A Serious Accident to Scrooge McDuck (1912) and more

[M.J. Prior]

In my previous message, I wrote:

> This line set me to thinking about this 'Ducks-as-charicaturized-
> human-beings'-thing, but for now I'm at a loss what my point 
> would be and how and why I would want to put it forward.

For one thing, the Ducks may be charicatures of human beings, 
but their world is also a travesty or less complicated version of our 
own world.

> Scrooge may meet actual historical persons like Czar Nicholas II 
> and John Jacob Astor (both died under awful circumstances). 

Scrooge boarded the Titanic and survived it neatly. No mention of 
lots and lots and lots of people drowning and freezing in the icecold 
water. A gruesome experience? Merely a funny (and dramatic, to 
be fair) passage in a comic. We actually see John Astor toppling 
over board, but it doesn't look very alarming.

I don't think that such events aren't suited to be treated in a funny 
or lightspirited way, it's after all a) a long time ago now and b) 
merely a very unfortunate accident, unlike certain more specific 
events and situations during WWII, but somehow it's precisely this 
absence of a serious treatment that gives me the shudders when 
reading the Titanic-passage in 'The Empire-Builder from Calisota'.

Michiel Prior.

P.S.: A teacher of mine used to have a xerox-copy hanging at his 
door, showing the front page of a paper covering the Titanic 
disastrofe, with the headlines saying, in big, black, bold letters: 
JOHN JACOB ASTOR DEAD, and something like 'Titanic sinks, 
1.522 people drowned' in much and much smaller letters. 

Another funny detail: the name of the captain of the Carpathia, the 
ship that picked up the survivors, was Haddock! 
(Or maybe it was another captain of another ship, but there was a 
capt. Haddock involved.)

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