Money bin / consistency

[Fluks, H.W.]

François:

> > Yes. There are many Barks stories where the bin is
> > *not* on a hill.
> 
> You may be refering to stories like "The Pixilated
> Parrot" or "Letter to Santa", which shows Donald
> getting out of Scrooge's offices on a street.

And the Gyro one-shot stories, for instance.
And in at least half of the Uncle Scrooge stories, the bin is in an open
field, but *not* on a hill.

> We see
> lots of money in Scrooge's offices but we can not say
> it was the money bin. It is a building owned by
> Scrooge, and we can imagine he owns several of them in
> Duckburg.

Sure. But then we will find inconsistencies in the stories where Scrooge
says he loses *all* his money, when the bin is attacked (or moved).

In other words: trying to find 100% consistency is pointless. Unless the
trying is fun on its own, of course.
(Rule number 1: any other rule can be violated if it's fun to do so.)

> Based on how you imagine Barks viewed his stories
> (that the location of the story is anywhere, and that
> the story time-line is the "present"), you try to
> recreate these original ideas by changing elements of
> the story so that they fit with your time-line (2000s)
> and your location (Netherlands). 
> 
> I think this is a wrong approach!

Maybe. It's one of the possible approaches. My problem (and the problem of
many other Disney comics readers) is that I grew up with "mutilated" Disney
comics. I grew up with money being yellow. With Scrooge being called
"Dagobert". With a big F-sign on his bin. I have read and loved the stories
in that form for decades, before I learned about the originals.

This is what I would call "local tradition". It is the result of many
decisions in the past by publishers, translators, etc. Maybe you think these
decisions were wrong. But maybe the Dutch children would never have read
these Disney comics if they would have been literal translations of the
original. And then people like me would never even have heard of the work of
Barks.

The problem that the current editors are facing, is: should they continue
their local tradition, or should they make faithful translations? If they do
the latter, they take the risk that many children turn away from Disney
comics because they are not "what they should be". (Children don't care very
much about the faithfulness of a translation.)

> So the only way to "recreate" the feeling of the story
> as Barks intended it is I think by making the most
> faithful translation as possible (changing no name, no
> location etc.) and have an idea of how was California
> in the 40s and 50s (Barks' environment) was. This []
> can be done with any other author's work.

Other foreign literature for *children* is also translated with name
changes, etc. Like Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. And A.A. Milne's
Winnie the Pooh (Winnie de Poeh). I think we can't expect Dutch children to
read books (for entertainment) when the main characters have unpronounceable
names like "Scrooge" or "Gearloose".
("Mickey" has been accepted, though. Probably because of the movies, TV
shows, and merchandising. Originally, he had the Dutch name "Mikkie".)

> Picsou doesn't change Barks' stories. It is I think
> the most faithful translation of these stories in
> French.

OK. When you wrote that they mention Calisota several times, I thought you
meant they were putting that name into Barks stories (where that name was
not in the original).

> today Barks is recognized
> as one of the best comic artists ever and readers want
> to read his stories, not a subjective, and often bad
> "adaptation" by unknown writers.

I wonder how many readers want to. Most hard-core Barks fans will want to
read his work in the original (American) language. Most other people will
want to read the stories in their own language, and with the local
traditions they are used to.

For instance, for German Barks readers, the translations/adaptations by
Erika Fuchs are highly appreciated. She is an counter-example of your phrase
"bad, by unknown writers". (Maybe the French adaptations have been much
worse than the Dutch and German ones?)

--Harry.
Harry Fluks, Leidschendam, The Netherlands