Beagle Boys
Olivier
mouse-ducks at wanadoo.fr
Wed Mar 28 18:09:29 CEST 2001
Sorry for answering only now, Timo.
>>Checking quickly couple of stories.. US 28 shows them with human ears.
>>But I was quite fascinated about US 7, where Barks seemed to be little bit
>>confused, whether to draw them with dog ears or just regular human ears..
>>Look for example page 13 panel 3 where one of them has floppy ears while
>>others have more or less human ears.. strange.
Right. Odd.
Regarding the Beagle Boys, as I was reading "Only a Poor Old Man" last night,
one thing suddenly struck me: their names.
They always called each other by their number.
I know, that's not a discovery.
But it suddenly occured to me: why *would* they call themselves in such away?
1/ They do have a name: Beagle.
2/ We know their grandfather's first name: Blackheart.
Or is it rather a nickname? Sounds more like it.
3/ They surely must have first names, but perhaps got to calling each other
by their number because dishonesty runs in the family and they all go to prison:
a/ the number becomes a natural nickname
b/ or rather (that's what I think) it is a proud proof of their being true
Beagles,
who live on that side of the law; the first stretch in jail would then
be sort of
a coming-of-age ritual
c/ or maybe they were sent to jail so early in their lives and heard
themselves
called that way so often (that is, always) it seemed like their numbers
were
their natural / true names
4/ Or might they have been given numbers for names from the start?
5/ We don't a have a clue as regards their mother either.
Could they have been born in prison? I wonder if that was possible at the time.
The only reference to a female Beagle character I know of is in L&T chapter 10 ("The invader
of
Fort Duckburg"), p 7 panel 7:
"Ma-- if'na *posse* comes by, tell 'em you don't know nuthin' about no missing
*cattle herd*!"
"You think they'll *believe* me?"
6/ What do the "Mrs Beagle Boy"s do?
a/ stay at home (as in the example above)?
b/ have a gang of their own ("The Beagle Girls")? : )
6/ Dishonesty and robbery is the family's way of life.
Can you imagine the possibility of there being a Li'l Bad Wolf kind of Beagle Boy that's
honest?
Olivier
PS:
Still no answer to the DR quiz:
"The Lone Ranger!"
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