Disney-comics digest #498.

Don Rosa 72260.2635 at compuserve.com
Mon Nov 21 07:24:49 CET 1994


MIKE P.:
	Yes, I swiped that bit about $crooge losing a sled into a
glacial rift in the Yukon, marking the spot with a rifle, then returning
years later just as the glacier chunk breaks off -- and used it as the
centerpiece of "The Last Sled to Dawson". That original Tony Strobl
story was in DONALD DUCK (not UNCLE $CROOGE) #50 or thereabouts. It had
always been my favorite non-Barks Duck story... perhaps the only
non-Barks Duck story I liked... due to the scene where the iceberg
breaks off the glacier and we see the sled buried deep in the ice where
it had been sealed for over 50 years.
	After all these years, I can't recall precisely what I was
thinking when I swiped that bit, though I made no secret of it at the
time. But I think I was intrigued by the idea that, since I was doing a
story which would automatically become Disney property, I realized I
could swipe any idea from any Disney comic, TV show, movie, book, or
anything that there had ever been, and it was perfectly acceptable.

	It's interesting that Barks' first use of $crooge McDuck was
slightly based on Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge. Barks needed a wealthy
cynic for "Christmas on Bear Mountain" whom he had no special intention
of ever using again. But thereafter, Barks' $crooge evolved into a very
different sort of character -- after all, Dickens' Scrooge was not
particularly wealthy, he was just a cynical miser. I've always thought
that if Barks hadn't created $crooge McDuck for use in a CHRISTMAS
story, his name may have been completely different -- there would have
been no reason to name him "Scrooge".





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