Don Bugaboo and his sidekick Fatcho are obviously parodies of Don Quixote and Pancho, though I wonder how many of the kids Animal Comics #4 (Aug.-Sept. 1943) was marketed towards got the reference. Don Bugaboo's career was a short one, appearing in just this issue and the next, before riding off into Comic Book Limbo. Both stories were illustrated by Frank Thomas (not the Disney animator with the same name), signed with a sort-of Pig Latin version of his name--Rakfay Homastay. It's Homastay's... err, Thomas' art that really brings this story to life.
I actually say that a lot about the stories we've been looking at in Animal Comics, don't I? It is true, though. The scripts are often quite clever, so the usually unidentified writers certainly deserve their share of credit. But it is the vibrant and lively art that really infuses these tales with so much fun.
We meet Don Bugaboo as he is having Fatcho drive him about their anthropomorphic insect world, looking for adventure. Like Don Quixote, he won't find any actual adventures. But, also like Quixote, he is quite able to delude himself into thinking he's found adventure.
First, he mistakes an old glove (being used as a home for an insect couple) as a castle. When they barge in on the place, Fatcho parallels Pancho with the practical matter of getting something to eat, while Bugaboo looks for something to fight.
He mistakes the lady of the house as a dragon and causes her to spill the mushroom soup she was serving. Except it turns out not to be mushroom soup. The husband had accidentally picked some toadstools and the spilled soup would have poisoned them all if it had been served.
So Bugaboo has, however accidentally, saved a couple of innocent lives.
Then he helps out a woman who was beating a second-hand mattress to clean it. Bugaboo mistakes her for beating a servant and, when he tries to cut the "servant" loose from his bonds, accidentally cuts open the mattress. A hidden fortune spills out and the woman is now rich.
By golly, Quixote hardly ever actually accomplished anything, but Bugaboo, acting according to his Quixotic delusions, actually manages to be a hero.
It's a clever and funny tale and I'm kind of sorry that Bugaboo's career wasn't longer.
You can read the story online HERE.
Next week, we'll pay one final visit to Project Pegasus.
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