The Seven Dwarfs and Dumbo (1945)

Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney.  Back in June, I took a look at the crossover The Seven Dwarfs and Dumbo that was first printed in 1941.  Well sometime later, thanks to the blog, Filmic Light - Snow White Archive, I found out that there was a follow up in 1945.  Now, I'll only include the first image as these I believe were uploaded by the blogger there but you click on that link to read the rest.

The Art

The art is pretty good and does capture the look of the Dwarfs and Dumbo pretty well.   You know that you are reading a story that stars these characters and it looks as though, they popped out of their respective Disney movies. 

The Plot

Like it's 1941 predecessor, this story is pretty bare bones in terms of content.  The story this time is simple,  the Dwarfs find a beautiful jewel while mining and want to give it to Snow White but they realize that they'd have to go through a place called Dark Canyon and that would take them a month to get to Snow White's castle by foot and they'd pass by The Wicked Prince.  Dopey gets the other Dwarfs' attention by imitating Dumbo and they go to a wishing well to wish that Dumbo would come back.  And after a long time, Dumbo shows up saying that he felt homesick for the Dwarfs and the Dwarfs explain that they want to give the jewel to Snow White and since Dumbo can fly, he could deliver it faster than they could. 

The Wicked Prince's henchmen overhears this and goes and tells The Wicked Prince and they plan to steal the jewel, while Dumbo flies through Dark Canyon.  The comic isn't very clear but it seems to suggest that The Wicked Prince started a fire to knock Dumbo out in order to get the jewel.   Meanwhile, Doc at first thinks that they should just sit and wait for Dumbo to come back but then, the Dwarfs notice the smoke coming from Dark Canyon and go and see what's the matter. And notice that Dumbo is knocked out and see The Wicked Prince.  Dumbo is knocked out unconscious, while The Dwarfs fight off The Wicked Prince and his henchmen including Dopey using his pick axe to shoo at The Prince.   Dumbo gets back up and is worried that the jewel had been taken but Grumpy informs him that the jewel is fine and Doc says that he can fly out on his way.  And the next day, we see that Dumbo was successful in getting the jewel to Snow White. 

This comic is just okay. The novelty of seeing Dumbo and The Seven Dwarfs is gone as we had already seen that before but I'm not even sure that you can call this one a crossover as Dumbo and The Seven Dwarfs at best share two pages together.  After Dumbo heads out on his journey, he becomes a non-player in the story because of being knocked out by the smoke from the fire. It is nice to see The Dwarfs getting more to do here but for a comic that is titled The Seven Dwarfs and Dumbo, Dumbo doesn't get a whole lot to do.  

Characters

The Seven  Dwarfs 

The Dwarfs had a larger role to play in this story than the first one and it was nice seeing them get more of the action and here, they felt more like the main characters whereas it was the other way in the 41 story.   Most of them each got their moment to shine.

Dumbo 

This is perhaps my biggest disappointment, Dumbo after being knocked out,  was taken out of the story.  He had nothing to contribute.  Sure, he still talked with the Dwarfs to make sure that everything was okay and he was the one that made the delivery but he didn't get to be a part of the climax.  Which made this story feel rather uneven.  

Villain

The Wicked Prince

Like with the first crossover, I don't think this character was needed. You could have had Dumbo been knocked out by the smoke and have the fire start naturally. It felt as though, he was there just because the writers thought the story needed a villain.    And he really doesn't have much in terms of a personality other than generic mustache twirling bad guy.  

My Final Thoughts

This second crossover is just okay.   I think the 41 story is slightly better as more seemed to happen.  Nothing all interesting happened in this story and the crossover aspect felt really uneven with how Dumbo was knocked out before the climax.  Check it out but again, I'd say that the novelty of the first crossover isn't there in this one. Peace!