translation (once again)

Peter Coenen IGV039 at ZAM001.ZAM.KFA-JUELICH.DE
Thu May 4 08:32:52 CEST 1995


DON, and whoever is interested in it:

Here is now the full translation of that text about the Lo$ from
the Comic Speedline magazine. I hope there aren`t too many mistakes
in it. Hope it`s a bit interesting for ya!

Danny Coenen (!)

"You shouldn`t have poured it on so thick, Louie! Something tells
me we`d better off washing the dishes!"


$cooges Memories-
Don Rosa on the trace of Carl Barks

---By Martin Budde in Comic Speedline No.44---

His style is characteristic- bent on details, he uses the last square
centimeter for a bit more of structure or for one of his typical tiny-funny
sidegags. This makes the eyes remain on those panels, but somehow it makes
them appear in a Disney-unusual stiffness. But to regard is really
worthwhile- Without doubt, Don Rosa likes his job. And he does it exactly.
Rosa is a master of putting humor in his drawings- and he is more: His
stories are perfectly calculated, full of ideas, absurd constellations
and- speed. Just like a well-timed slapstick comedy. And finally there is
the "point of no return" where all the humor is coming out with the power
of an avalanche.
There are probably two reasons for Rosa being called the heir of Carl
Barks: On the one hand there is his incomparable style, and on the other
hand-like being mad- he takes on elements out of the duckman's
stories. Today the stories of all Duck artists base on Carl Bark's work,
but Rosa is the only real successor of him. He takes up the characters as
well as the action and the places his idol Carl Barks created. For example
he took his ducks back to Tralla La or to the land of the square eggs.
Rosa does not add new things- he completes. And so the ducks get something
like a memory, "real" life: a biography.
Biographic elements have also been used in Bark's stories. Especially $crooge
often told of his origin and of his life before he became the world's
richest duck. And that was necessary, because that was how he has been
developed by Carl Barks: more or less close by  and out of nothing- although
adapted to Charles Dickens; from there his name Scrooge McDuck- for the
"Christmas on Bear Mountain" story (FC 178). Later some explanations became
necessary, but they have often been very vague. Only once in a while there
have been exiting stories basing on $crooges past, but those belong to the
best Barks ever wrote. The most famous are "The Old Castles Secret" (FC 189)
and "Back to the Klondike" (FC 456). But $crooges memories remain incomplete
and symtomatically indistinct.
Thus a challenge for Rosa- and what a hard work! It took him two and a half
years to investigate, assort and  to translate this into a resolved comic
story. And what a story: on 211 pages divided into 12 chapters it describes
the The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck. Developed by order of the European
Disney publisher Egmont, to which Ehapa from Stuttgart belongs to, too,
Don Rosa fulfilled his wish of following the trace of Barks not only
sporadically, but continuous in one story. Right now half of the German
Onkel Dagobert- Sein Leben, seine Milliarden (The Life and Times of $crooge
McDuck) albums are available- 3 comic books including 2 chapters each.
[Up to today four of these albums are available]

The Last of the Clan McDuck

For his extensive work he wanted, and he had to use the comic books of Carl
Barks, because it was him who introduced $crooge and he fixed the start and
the turning-points of his career in the long stories mentioned above. So we
meet young $crooge , not even ten years old, in chapter one- The Last of
the Clan Mc Duck- in front of the castle of his poor family, the
Duckenburgh [this is the German name for this castle, I do not know the
original], an old, desolated building. It is the year of 1877- and this is
a novum and important in Rosas biography: the exact date. And- another novum-
we see $crooges parents (and Donalds mother). It is the dispute with the
insidious neighbors, the Whiskervilles what this chapter is all about. And
they have their origin in a totally different story (Hound of the
Whiskervilles, US 29), that was published much later. Here the way of Rosas
research becomes clear: He took all the comics of Carl Barks into
consideration and formed a chronological order out of them. For that he even
contacted the old Duckman himself. But above all he brought even the smallest
details together that could be connected with $crooges biography. And these
he found in the Barks-stories themselves.
But this procedure had its difficulties, too. Of course some contradictions
could not be avoided, as the details are totally scattered. Rosa had this
problem in the first part of the third chapter, where the Danish orderer
wanted him to include the story with the square eggs. Often there were just
little hints that completed his screen. Or stories told aside of the others.
For example the 2nd chapter bases on a PR-story for Disneyland, in Germany,
typically enough only published in the "Lustiges Taschenbuch" No. 8- as a pa
of Onkel Dagobert und der Zauberspiegel (Uncle $crooge goes to Disneyland).
Important in this story is the encounter with the pre-Beagle Boys and Gyro
Gearlooses grandfather. Here Rosa uses a hint to a remark that $crooge did
in another story- and that has unfortunately not been translated into German.
This is additional handicap for the German readers: The very popular
translations of Erika Fuchs are not always literally. Some more or less
unimportant things have sometimes been changed or even left out. So the
chapters 3 and 4 base on such remarks that Uncle $crooge did- in Only a
poor old man, FC 386. Accordingly he would not have been as a Cowboy and
copper prospector in Montana in 1882 but in 1892 in Argentinia, although it
could have been possible. And there is no explanation for John D. Rockerduck
appearing in the 4th chapter. The less so since $crooges rival with his
Italian origin started his sinewy activities in Germany not before the 1970s.
And Barks used him only one (!) time, in Boat Buster, WDC 255 that was first
published in Germany in 1963. And there he was called Cornelius Coot
(like the person who founded Duckburg).

The New Laird of Castle McDuck

The poor basis for yet two hole chapters of his biography of Uncle $crooge
shows on the other hand how much Rosa could do to complete the blanks. And
that he did like his idol mostly in the stories acting away from Duckburg,
where he includes authentic, contemporary facts. So $crooge meets
historical figures like Theodore Roosevelt or Murdo McKenzie in the Badlands
as well as the Brantewien- Brothers, who will punish him much later in US
56. And the bull seems to come out of one of the many western-movies of James
Steward. The sunken steamboat in the chapter before based on such a authentic
legend, too...
Finally the reason for Uncle $crooge coming again to Scotland was a victim
of the translation, too, as the German readers did not know that he bought
his glasses in The Money Well (US 21) in Glasgow in 1885. But the real
reason for his return is another- Rosa had to make clear why $crooges
family is very poor, but owns a such a huge castle. The explanation: Aside
from its state, as it is nothing else than a ruin- and that $crooge never,
even when he could afford it, thought of renovating it tells us everything-,
all money was needed to pay the taxes. So young $crooge has to give away
all the money he earned and has to- after he should even have been called
to his anchestors to heaven- start again to find his luck- this time in
South Africa. If he had known, that he would meet one of his most unpleasent
rivals there, (The Second Richest Duck, US 15), he would better have
retained his name...
Up to this pint $crooges Life is a single adventure- exiting and
entertaining- at least for the outstanding readers. He has not become
richer, but he gained a lot of expieriences. He is strong, sly and not yet
the miser and the grouch, that he will become later. All the setbacks
formed his character; and the picture of the young Duck in the Scottish
swamps that is determined to make it to a rich Duck is already recognizable.
But the point were the happenings at the Klondike change his life totally
is not far in the future- but there is also one big loss, and that is that
he loses the contact to his family, which was so important for him before.
All the work Rosa put into his research had an interesting side-effect,
and that was that Rosa had to make clear the complicate relations between
the Ducks. The Result: A totally new family tree, which bases on a script
of Carl Barks of the 1950s, which Mark Wooden completed in 1981. And both
together uncover some surprises. So Gladstone Gander is Donalds cousin,
but just a adoptive nephew of $crooge, as he is just related to Donald on
his mothers side, as he is forHuey, Dewey and Louie. Grandma Duck is
really the grandma of Donald and Gladstone, but not related to $crooge.
And Daisy does not belong to the family anyway. That most of them are
called Duck is just accidental. And remember, $crooge is not just a Duck-
he I the last of the Clan McDuck- and what that means, that shows Don Rosa!



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