A Comic Book for Our Times

Any resemblance to other comics or comic characters is strictly coincidental. We will have no copyright infringement at this desk! The illustrator of this strip fell ill with the Covid-19 thing and he is currently in isolation on an undisclosed Greek Island. Therefore, dear reader, you must use your imagination to illustrate the text below. Since you also are likely in home confinement you will have plenty of time to do this extra task. Settle back and turn on your brain’s Vision Master. Here we go.

Donaldo is our hero, with fantasies, high hopes, big plans and not much talent- like most of us. He has no known source of income, yet he manages to live in a modest suburban ranch home with his three nephews- Hugh, Dew, and Lou. The only source of income appears to be the modest support of his Uncle Scourge, who often sends Donaldo and his nephews off on trips to far off exotic locations in order to secure or increase his wealth. Scourge is reputed to be the richest man on earth. He also is actually rather cheap, a common trait of the wealthy. He has an inordinate fear of losing his fortune, so he keeps it all in cash in a huge five story money bin in his office building. It is rumored that he loves money so much that he jumps into the pile of bills and coins daily to refresh his spirits.

As the only living adult relative of Scourge, Donaldo no doubt will inherit a massive fortune someday which is partly why he seems to be in a constant state of cheerfulness. Unfortunately, not being the brightest color in the crayon box, Donaldo often depends on the sharp wit and knowledge of his three nephews who are in his custody. How Donaldo has acquired three nephews is unknown. Some have assumed their mother abandoned them due to a drug problem. Others speculate that she is in witness protection.  

Donaldo has no apparent prior employment of any nature and it appears he has limited education. There has been much speculation regarding Donald’s sexual orientation since he has rebuffed the advances of the attractive Dazzie and he has no close relationships, male or female. He also sports a bright red bow tie which has contributed to the rumors about his sexuality. If he is gay, he certainly has not come out of the closet. Of course, his social isolation may also be due to his occasional fits of jumping up and down while yelling in a high pitched unintelligible tantrum over some minor problem such as getting his pizza without the sausage he ordered.  

With this background, we find Donaldo and his nephews sitting in old fashioned wooden arm chairs before the unassuming desk of Uncle Scourge. Behind the desk Scourge’s first dollar earned is proudly mounted on the wall. Scourge is seen pacing furiously in a small circle next to his desk. He exclaims, “I can’t believe it. This Cobweb-19 virus has swept over the world. It has stopped trade. Without trade, I can’t make money!  It must be stopped!” The nephews nodded in agreement. They all chimed in speaking as one, “Yes, and the supply chain is broken which will stop production”. Clearly they were studying economics recently. Uncle Scourge nodded in agreement and paced faster. Donaldo was a bit lost in this financial discussion and he suggested they order a pizza since it was close to lunch.

Uncle Scourge set his plan in motion. Donaldo and his three nephews were to take most of his money from the money bin, transporting it via bank trucks with armed guards to the airport. They would each then disperse to four far away capitols to change thousand dollar bills for the cheapest paper currency available. Hugh smiled a bit. He said, “I can get 1,000 pedos for every dollar in Borneo. Our one thousand, thousand dollar bills will give us one million pedos”. They would hire a hundred planes and fill them all with cheap paper currency. Donaldo added, “Do they have pizza in Borneo?”

In the next panels, bank tellers greeted the family members warmly. In one bank Hugh found palm trees in the bank’s lobby with cooling fans above. In another Dew was in a bank with turban clad guards and oriental rugs. A cobra rose from a basket near the front door. In a third Lou is seen entering the bank. The snow was waist deep at the bank’s entrance. The teller wore a heavy coast, furry hat and mittens.

Donald had trouble getting into his bank, pushing inward on the door which was marked pull, albeit in Bonsaiese as well as English. The helpful tellers were all amazed and happy that American dollars would be coming to their bank in return for cheap, nearly worthless local currency. In subsequent panels, massive amounts of local currency was pictured, wrapped in big bundles, on its way to the airports via pack mules, horse drawn wagons, old fire engines and ice cream trucks- with a few dollars flying out of the vehicles as they bumped along the narrow streets.

All went well except for Donaldo’s plane. Dressed in a lei given to him by the friendly teller woman, Donald got aboard his plane. In the next panel we see Donald negotiating with penguins who would only offer fish for American dollars, not currency. Looking at his instructions, he stared at a map which clearly shows a left hand turn after Pago Pago. We see a thought bubble over Donaldo’s head, “Oops. I turned right, not left”.

Many other planes left these four airports. Eventually, all of the 100 planes were in the air. We see a panel where Uncle Scourge has a world map with a hundred pins marking the targets. The mission was to drop all the cheap bills covering every inch of the populated land mass. The layer of paper would suffocate the virus. Nobody would leave their homes to collect the cheap bills since the bills were worthless and they were afraid of exposure to Cobweb-19. Adults and children can be seen peering out of windows with face masks on as the bills fall gently like snow.

The next scene brings us back to Uncle Scourge’s office. As they sit around a big conference table eating pizza with sausage, Hugh chimed up, “That was a great plan of yours Uncle Scourge but what about your money. The money bin must be nearly empty”. Scourge put down his pizza and replied, “Yes, the money is gone but the bin is filled with an even more valuable commodity. My wealth has actually doubled. Push the button on the wall and check it out”.

The boys all exclaimed as one, “OK” in the speech bubble above their heads. They all excitedly ran to the wall. Hugh, Dew and Lou simultaneously pushed the button with one quick gesture, all of them leaping several inches off the floor to reach the button. The massive steel door slowly slid to the left. The boys walked over and peered into the five story money bin. The last frame of the strip revealed- the bin was entirely filled with toilet paper.

The End