared in US anthology Critters, but colour has been added for this volume.
Creator Freddy Milton makes no secret of his admiration for the work of Carl Barks, his introduction lovingly recalling his first exposure to Barks’ Donald Duck as a child and including a photo of his meeting the great man. Merely noting Milton doesn’t stray far from the Barks template of humour, well plotted escapades and good natured charm is to underestimate how difficult that recipe is to recreate.
The opening story has Nuft and the family deciding to move from the forest despite some city folk still being hostile to dragons. So wary are they, it’s necessary to rent the entire apartment block at 13 George Street to avoid complaints from the neighbours, but it’s plagued by poltergeists whose tricks they soon begin to experience. Although each ten page story is a separate adventure there’s also a connecting continuity, with the activities of the poltergeists stretching through them to a good ending.
As drawn by Milton, these dragons aren’t the traditional giant winged creatures breathing fire, but smaller beings, more like lizards and they’re constantly in action, rarely standing still. In this earlier work Milton still hasn’t mastered the use of space, and there are panels with too much going on, but the energy and enthusiasm count for a lot, and over three stories the art gradually declutters, leaving an attractive style as can be seen from one early page and one later page on the sample spread.
With the second story the debt to Barks becomes more obvious as alternative versions of Gyro Gearloose and his helper move into George Street, but although the inspiration is apparent, Milton supplies originality in the way they’re used. The helper, for instance, is a genius whose answers to questions are infuriatingly precise, and therefore incorrect for Nicky’s school purposes. On the other hand, mechanical efficiency and precision makes for many laughs in a satire taking in building safety and city politics from buck-passing to corruption to jobsworths. It’s excellent, and the cartooning has become really expansive as Milton becomes comfortable with a far wider range of characters.
The final story extrapolates how a city might progress with the Great Technowhiz in control. For a story produced in the mid-1980s it’s surprisingly prescient in anticipating later civic concerns and Milton also throws in few Biblical references. It’s also a morality play, warning about the dangers of eliminating all human concerns in the name of maximum efficiency. The plotting is smart, but complex in bringing together threads from several of the earlier stories.
Nuft and the Lost Dragons finishes with Milton’s first ever dragon story reworked. It’s interesting for a different style of drawing, but not nearly as polished as the remainder.
In an afterword Milton acknowledges in hindsight that some of the concepts employed mean these early Nuft stories can’t quite meet the needs of an all ages readership. However, they’re not pitched that far above, and contain enough moments of interest to keep younger readers entertained even if they’re not picking everything up, and adults able to access their inner child will enjoy them as well.
The Great Technowhiz only appears as a subtitle in the publication information, but serves to differ it from the next collection where the same applies to By Balloon to the North Pole.
