Scrooge in Panel 9.6 in "7 Cities of Cibola"

[Carey Furlong]

In regards to Scrooge in "7 Cities of Cibola"

> * In panel 9.6, a vase falls apart from a nephew's hands. It's filled with
> jewels, but Scrooge doesn't seem impressed. Instead, he only answers the
> nephews' observing that the vase fell apart, by saying its "No wonder!"
> * In panel 9.7, all the ducks gather around the vase's contents and
> Donald states they're "beads and JEWELS and ornaments of heavy GOLD!"
> * In panel 9.8, Scrooge suddenly jumps over the jewels greedily, saying
> "Let me have a look at that stuff! I'm an EXPERT on GOLD!"
> * In panel 10.1, Scrooge holds the contents of the broken vase in
> his hands and says "It's REAL, boys! And the design shows it's at
> least a THOUSAND years old!"
>
> The timing of Donald being the first to identify the vase's contents,
> followed up by Scrooge's sudden excitement, might seem a bit strange,
> as if panel 9.8 (Scrooge being excited) could have been inserted
> between panel 9.7 and panel 10.1 at a later moment.

One possiblity is that perhaps Barks originally had Donald in panel 9.6
instead of Scrooge.  If that were the case, we would have Donald in panel
9.6 saying, "No Wonder!" and then in panel 9.7 Donald continues to speak,
saying "It was filled with beads and jewels and ornaments of heavy gold,"
thus completing the earlier statement.   This has better continuity, at
least as far as the dialog is concerned.

Perhaps, and in agreement with Daniel and Sprea's conjectures, Barks may
have drawn Donald out and inserted Scrooge to make the scene better support
the action in the following panels.

In any event, I think the scene maintains itself well, regardless of which
duck said, "No wonder."

Carey Furlong, Huntington Beach, California 92647 USA