Fond recollections – Chap. 5, Act 4, Strip 54

I guess you could say that Dr. Dutchman Fu had a pretty normal early life for an old school villain. You know, just been born a sociopath into a dysfunctional family (accompanied by the usual ill omens) and then kept select bad company all the way through. Starting out as a minor evil, but never stopping to improve!

It’s just a lot more wholesome and uplifting (wait, shouldn’t that be “partsome and downpushing”?), I feel, compared to the more modern style of villainy – born a perfect innocent, and then twisted into a caricature of evil by being abused as a kid, serving 23 tours of duty in the ‘Nam (on the NVA side) and/or suffering from an incurable case of hangnails.

Instead of serving in Vietnam, Dr. Dutchman Fu served as cape fluffer to Count Dracula. That’s also a harsh assignment, I guess, but not nearly as traumatic (unless you consider seeing Dracula at work traumatizing). And somebody has to do it, anyway. Nothing can ruin a villain’s entry as badly, as quickly, as dragging a limply hanging cape behind them. It needs to billow dramatically! It takes a lot of skill to get that going, and to stay out of view of the camera while doing it. The cape fluffers are the unsung heroes of villaindom, and Dr. Fu is proud of the service he rendered to the villain community in that way.

He got his degree in child and adolescent psychiatry, by the way – but just because it was very convenient: His thesis was titled “Childhood and adolescent traumata stemming from having a kindergarten, school or university burned down around you by some unindentified arsonist”. It was a nice way to stay in touch with his former classmates!

More late on Wednesday, due to New Year’s shenanigans.

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