Douglas McDuck

[Lars Jensen]

Gilles wrote:

> In D 5560,  "US searches his prospecting cousin in the wilderness for
> his birthday" (inducks description). I'd need his name, and a scan of
> him

This character was created by Stefan Printz-Påhlson and Vicar and first
showed up in D 5560. According to SPP, the character's first name was
Douglas. Douglas' second appearance (as far as we know) was in my story
"Gall in the family" (D 99252), where I in my synopsis implied Douglas'
and Scrooge's fathers were brothers. (And SPP has since decided that
Douglas' full name is Douglas McDuck.) However, since the relationship
between the fathers was only implied, there's a possibility Douglas'
actual relationship with Scrooge will turn out to be different. I (or
SPP) still haven't made a decision on that, though.

I don't have a scanner, so I unfortunately can't provide you with a
picture of Douglas.

Michiel wrote:

> I don't know if he's the
> same 'beggar cousin' as mentioned earlier on this list

He isn't.

> The first page of the story he appears
> in (D 99252) seems to be a sort of spoof (plagiate?) on the first
> page of Hergé's Tintin-album 'Coke en stock' ('The Red Sea
> Sharks').

It was a homage. Originally, the comic book shop's window didn't have a
display of superheroes - and we were going to get a closer look at the
album Donald was reading. An album strongly reminiscent of "Coke en
stock".
I wanted this particular opening page, partly because I happen to think
Tintin is the greatest comic book ever created and partly because it was
a handy explanation of the incredible coincidence that Scrooge would
happen to run into a relative he hadn't seen for years. By paralleling
the album events with the "real-life" Duckburg events, I hoped the
Scrooge-Douglas meeting would become more believable to the reader. Oh,
and I also wanted this opening page because Scrooge's (idiotic)
criticism of Donald's wasteful ways (in buying that album) would be
paralleled by Douglas' (idiotic) criticism of Scrooge's wasteful ways
over the next 11 pages.
My editor believed we couldn't make that obvious a reference to Tintin
and Haddock and instead had them changed to superheroes named Beakman
and Herring. The opening still worked, though.

Lars