Review by Win Wiacek
In 1940, British fighter pilot Roald Dahl survived a plane crash and was despatched to the USA to recuperate and perhaps do a little spying. During that period he began writing. His first children’s book was The Gremlins. It formalised much of the myth and superstition fondly fostered by airmen in a lovely story about a pilot named Gus who survives a dreadful crash and learns the truth about the mischievous, pixie-like creatures who wreck aircraft like his.
A fortuitous meeting with an American doctor who knew Walt Disney put Dahl in touch with the studio in an endeavour to create a morale-building feature film. Film critic Leonard Maltin’s introduction explains in captivating detail why it never left the drawing board, and it’s just one of the splendid treats in this superb hardback collection, also available in a digital download edition.
Disney facilitated publication of the illustrated book in 1943 with their publicity machine doing as much preparatory work as the writers, story-boarders, layout men, animators and other studio staff. It meant the winningly wicked wreckers also saw daylight as comic strip stars in 1943 and 1944 in usually silent gag shorts limned by Vivie Risto and the legendary Walt Kelly.
Return of the Gremlins revives the concept, gathering new material and bundling it up with a wealth of vintage treasures into a book that will delight young and old alike.
Mike Richardson and Dean Yeagle (with backgrounds by Nelson Rhodes) reveal how years after World War II ended Gus’ American grandson returns to a certain dilapidated house in the north of England. He’s recently inherited the old place plus its wild woodland, and intends to sell it, but what he finds in the trees and suspiciously tidy abandoned cottage soon changes his mind and alters his life forever. Finding love whilst battling ruthless monied interests who won’t take no for an answer, Gus secures a permanent homeland for the multitudinous, malarkey-making Gremlins in an uproarious kids romp that would also make a terrific family movie.
Accompanying the breezy yarn is a voyage through Yeagle and Laguna’s sketchbooks before the 1940s material is reprinted. It starts with a strip adaptation of Dahl’s story illustrated by an anonymous aggregation of Disney Studio artists, followed by half a dozen slapstick vignettes by Kelly and Risto starring Gremlin Gus and the Widgets (baby Gremlins).
Also on show are a number of World War II Air Force Service Patches created by Disney artists and Gremlin-infested 1943 magazine ads. ‘Winter Draws On: Meet the Spandules’ is a 1943 booklet created by Disney for Army Air Force pilots. Rendered in blue and black ink and reproduced here in full, it stars arctic Gremlins illustrating all the ways cold, snow and ice can wreck aircraft, and is followed by a truncated version of Dahl’s prose tale – again copiously illustrated by Disney staffers – and writing by the author under the pen-name Pegasus.
‘The Gremlins’ was a planted pre-publicity feature for the prospective movie, created for Cosmopolitan magazine and includes editorial pages, full reproduction of the book’s cover and even a painted tableau introducing the Gremlins. Wrapping up the treats is a fulsome section highlighting collectible toys.
Peppered throughout with Laguna’s Puckish marginals of playful Gremlins, this a gloriously whimsical treat to delight the fanciful and far-seeing dreamers of every age imaginable.
