What is so funny about Magica

Daniel van Eijmeren dve at kabelfoon.nl
Sun Aug 31 22:24:43 CEST 2003


I wrote:

> Before long, I didn't like Magica (Barks or not), but that has 
> completely changed! And this whole witch/sorceress discussion is 
> an imporant factor in that change. Thanks, everyone!

Another error. Oh me. I meant that before long, I didn't like Magica 
because of the many non-Barks stories which have made the subject of 
stealing Scrooge's first dime a rather stale one to me. These stories 
are much too focussed on running and chasing the dime, when it's stolen
by Magica. Getting Scrooge's dime is not that funny to me.

Looking at Barks's stories, Magica mostly has some kind of new trick 
or gadget that she uses to get Scrooge's dime. What follows is mostly 
a lot of zany action, with all kinds of weird electronic, scientific 
explanations for flying brooms (JW 10), flying carpets (US 50), armies
of animals (US 45), etc.

I think those ingredients generally make a Magica/Scrooge story a good 
story. Here are some more examples, *not* by Barks this time:

D 4616 The Mysterious Garden/The Green Attack. 
Art by Daniel Branca.
Writer unknown.
Reprinted in Uncle Scrooge 221
http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/D++4616
This is the first Magica story I remember reading. It was reprinted in two 
Dutch weeklies of 1981. In this story Magica has control over vegetation. 
I liked the scary imaginative atmosphere of this story. It has been (too) 
long ago since I've read this story for the last time.

I believe Don Rosa's "The Treasury Of Croesus" (D 94012) contains that 
great opening scene with (IMO) one of the weirdest scenes with Magica. 
There are so many tricks going around that the page looks like an 
kaleidoscope on LSD! (Wow! Heavy, man!) :-) But it must be a bad trip
for every colorist who wants to be home early. Just think about getting 
*that* opening scene on your desk at 16.45 PM! :-)
http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/D+94012
(The coin-philosophy at the end of the story didn't work for me, but 
that's another matter. I just didn't get the point.)

My favourite Rosa-story with Magica is "A Matter Of Some Gravity" (D 96001), 
because of the sideway-gravity idea, and the consistent, border-pushing way 
of how it is handled throughout the story.
http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/D+96001

Another nice Rosa story is "Of Ducks And Dimes And Destinies" (D 91249), 
in which Magica imitates Cord's recent time-travel journey. Or was it the 
other way around? Will we ever know? Did he write any currently-ancient 
tomes about this? :-)
http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/D+91249

A Marco Rota Magica story which I find great, is his money ocean story 
"Zio Paperone e il deposito oceanico" (I AT 215-A). As I've said before, 
I find the story, art, and visualization, too beautiful to be true.
http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/I+AT++215-A
Reprinted in Uncle Scrooge 266/267.

The zany, motionless stories of Magica and Madam Mim living in a castle 
don't seem to be focussed on chasing the dime. (I'm told these stories 
are drawn by Jim Fletcher. I can't locate them now, so that's why I can't 
verify.) For me, they're another great category of Magica stories.

So far my examples of good, exciting Magica De Spell comics. In fact, 
these are all the favourite non-Barks Magica-stories that I can remember 
at the moment. But maybe some people can boost my memory by mentioning
their favourites?

Everything in this email is according to my humble opinion.
Whatever offence will be his fault, not mine. %-)

--- Daniël

P.S. Just one of my many thoughts. Is Barks's Magica an evil person? 
Has she ever threatened to really harm (or even kill) people or animals? 
I can't remember any such instance.


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