Urban myth?

[Lars Jensen]

sigvald at duckburg.dk wrote:

>> Karp and Taliaferro
>> clearly did not intend Daisy and Donna to be sisters.
>
>And So what? Taliaferro also says that Della (the mother of HD&L) is
>Donald's cousin, while we *know* that she is indeed Donald's sister.
>That's what makes HD&L Donald's nephews. That's pure logic. The
>children of your cousins are *not* your nieces or nephews (as long as
>your cousin is not married to one of your siblings). My conclusion is
>that when Taliaferro can be slightly wrong about Della he can be so
>about Donna's relations to Daisy as well.

"And so what"?!? We're talking about Al Taliaferro here, a man who
worked on Donald Duck from the mid-30s onwards. A man who had strong
ties to the Disney Studios. A man who co-defined the original Duck
universe in the comics (along with Barks).

To address your Della remark first: No, we don't "know" Della is
Donald's sister. Taliaferro was the man who actually *created* Huey,
Dewey and Louie - as well as Della, of course. If Taliaferro says Della
is Donald's cousin, then I don't think anybody can argue that he is
wrong. You may say it makes more sense to have Della be Donald's sister,
but you certainly can't say Taliaferro is wrong.

Regarding Donna and Daisy: Of course Taliaferro could be wrong when he
stated they were not sisters. He didn't create any of those characters.
But, as I mentioned, he had strong ties to the Studio. And I've yet to
see anybody else with equally strong connections to the creators of
Donna and Daisy step forward and (in a published comic story) claim
these two characters are siblings.

>And remember that our friend Gilles sees Barks' (and Don Rosa's?)
>stories as Duckburg reality. In Taliaferros stories he sees the Ducks
>more like actors and in the story you mention April, May and Junes
>mother act as a Mexican.

Taliaferro has his characters act like "actors"?!? Where exactly do you
see evidence for this? Or is this Gilles' hypothesis? (Sorry, but that
wasn't clear from your posting.)

>Another possibility is that there is two Donnas:
>1) The one who appeared before Daisy in the 1930's (Daisy's
>look-alike).
>2) The Mexican girl from the 1951-story.

Two Donnas who look alike, both seem to be Mexicans and both have had a
romance with Donald. Not very likely.

If Taliaferro says Donna and Daisy are not related, then I'm inclined to
believe him.

Lars