Bolivar

[Franzon, Johan F I]

I have vivid memories from reading Egmont produced Donald Duck weeklies
in the 1970's, when Bolivar occasionally appeared. Back then, there was
a slew of supporting characters: Cousin Fethry, Ludwig Van Drake, Clara
Cluck, the nephews of Goofy and Gyro Gearlose. None of them I see
appearing in the Donald Duck weekly I've read since 2003, since my son
started to take an interest in Donald Duck - and immediately became an
avid fan of Don Rosa stories!

I presumed Bolivar was one of those characters fallen into disuse and
who Egmont nowadays prefer their artists not to use. I overlooked the
sentence: "when I went to work for Europe, I saw that Bolivar was still
being used as the Nephews' dog in new stories".

I was more intrigued by the sentence: "Bolivar - had disappeared from
the American stories before my sisters starting saving the comics". But
Bolivar did make a glorious show of himself in 1951! What happened then?

He apparently belonged to the Barks of the forties, the domestic
adventures of Donald and his naughty nephews. When the boys became
Junior Woodchucks and they all started traveling with Uncle Scrooge,
Barks found little use of the dog, it seems.

(Come to think of it, were there generally more animals in Barks'
stories in the forties? I remember something about Donald feeding a
lion, training a falcon, exasperating over a sitting schnauzer. Were
those stories "early Barks"?)

Knowing how ingeniously and imaginatively Mr Rosa has set about
exploring the unmentioned assumptions and unchartered backgrounds of the
Barksian Duck universe, I think it's a pity if Bolivar must be left
unexplored. 

Perhaps he did get lost in a snowstorm?

Perhaps they gave him away, or traded him, to their pig-boy neighbour
Herbert?

Perhaps he lives, happily but lonely, in a home for retired Junior
Woodchucks pets?

Couldn't Mr Rosa make one more attempt to bring him back?

Johan