Don's comments

David A Gerstein David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu
Sun Mar 13 01:37:06 CET 1994


	Dear Folks,

	I have some replies to Don Rosa just now.  The first regarding
the 2/3/38 Donald daily strip, its deletion from the run as reprinted
in DD 284, and its last American reprint:

	"I checked WDC&S #2 & 3 with no luck. So I checked #1, and
there was the DD strip in question! (What made you think it was in #2 
or 3?)"

	Er... ahem... okay, I don't like to brag but I HAVE WALT
DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #1 and I didn't *remember* the strip being
in there!  If you'd said the words "African Dodger" to me, I would
have remembered its inclusion there at the drop of a hat.  But I was
looking for another slur... I mean, word.

	And for having guessed correctly as to why the strip was
banned, Don Rosa added, "You're pretty darn slick, you little rascal! 
You were RIGHT!"

	To quote Donald:  "It's a natural talent!"

	Now to the LO$:

	WAITAMINUTE!  Don, you say "when you read chapter 12 you'll
need to deal with a new idea yet: that nobody in Duckburg KNEW that
[the big building on Killmotor Hill] was a "Money Bin" until 10 years 
after $crooge retires and closed down his businesses, at which point 
the long abandonned (but guarded) Bin is thought to be simply a 
warehouse of business ledgers."

	The mix of past and present tense slightly confused me in that
paragraph.  But lemme get this straight -- you say that no one knew
the bin was a bin until AFTER Scrooge RETIRED and CLOSED HIS
BUSINESSES!  It's plain as the bill on my face (for umpteen
centrifugilillion dollars and sixteen cents) that in the classic
Scrooge stories two things coexist:

	A)  Most citizens of Duckburg, several foreign potentates and
the League to Abolish Billionaires all know about the money bin being
that and refer to it as such.  (Example:  Soapy Slick in "North of the
Yukon" refers to the bin.)  BUT....

	B)  Scrooge is clearly the head of jillions of corporations,
companies and the like!  "Me in the dress business!  Fancy that!"
(WDC&S 144)  He's far from retired!  "My Baghdad Bag Co. got in bad
with the Baghdad bigdads because of a bad sag the bags had!"

	So what are you saying?  The only way I can make sense out of
this is to take the idea that Scrooge retired in the 1940s, spent a
few years in retirement (perhaps living as seen in "Christmas on Bear
Mountain") and then moved back into the financial world.  I hope this
is what the LO$ makes clear... again, I've only read Part 1.

	If what you're saying is that no one else knew that Scrooge's
Money Bin was a Money Bin until a point in time AFTER Barks' canon in
which Scrooge retired, I've gotta say this is a big mistake.  But you
can't be saying that, can you?

	I personally prefer to believe that Scrooge never spent time
in retirement between his vintage fortune-building days and the era in
which the "classic" Scrooge adventures take place.  Okay, let's say he
did retire then -- I can't imagine he would have kept his edge on the
world's business if he CLOSED all his businesses during that time.

	Just checking...

	David Gerstein
	<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>




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