Urban myth?

[sigvald@duckburg.dk]

Lars Jensen <lpj at forfatter.dk> wrote:

> "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).

Yes he *is* important, but can never be compared to "the great
duckartist" - Carl Barks.


> To address your Della remark first: No, we don't "know"
> Della is Donald's sister.

We can't ??? I'll give you a lot of evidence for it:

1) In his unpublished Duck Family Tree, Barks shows that
HD&Ls mother *is* Donald's sister - that's thus a
BARKSIAN FACT!!!

Well, OK you can still argue that Barks' "Dumbella Duck" and Taliaferro's "Della" are two different characters and that
Dumbella first placed her 3 sons with her cousin Della who
later sent them to her cousin (Dumbella's brother Donald)...

BUT, such an explanation would both be pointlessly confusing
and definitely contradict information given in "Lo$ part XI"
and in Don Rosa's "Donald Duck Family Tree" which is approved
by Egmont as the official version of the family tree.


> 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.

OK, so you do agree that since Barks created Scrooge and says
Scrooge is Donald's mother's brother everyone - including Marco
Rota, who sees (or has seen) Scrooge and Grandma Duck as brother
and sister is/was wrong?


> You may say it makes more sense to have Della be Donald's
> sister, but you certainly can't say Taliaferro is wrong.

What I try to say is that I Barks the man to trust on that
question.


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

Per Starback and/or Harry Fluks has once stated that the Daisy
character was developed from the Donna-character. If that's
correct we do in reality speak about one character with two
names. From that starting point it is possible to define them
as two characters where the look alike explained by saying that
they are sisters. And we do indeed know that Daisy has at least
one sister with three daughters (April, May and June). So to do
it as simple as possible, the sister (Donna) can be seen as the
same sister known as AM&J's mother.

Anyway characters can act very differently in various "universes".
For instance HD&L who are wild kids in Taliaferro's universe and
highly honored members of The Junior Woodchuck's in Barks' universe.
So why can't the Mexican Donna in Taliaferro's universe be Daisy's
sister in the Barks/Rosa universe?

Sigvald :-)