Why Is a Duck?

[RMorris306@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/7/00 7:00:58 AM, Don Rosa writes:

<<  There have been decades of human-caricatures such as Tintin
or Asterix and *many* others in Europe ... characters that are supposed to
be human but have impossible shapes... no human beings could actually be
shaped that way, but no one claims they are actually animated stuffed toys.
They are still humans. For some reason, in America, we have always only had
obvious humans and many characters who are too obviously animals such as
Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck. And since the human-caricature characters like
Donald are so few, Americans dump them all into one mix. "Daffy is a Duck.
Donald is a Duck." But that's obviously wrong to anyone who has read years
of Barks stories or Barks-style Donald stories. Or Mickey stories, too, for
that matter. >>

    I agree with just about everything you've said, Don, except about 
America's lack of human-caricature characters. Surely Charlie Brown and 
Dilbert and Mr. Magoo and Homer Simpson (to name only a few very prominent cha
racters) look no more like real human beings than Asterix does. (Tintin is 
drawn more realistically, though simply, and is about as close to a real 
human being as C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel.) Yet we accept all these 
cartoon/comics characters as being human when we read about or watch them, 
and the others in their world. Snoopy is still a dog (as, for that matter, is 
Pluto) in a way that Goofy and the Beagle Boys are not. Snoopy does do things 
real dogs don't do (write, lead Scout troops, fantasize about being a World 
War I flying ace), just as Bugs Bunny does things real rabbits don't do, but 
Snoopy still lives in a doghouse, eats out of a bowl provided by Charlie 
Brown, and (just barely) accepts "the round-headed kid" as his master. 

    Barks occasionally referred to Donald as a duck...in the Think Boxes 
story, for instance...but that one specifically broke the boundaries between 
humans and animals...


Rich Morrissey