Strobl story and some censorship in a Barks' story

[Mark Small]

Hello,

Just when I thought I may contribute to the List, and
some "50" people beat me to it! :-). That Strobl story
about how Scrooge earned his first dime as a boy, was
called "Getting that Healthy, Wealthy Feeling" in
Australia, and was printed in issue No. 312 in 1972 as
a 9 page story. I say 9 pages, because the Australian
publishers often used to cut panels, or whole pages.

Now this gives me a chance to talk about something
that I came accross quite recently, another case of
censorship for one of Barks' stories, by Disney. It
concerns "Island in the Sky", where Scrooge and the
boys set out to find a safe storage location for his
money within the asteroid belt, out beyond Mars.

I'm an irregular reader of the mailing list, and I
know there has been some discussion about changes in
Barks' stories, particularly "The Treasure of Marco
Polo"  for cultural sensitivities, but I don't know if
anyone has talked about "Island in the Sky".

I am comparing US 268 (Disney - July 1992) to my
original, Australian, printing of the story, which
came out in issue G480 (1970).

I guess like other stories such as "Land of the Pygmy
Indians" and Rosa's "War of the Wendigo", the intent
has not to offend the Native American peoples. Some
examples of changes to the dialog within this story
are:

Scrooge says, when encountering the aliens for the
first time (p11):

"They kneel like the American savages kneeled to
Columbus!"

In the US 268 printing he says: 

"They kneel like the ancient savages kneeled to
explorers!"


Likewise when held captive in the cave, HD&L say(p
14):

"What are these asteroid Apaches jabbering about?"

Rather than (US 268): "What are these asteroid aliens
jabbering about?"

And Scrooge later says (p 15):

"I'll let the chief Mohawk have this big watermelon."

Rather than (US 268): "I'll let the chief savage have
this big watermelon."

Interestingly other references comparing the asteroid
aliens to Native Americans go unchanged. Namely:

"Poor, hungry, little Siwashes!" (p 15)

"We have to abandon these little Apaches to their
rotton luck!" (p 16)

I hope someone else finds that interesting.


Regards,

Mark Small
(Australia)

 






 
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