“Red, white, whatever … guys are all the same!” - Liz Sherman (Hellboy)

By Lisa Fary

The Disney Vault is an odd type of imaginary place. It periodically vomits up such Disney classics as Cinderella III, Kronk’s New Groove, and Leroy & Stitch (which sounds like the Chinese factory made knock off of Lilo & Stitch that you’d buy on a street corner). Yet, it slams its imaginary iron door on a Roald Dahl book for sixty years.

I suppose it should be expected - Disney is all fluffy and light and Roald Dahl stories. . . ummm. . . aren’t. But, The Gremlins was published before he was the children’s writer whom strict parents love to hate and fascist parents love to try to ban from school libraries across the United States. This was 1943, when Dahl was a member of the Royal Air Force and had never published a book. The story got Walt Disney’s attention, and it was bought for a movie that was never made.

By WWII, gremlins were already an RAF legend, and many airmen had at least one story to tell of the time a gremlin nearly crashed his plane.

In Dahl’s book, the gremlins stowaway and wreak havoc on the planes out of retribution for the loss of their woodland home, which was destroyed to build an airplane factory. RAF Airman Gus is repeatedly sabotaged by the little guys and eventually crashes his plane in a field, getting injured so badly that he’s removed from flight status.

Sounds horrible, and if the gremlins looked like the one in that old Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner, or that awful movie from the 1980s, The Gremlins would be pretty scary children’s book. But, these gremlins are the cutest little saboteurs ever!

And supposedly, the sabotage is where Disney had trouble with adapting The Gremlins for a movie. I imagine the thought process went something like this:

Hmmm. . . these cute little guys sabotage airplanes and make them crash. . . let’s make a movie! Wait! What are we thinking? These cute little guys sabotage airplanes and make them crash! We can’t make them lovable enough for an American audience!

Roald Dahl, even in the 1940s, was too edgy for Americans.

And The Gremlins didn’t even have smart kids disobeying boorish adults, like many of Dahl’s subsequent children’s books. That has been a common complaint among parents who challenge his books. But, you know, I was glad when Matilda outsmarted Miss Trunchbull. I was glad when Aunt Sponge got flattened by a giant rolling peach.

The book isn’t all sabotage and plane crashes - Gus wins the gremlins over by promising to find them a new home if the little guys will help the airmen instead of sabotaging them. By the end of the story, the gremlins have learned to be good and how to fix planes instead of tearing them apart (a sequence which would have made a fun Disney number).

But, The Gremlins was published once, and then disappeared into the Disney Vault until a US Air Force historian tracked it down and worked with Dark Horse to reprint it in honor of the Air Force’s 60th anniversary.

Dark Horse also took the opportunity to bring The Gremlins back for a new story, the three part comic mini-series Return of the Gremlins.

Return of The Gremlins, written by Mike Richardson and drawn by Dean Yeagle, picks up after Gus has died and his American grandson, also named Gus, inherits an old house in the English countryside.

The gremlins immediately start their mischief. Gus is eager to sell the house and get back to the US, but gets sanctimonious when the bankers who arrive with the check are kind of, well, douchey. There are back taxes owed on the property! And there are liens!

Back taxes? Liens? This just might call for a dance contest or a regatta to raise enough money to save the house.

Return of the Gremlins doesn’t have the mild scariness of Dahl’s original story, or the “let’s pull together for the war effort” appeal, but it is a really cute comic for kids. The story is simple enough for kids to follow and Yeagle’s loopy, round artwork brings a Saturday morning cartoon feel to the book. It’s a great selection for younger readers (and for comic geek parents who want to share something with their kids).

Let Pink Raygun help you pass on the geekiness to the next generation. Our Gremlins prize pack, courtesy of Dark Horse, includes an anniversary edition hardcover of The Gremlins by Roald Dahl, Return of the Gremlins #1, and a Gremlins PVC figurine set. To be eligible to win, simply subscribe to Pink Raygun email updates and you will be automatically entered in the drawing. The winner will be drawn from Pink Raygun’s email subscriber list on Tuesday, April 15th.

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Lisa Fary is a graduate of the creative writing program at Florida State University and holds an advanced degree in Special Education. Her early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl.