Phantom Blot

The Phantom Blot is a Disney comics character who first appeared in the Mickey Mouse comic strip adventure Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot by Floyd Gottfredson, published May 20 to September 9, 1939.[1] The villain is one of Mickey Mouse's most dangerous foes, and has threatened the mouse's life on numerous occasions. While Gottfredson only used the character in one story, the Blot inspired many returns, first by Guido Martina and Romano Scarpa in an Italian story published in Topolino in 1955, and then by Paul Murry in an American 1964 Walt Disney's Comics and Stories serial. This led to a seven-issue series featuring the Phantom Blot as the title character, and many returns since.

The Phantom Blot
First appearanceMickey Mouse daily comic strip, storyline Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot, 1939
Created byFloyd Gottfredson with Merrill De Maris, Bill Wright and Ted Thwaites
Voiced byFrank Welker, John O'Hurley
AliasThe Shadow Blot (in Epic Mickey)

History

The character made his first appearance in an untitled 1939 Mickey Mouse comic strip story.[2] In this story, Chief O'Hara hires Mickey to capture a new criminal who calls himself the Blot. According to O'Hara, he's the smartest thief they've ever met, but Detective Casey calls this new criminal a "crackpot"; the only thing he steals is cameras of a special type, and he smashes them open on the spot. (The strange crime and the motive behind it resembles closely the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons".) The crime appears eccentric, but the villain is deadly serious -- three times during the story, he captures Mickey and leaves him in deadly peril, and the pair engage in a car chase, a boat chase and a battle for control of a crashing airplane. In the end, the Blot is captured and unmasked. The character was dubbed "the Phantom Blot" in 1941, when the strips were reprinted in Dell Comics' Four Color (1st series) issue #16, Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot.[3] The title stuck, and the character has been "the Phantom Blot" ever since.[4]

The Phantom Blot's gaunt face and thin mustaches were sometimes rumored to be based on the features of Walt Disney.[5] Most later stories featuring the villain don't unmask him, in order to give him a more mysterious character. However, in some stories, the Phantom Blot only appears masked when actually performing a crime, or does not appear masked during the entire story. The reader is expected to identify the character's gaunt, mustached face with the masked criminal.

Many artists and writers have furthered the Phantom Blot throughout the years. The first re-appearance was in the Italian story Topolino e il doppio segreto di Macchia Nera (The Blot's Double Mystery), written by Guido Martina and drawn by Romano Scarpa, published in 1955 in issues #116–119 of Topolino, the main Italian Disney magazine.[6]

In the United States, after a long absence, he was revived in the serial "The Return of The Phantom Blot" (drawn by Paul Murry) that ran in issues 284–287 (May–August 1964) of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories.[7] This was followed by a 1964-1966 seven-issue solo comics series, The New Adventures of the Phantom Blot, devoted to the Blot and his crimes.[8]

He next turned up in the mid-1970s in four issues of Super Goof written by Mark Evanier and drawn by Roger Armstrong. Comic book historian Joe Torcivia notes Armstrong was the first to draw the character with a mouth, making him look like a shadow instead of someone under a black cloak. This convention has since been followed by many artists, including Murry.[9]

While still being a criminal, he usually operates as the mastermind behind gangs rather than as a common crook. He prefers pulling strings rather than being directly involved.

During his career, he steals large amounts of money and invests them in business. His relative wealth allows him to finance his ambitious plans.

He is a skillful hypnotist, and occasionally uses this skill to force others to do his bidding. He has even ordered Mickey himself to act as a criminal in order to frame him. He has quite a talent in acting. The Blot often operates in disguise and has acted under various aliases and identities, adopting many different personalities to suit his parts. He has some scientific knowledge (mainly in physics, mechanics and biology), and has often used this in his plans. He has invented various devices he uses as weapons. He claims to have an artistic nature and has considerable skill in painting, which he uses to create forgeries of famous works of art. He later proceeds in stealing the original and leaving his copy behind.

He seems to have ways to get information about everything that is going on in the city and even from the police headquarters. His ways of persuading others to follow him include using their own greed, promising them means of revenge or blackmailing them. He enjoys seducing citizens with no criminal records to act as his agents. He has a fairly good knowledge of psychology and is very skilled in spreading fear to his victims, causing them to doubt their relationships and (in some cases) even their own sanity. He often uses their vanity to turn them into pawns.

He is a master of escape. Even if the police do manage to capture and imprison him (which rarely happens), he is soon out again. Other times, he takes advantage of the terrain or weather. In one issue, where he is attempting a robbery on a winter night, he is seen in his normal black outfit. Goofy, who has taken a job as a night watchman, is patrolling the businesses when the Blot realizes he must abort his plans and says "I always come prepared", where he removes his black robes and replaces them with white ones, allowing himself to camouflage with the snowy streets. Though he desires money and power, his greatest lust is for fame. Some of his plans have no monetary gain for him, but their purpose is to spread fear to the public, adding to his reputation. The Blot is, himself, very vain and his desire for money and power is only surpassed by his desire to immortalize his name in "the annals of crime".

Along with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Scrooge McDuck, Gyro Gearloose, Super Goof, Eega Beeva, Minnie Mouse, and Chief O'Hara have all encountered the Blot, and thus successfully tried to stop him. The Blot sometimes teams up with other bad guys like the Beagle Boys and Mad Madam Mim, the latter of whom is madly in love with him (while he secretly considers her a lunatic).

The Phantom Blot and Pete are often bitter rivals, as both of them want both to get recognized as the greatest criminal mastermind, and to get the most money out of the deal. However, some stories have shown the Phantom Blot and Pete co-operating on the same criminal venture.

In 2011, the Phantom Blot appeared as a major antagonist in the Ducktales and Darkwing Duck comics published by Boom! Studios, uniting various villains from both series.

The Blot's daughter

The Blot has a daughter: she appeared for the first time in the last panel of "The Big Fall" in Mickey Mouse Adventures #7, and then soon after in "A Phantom Blot Bedtime Story" in #8.[5] Apparently, there was a plan to make her a regular character, but that never happened. She was called "Phantom Brat" in the editorial page of issue 8, although with quotation marks around her name, so it is unclear whether that was her actual name.

In Europe

His depiction in Disney comics has varied with the artists using him: in stories published by Egmont, as well as French stories, he is always shown wearing his hood, while in Italian ones, he frequently appears unmasked, sometimes not wearing his cloak at all. In these, he wears everyday clothes and is unmasked, though he is still up to criminal schemes ranging from robbery and smuggling to espionage, sabotage and extortion.

French translators often took liberties with Italian material and apparently decided that the Phantom Blot's appearances without his cloak and mask should be classified as depicting a completely different character. In the French translations of the Italian stories where the Blot appeared unmasked, he was frequently given the name Jo Crisse (a term usually used as a form of insult), while he retained his Italian name Macchia Nera in the original Italian versions.

In European stories, he is often presented as a more dangerous figure than the American version. While still trying to kill Mickey and his allies, he has other agendas as well. He has also frequently clashed with Super Goof.

The Blot is the main antagonist of the Italian comic saga Wizards of Mickey.[10]

In 2012 he is portrayed as Count Dracula in the italian comic "Bram Topker's Dracula" created by Bruno Enna. The story was published in the United States in 2019, under the title "Dracula".

Animation

The Phantom Blot's first appearance in animation was in DuckTales season 1's 63rd episode "All Ducks on Deck", voiced by Frank Welker.[11] In that episode, he steals a secret bomber (which can turn invisible) from the Navy aircraft carrier on which Donald Duck serves, planning to make more invisible planes so that he can take over the world.[5]

The Phantom Blot later appeared in a short featured on Mickey Mouse Works, based on the comic strips in which he first appeared in, titled "Mickey Foils the Phantom Blot" and originally broadcast on November 7, 1999. In this short, he steals a "radium card" from Ludwig Von Drake and uses it to rob every bank in the world. As the title suggests, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy manage to foil his plans. The short was double the length of most of the shorts featured on the series. The Blot soon reappeared in another Mouse Works short titled "Mickey and the Color Caper", this one featured in the Disney's House of Mouse episode "Where's Minnie?" In this short, the Blot is now stealing colors from everything in the world, including Minnie Mouse, simply because he's bored with his inky black cloth and plans to become The Phantom Rainbow. Again, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy show up to foil his plans.

The Blot made one more appearance in the House of Mouse episode "House of Crime", which was wrapped around his first Mouse Works short. Here, he is stealing things from all over the house and then kidnapping characters both good and evil. Unbeknownst to everyone, the Blot is hiding in a device that Ludwig Von Drake has invented to give out clues to find the criminal, so he continually makes the machine give out clues that don't lead the good guys anywhere, but eventually make it seem like they lead to Mickey himself. After everybody but him disappears, Mickey at first believes he may have somehow "gone bad" and was unknowingly stealing when the lights went out, but soon figures out that the Blot is behind this and corners him. In his attempt to escape on his newly repaired blimp from his first Mickey Mouse Works appearance (shown as the featured cartoon earlier), it pops and the Blot is foiled once again. In both Mouse Works and House of Mouse, the Blot was voiced by John O'Hurley.

The Blot makes a brief appearance in the 2016 Mickey Mouse short "Sock Burglar".[12] The Blot appears in the 2017 DuckTales series as an agent of the criminal organization F.O.W.L., disguising himself as the mascot of the Funso's Fun Zone amusement center.[13]

In other media

The character (known as Mancha Negra in Disney's Brazilian and Portuguese comics – Portuguese for Black Stain) is used as a symbol by various Brazilian associations of soccer fans (or torcidas organizadas) in order to feature their team colors, like Palmeiras' Mancha Alviverde, which features a green Phantom Blot,[14] Cruzeiro's Mancha Azul (a blue one) and Vasco da Gama's Mancha Negra (where Phantom Blot keeps his original black color).[15] There is also a samba school named "Mancha Verde", also associated with Palmeiras, that uses also a Green Phantom Blot as its symbol.[16]

The video game Epic Mickey features the "Shadow Blot" (voiced by Frank Welker), a creature loosely based on the Phantom Blot that serves as the game's main antagonist. The Shadow Blot is made out of magical ink and thinner, and creates monstrous minions known as the Blotlings. In Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, it is revealed that the Shadow Blot's destruction resulted in the creation of additional Blotlings, which are exploited by the Mad Doctor in his efforts to create a new army. At one point there were apparently plans to include the classic Phantom Blot in the series in a number of different possible roles, but he was replaced by other characters.

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References
  1. "Phantom Blot". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on April 14, 2015. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
  2. Gottfredson, Floyd (2014). Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, vol 5: Outwits the Phantom Blot. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 978-1606997369.
  3. "One-Shots (Series 1) #16". Inducks. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  4. Becattini, Alberto (2016). Disney Comics: The Whole Story. Theme Park Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-1683900177.
  5. "D23: The Official Disney Fan Club". David Gerstein. Archived from the original on 29 May 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
  6. Torcivia, Joe (2014). Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, vol 5: Outwits the Phantom Blot. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books. p. 267. ISBN 978-1606997369.
  7. von Wowern, Germund (1997). "The classic Mickey Mouse of Paul Murry". The Art Bin. Retrieved 20 November 2010.
  8. Wells, John (2015). American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-64. TwoMorrows Publishing. pp. 191–192. ISBN 978-1605490458.
  9. Torcivia, Joe. "A Gag 52 Years in the Making!". Joe Torcivia's The Issue at Hand Blog. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
  10. "Mickey Mouse and Friends #298 (Cover A)". BOOM Kids! – Catalog. Retrieved 20 November 2010.
  11. Cotter, Bill (1997). The Wonderful World of Disney Television: A Complete History, Hyperion Books. ISBN 9780786863594
  12. "Sock Burglar | A Mickey Mouse Cartoon | Disney Shorts". YouTube. 2016-04-15. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
  13. "Moonvasion!". DuckTales. Season 2. Episode 47. 2019-09-12.
  14. "Mancha Alvi Verde". 3 April 2015. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2017.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  15. "Mancha Negra" (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2017-05-07.
  16. "G.R.C.E.S. Mancha Verde | Site da Escola de Samba MANCHA VERDE". Manchaverde.com.br. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
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