inducks.org mentionned in PM 374!!! / Flying saucers

[Olivier]

Hi everyone!


Gilles:

>>> First, I noticed that, under the title, we could read : "Propriétaire (Owner)= Balthazar D.
Picsou
>>>  (Scrooge D. McDuck)"
>>> So Scrooge's Middle name starts with a "D" !!!

Just my very humble opinion: I wouldn't take this as a "fact". The guy who made up the page (I don't
have this issue, by the way) just came up with this initial, feeling it would be better; it's
perfectly arbitrary.
Trying to make a tree using the "facts" given his stories as you do is hard enough without adding
such things.
Authors/artists do not have any more rights or rather authority than editors to tell what the middle
name of  a character should be, what his "official" history is; but they're the ones who work with
the characters, come up with stories, make up a whole world for these characters, so that their
"facts" are less "arbitrary". When an author / artist like Keno Don Rosa creates (or develop) such
characters as Fulton & Ratchets Gearloose, or when William Van Horn invents Uncle Rufus, he doesn't
just pick a name & character at random, without thought; the character has specific traits, maybe a
history; and maybe he'll use it again-- like Barks' Scrooge.
In PM's case, however, it seems the guy has just invented this "D" to make it nice. Maybe this will
be taken up in later issues and thus become an "official fact".
As Don Rosa would say, you decide for yourself  which universe & "facts" you prefer for the
characters.
Personally, I deem this "D" meaningless-- just as meaningless as if  it had appeared in SPG's
Coin-Coin or "Ma Vie" (par Popop).
I guess the thing that bothers me is not such much that you choose to take this "D" into account,
but the way you take it for granted, as if  this guy had revealed a secret fact, something that was
set in stone in the Disney archives but nobody had ever revealed ("So his names is...!").



>>>page 106, a little article about the last episode of Lo$, which is republished, they tell
>>>that mayb, at christmas 2004, they are going to republish this story with Don Rosa's new panels
of the story
>>>(the 19 pages version instead of the 16 pages)... They add that they found pages of Don Rosa that
have never
>>>been published in France. I don't know what they're talking about...

Here's the story, straight from the horse's mouth-- ie, from Keno Don Rosa's notes on part 12, as
printed in U$ 296 (Feb '96) (this part was edited out whent he notes were reprinted in the album)...
[I've added within brackets comments taken from the version of  this text published on Dan's site]

Now, about those "added pages": about 18 months ago this story appeared around the rest of  the
world in a 16-page form. I always thought that very version was very abrupt in several spots [-- and
I had already begged a 16th page onto my usual 15 page limit for that original version.] [s]o for
this Gladstone printing I did *three* extra pages [, not all at once or even as pages, but ] in the
form of  tiers of  new panels spread throughout the story [(which got rather complicated)]. For
those who are interested, here are the panels in this final chapter that are appearing here for the
first time anywhere:
Page 4, panels 8-10 [a walk through Scrooge's trophy collection];
Page 5, panel 5 (redrawn) [Scrooge meets his nephews] [the following original panels are widened to
fill out the next few tiers];
Päge 6, panels 8-10 [back in Scrooge's trophy room];
Page 11, panels 9 and 10 [carrying Scrooge's memorabilia trunk and hopping aboard for a slide];
Page 12, panels 5-9 [the ducks give chase and the Beagles see them coming];
Page 14, panels 3-6 [more hijinx during the chase];
Page 15, panels 1 and 2 [ditto];
Page 16, panels 5-7 [psycho-drama back at the Bin];
Page 17, panels 8-10 [the best addition-- Scrooge gets revenge for his first encounter with Donald].
In these panels I made a new addition of  a Barksian reference that was missing from the series
since it took place during a year that the series didn't touch on... I refer to the painting
(photo?) in Scrooge's trophy hall depicting a scene from "Black Wednesday" (WDC&S 230). I also added
another trophy to Scrooge's collection which would have been sorta impossible for 1947, or even
mid-1994 when this story first appeared in Europe [-- the 1995 Eisner Award that all concerned with
this series won in America for "Best Serialized (long) Story" of  the year. I'm someone torn about
the addition of  this-- there's no denying that it's a cute gag, but it steps out of  the realistic
framework that I so carefully create around my stories. But maybe my attitude is sorta like that
scene in Who Frame Roger Rabbit where Roger was unable to slip his "toon" hand out of  some
handcuffs until such time as it was funny to do so. same with me, I guess; I take my Duck comics far
too seriously and I will never, never, never compromise the realistic aspects of  my Scrooge
stories, ever, not no time, not no how.. until it's funny to do so. But the Eisner Award is hanging
on a wall, right? And those background pictures hanging on teh wall in Donald's home in the old
Barks stories have frequently impossible things happening in them, right? So, the precedent was
already set! Yeah!]



Larry:
>>>A small one-panel comic by Frank Deale in last Saturday's newspaper
>>>has a miniature flying saucer loaded in a dishwasher.  The little
>>>space-alien captain says to his assistant "I thought I'd get the ship
>>>washed before we head home."
>>>I think this comic artist must have read Barks'
>>>"Microducks from Outer Space" Scrooge story.  Did he originate the
>>>concept that a flying saucer space ship could be the size of a dinner
>>>plate or actual saucer?

I guess it all stems from the way such ships are called: "flying saucers", because of  their shape;
from there, anyone can come up with dish gags; I recall a similar one in an old issue of  Mickey
Parade (flying saucers flying in & out of  a dish washing machine, with a sign that reads "saucer
wash" or some such thing).
Time for another quote...

(from Geoffrey Blum's "The Santa Claus Syndrome", first published as part of  "The Joyous Season" in
Set I of  The Carl Barks Library, 1984: reprinted in The Carl Barks Library of  Donald Duck
Adventures in Color, album 11)

James Montgomery Flagg's fantasy of  battling steam shovels was first published in Liberty in 1926.
when shown the drawing, Barks expressed surprise.
"I had no idea Flagg ever stooped to such slapstick. No, I had never seen his cartoon, nor had I
ever read Liberty magazine except in dentists' waiting rooms. The idea of  steam shovels fighting is
another of  those "naturals" that anybody should be able to think up."



Best wishes,

Olivier