DCML Digest Issue 7

[Don Rosa]

> From: Katie Sullivan <vazali at yahoo.com>
> I doubt it was a deliberate slight, and even if it was, stop
> being so touchy!  *sigh*

I think we should resign ourselves to this personality trait. Obviously it
will not change. (yes... *sigh*).

> Besides, even with the Rosa universe there are contradictions.
> First, in Lo$ 12 we see him in his huge, gothic mansion.  We're
> told he sells that.  Okay.  In "Island at the Edge of Time"
> Scrooge lives elsewhere and walks to the Money Bin in the early
> morning.

I never believed that $crooge lived anywhere other than the Money Bin, but
the "Island" story made it easier to show him arriving from elsewhere in the
morning, as did that TEMPO magazine gag. To show him arriving at his office
from upstairs would imply that he was just coming down from another office,
and would have required a several panel explanation of something that was
not related to the story and inappropriate at that moment.
Anyway, the Egmont editor said that he had always assumed that $crooge lived
in town in some cheap apartment. I said that wasn't too abhorrent an idea to
me, so we compromised for future purposes -- $crooge lives mainly in his Bin
quarters, but for various reasons he sometimes stays at a small apartment he
has in some downtown Duckburg building. In fact, in the story I'm working on
right now, I had to show $crooge arriving at the Bin's entrance at dawn as
in "Island", but I invent another reason for it since to go into an
explanation of the "downtown apartment" idea would have interrupted the
story with unnecessary info (and I already have enough unnecessary info in
every panel of my stories already!).

> From: "KUR" <ggk at wp.pl>
> I olwey's was thnking theat they will be teacher's or schoolmasters in the
> future. I  personaly don;t see dous tree as businessman's.

That's a good point! Since I never expected that that lil' cartoon would
ever appear other than in that one issue of that small print-run fanzine
(rather than on websites and in actual licensed Disney comic books around
the world, forever!) I would have given lots more thought to how the nephews
were dressed. If I had it to do over again, I would have one dressed in
"casual business" attire (for running the McDuck Memorial Charity
Foundation), one dressed somehow to clearly indicate a teacher, and one
dressed as a forest ranger of Senior Woodchuck. And I would imagine to
myself that they are all three employed in all three of those activities at
different times, swapping off one job for another. (I still like the idea of
them being the same character times 3, with no individual traits... I think
that's part of the "gag" for me, that there could be three such noble yet
identical people.)
By the way, you are apparently using some sort of computer program that
types out your spoken words, aren't you? Is that why your messages are
presented as being a phonetically spelled version of English spoken with an
accent? It's fun to read!

> From: "Klartekst" <info at klartekst.no>
> In the story "Go Slowly, Sands of  Time"
> written and illustrated (in 1980!) by CB
> himself it is revealed that the old duck is
> constantly rejuvinated by his daily money
> swims. I quote from the end of the story:
> Commenting on the story, Barks said that it
> was
> "...kind of a spiritual story of Scrooge,
> which gives him a means of going on and on
> forever so you don't have to to feel that he
> comes to the end of the line and dies all at
> once. He's going to just keep on going into
> eternity. Kids that read about him a hundred
> years from now can think of him as still
> being alive."

And that's fine if that's your idea.
I think "Go Slowly Sands of Time" was something that Barks would naturally
do for his fans and for his creation, especially when requested to do so.
But as with the oil paintings, I regard this explanation as having been done
years "after the fact" of Barks' actual career of story creating, done for a
different reason than his original career of storytelling as were the
paintings, not to mention the inexplicability and "fairy tale" quality of
that explanation which I don't care for. So, as with any and all info seen
in the oil paintings, I am interested or amused by it, but I choose to
ultimately disregard it.
Based on the stories in Barks' actual "career", people sometimes want to
note $crooge's encounter with the Fountain of Youth to explain that he
"lives forever". But that story told of how drinking the water (as the Ducks
did) only made one healthy... swimming in it (which they did *not* do) is
what made one younger. And continuing to drink it daily (which they also
could not do) would keep one the same age. To interpret the story to mean
that one drink would keep $crooge the same age forever would also imply that
the Nephews who also drank the water will never grow up, and that's a *very*
sad and depressing fate to wish on a child... reminds me of that pitiful
undead toddler in "Interview with a Vampire". (Actually, maybe the story did
not show the Nephews drinking, I'm not double-checking -- but the fact
remains that the story stated that drinking the water only resulted in good
health). So I figure drinking from the Fountain of Youth is why $crooge was
so healthy that he could live and be active until he was 100, which would be
in 1967 when Barks retired. And as it turned out, that's what Barks himself
virtually accomplished (except for some poor health right at the end), so
it's all the more appropriate.
(Why am I sending so many messages on so many different past DCML digests? I
just returned from a trip to a very nice comic convention in St. Paul, MN,
and I'm playing catch-up.)