After doing a bit more research, I've found that the ducks had visited Glasgow in "Hound of the Whiskervilles" (https://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=W+US+++29-04) but there is no mention in that story of Scrooge ever living there. I'm not sure if that's where Don Rosa got the idea that young Scrooge lived in Glasgow or if there's another story where it's mentioned.
I personally don't have any opposition to a story about Scrooge's elementary school. Some might question whether a school for poor children in the 1800's (Or later if you intend to have the story take place in the present) would still exist however many decades later but as long as the story itself is written well and entertaining, I can put aside that discrepancy. Just because Barks or Rosa never mentioned it doesn't mean it's an unquestionable fact. I would just make sure not to contradict anything from Life and Times since that's what a lot of people associate Scrooge's childhood with. You could probably get away with saying that Scrooge's family lived in a small town just outside of Glasgow and that he simply makes a commute to the city for his businesses. That should allow you to tell the story you want to tell without changing what Rosa had established.
I knew that "The Invisible Intruder" was written by Vic Lockman. But, because it was drawn by Barks, It is the same, to ME, for purposes of not creating conflicts with it in my own story submittals.
True that Cheapside Street in Glasgow, is in the district of Anderston. But the fact that no town of Cheapside exists today makes the choice of Glasgow for Scrooge's home, a little more credible. Perhaps, the family lived on Cheapside Street?
For visual purposes, I wanted to have their house be a small bungalow, made of stones, in a small town. I suppose that that town could be fairly near to Glasgow, but not in that big city. Then, Scrooge could be near enough to the unattended woods, where he could gather the firewood, and Scrooge could be near enough to Glasgow, where he could drive his father's horse wagon to its centre to sell his firewood, and he could have hitched a ride on a milkwagon to go there to shine shoes.
I don't like to see Scrooge's family living in a large brick apartment building in a crowded area of a big city.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Jul 18, 2016 8:54:10 GMT
I think Rob's preferred version and Don Rosa's can be more or less conciliated. A very young , pre-dime Scrooge lived in the countryside, and they had to move to Glasgow a few years for whatever reason. 'will be my headcanon, I think. Note that Scrooge growing up in a house in the countryside would not be unprecedented: it's the case in DuckTales.
I think Rob's preferred version and Don Rosa's can be more or less conciliated. A very young , pre-dime Scrooge lived in the countryside, and they had to move to Glasgow a few years for whatever reason. 'will be my headcanon, I think. Note that Scrooge growing up in a house in the countryside would not be unprecedented: it's the case in DuckTales.
This is good to read. I had thought that Barks first mentioned Cheapside, and that the 2 Strobl stories used it because of Barks. But, now I see that the old memory plays tricks, and I must have remembered Cheapside only because of reading it in the Strobl stories. But, I want to make Scrooge's young years to have been in a small town, so, I will use "Cheapside" as the town, and have it located near Glasgow, and make his house a small stone bungalow in a poor area. I WILL have him attending elementary school. Barks left it open, that Scrooge COULD have attended elementary school for, at least, a few years. People don't really work for a living at age 5-8. I worked in my father's store from age 5-17, and yet, still managed to attend school.
Yes, my story will likely talk about Scrooge's age of 6-10 in elementary school. So, that shouldn't be a problem. Flashback panel views will appear.
In addition, Scrooge could have also attended elementary school from the ages of 10 to 12, and still gathered firewood in the afternoons. I believe that the earliest I saw Rosa refer to Scrooge traveling across the ocean to seek his fortune, was the age of 13. I really doubt that young boys, who had a father at home, and a stable household, traveled alone at age 13, to go seek their fortune.
If they had a decent relationship with their whole family and their fathers, they'd likely have stayed at home, and worked to help earn income for the family, and not left until being 16 years of age. At 13, a boy would be terribly vulnerable to unscrupulous and mean men. He couldn't protect himself physically, and wouldn't know enough about The World to avoid all the dangers. I traveled alone all across Europe and even to Turkey and Morocco at age 17. I can imagine having done that at 16, if I'd have had to. But doing that at 13 would likely have resulted in disaster.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Jul 18, 2016 15:02:37 GMT
To be fair, it does seem that anthropomorphic ducks mature faster. The nephews are an obvious example, but there's also Donald, who was born in 1920 per Don Rosa and was living on his own in 1934's "The Wise Little Hen". If not as a general rule, at least it seems pretty common in our favorite Ducks' family.
To be fair, it does seem that anthropomorphic ducks mature faster. The nephews are an obvious example, but there's also Donald, who was born in 1920 per Don Rosa and was living on his own in 1934's "The Wise Little Hen". If not as a general rule, at least it seems pretty common in our favorite Ducks' family.
Even if that would be the rule, my placing Scrooge in elementary school from age 6 through 10 causes no problem. I hope most fans won't mind if I place his family living in Cheapside, a town NEAR to Glasgow, but not inside the city, nor an attached suburb. I'd really like to show an old-fashioned stone bungalow, rather than the late 1800s style 3, 4 or 5 story brick apartment building which is like the one I lived in in Den Haag (built in the 1880s, and in Kopenhagen (which was also built in the late 1800s). I'd rather have the poor and simple atmosphere of a poor village or poor area of a rural town in Scotland, than a crowded tenement area in a big, industrial city. Fergus was supposed to be working in a mine. What kind of mines were very near Glasgow? Why should a poor family live in an expensive centre of an industrial city and then have the father (Fergus) probably pay money to travel to his work at a mine, when he could live in the town near the mine, usually built to house the mine workers?
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Jul 18, 2016 16:01:18 GMT
Yes, yes, I was not arguing about 6-10 Scrooge in elementary school; I was arguing that Don Rosa's Scrooge leaving at 13 wasn't that weird. At any rate, two other points: in "DuckTales", the countryside house where the McDucks lived was near Castle McDuck, not near Glasgow. And as far as I know, Fergus was a bagpipe-player in DuckTales and a factory worker in Life and Times, but never a coal-miner. It's his father Dingus McDuck who was.
Yes, yes, I was not arguing about 6-10 Scrooge in elementary school; I was arguing that Don Rosa's Scrooge leaving at 13 wasn't that weird. At any rate, two other points: in "DuckTales", the countryside house where the McDucks lived was near Castle McDuck, not near Glasgow. And as far as I know, Fergus was a bagpipe-player in DuckTales and a factory worker in Life and Times, but never a coal-miner. It's his father Dingus McDuck who was.
No problem. Of course, I understood, exactly, your point. Fergus, living a short few miles from Glasgow, could work in a factory there. He could probably hitch a ride into the city with a peddler who lives in his town, and rides his horse wagon into the city every workday. The driver probably would welcome the company. I might save that specific scenario for a future story showing more of Scrooge's youth.
Jan Gulbransson and I are working on a story in which Donald and his nephews travel to Scotland to visit Uncle Scrooge’s childhood home. Since reading Carl Barks’ stories at a young age from 1942-1962 (to end of Dell/beginning of Gold Key), I have always thought Scrooge grew up in Cheapside, Scotland. I assumed that Cheapside was a village or small town in the highlands of Scotland, as The Clan McDuck was still so strong an idea among Scrooge’s family (The Clans in Scotland were still intact mainly in The Highlands, as opposed to the modernised big cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee).
The story sounds fascinating. I know you may not want to reveal some of this as this stage, but do you plan to include flashbacks to Scrooge's childhood? If so, will you adhere to the version of the Barks family tree that includes his sisters Hortense and Matilda, that Rosa based Life and Times on? I ask because I know that in general you tend not to treat Rosa as gospel. Will Uncle Jake be included, or will Gideon?
To be fair, it does seem that anthropomorphic ducks mature faster. The nephews are an obvious example, but there's also Donald, who was born in 1920 per Don Rosa and was living on his own in 1934's "The Wise Little Hen". If not as a general rule, at least it seems pretty common in our favorite Ducks' family.
I don't really think "The Wise Little Hen" fits well into Barks-type continuity. Rosa states that Donald was born in 1920, and his stories are set in the late 1940s and early 1950s, so Donald is in his late twenties to early thirties, which fits with the overall picture.
Jul 18, 2016 20:04:24 GMT -4 RobbK1 said: I DO have flashbacks in the story. Uncle Jake was portrayed by Barks, and Rosa drew him just as Barks had. I will not tell more here.
Fair enough! We'll wait for the story, which I look forward to since I enjoy reading about Scrooge's childhood (unlike DuckTales, though, I hope it is shown that Scrooge does have siblings, otherwise he can not be an uncle!). I only hope it gets published in English somewhere someday.
Although it's not a Barks story, I thought it would be worth mentioning here that in this story: coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=D+10014 (with some great Daniel Branca artwork, by the way), Scrooge can be seen going to school as a child. In one flashback panel, we can see little Scrooge (similar in appearance to Scrooge in "The Invisible Intruder, minus the glasses) carrying his school books and wearing what seems to be some sort of school uniform. Also, the DuckTales episodes "The Curse of Castle McDuck"and "Once Upon a Dime" show young Scrooge living in "Cottage McDuck". Scrooge also mentioned here that his parents (voiced by Don Messick and June Foray) were poor farmers.
To be fair, it does seem that anthropomorphic ducks mature faster. The nephews are an obvious example, but there's also Donald, who was born in 1920 per Don Rosa and was living on his own in 1934's "The Wise Little Hen". If not as a general rule, at least it seems pretty common in our favorite Ducks' family.
I don't really think "The Wise Little Hen" fits well into Barks-type continuity. Rosa states that Donald was born in 1920, and his stories are set in the late 1940s and early 1950s, so Donald is in his late twenties to early thirties, which fits with the overall picture.
In an interview by Wim van Helden, ("Carl Barks en de Mythe van Walt Disney's Donald Duck", page 16) Barks himself said he thought Donald is a teenager.
Hi Scroogerello! Nice to see you here on this forum. The more ex DCFers, the better! Thanks for the tip on the Branca story. I have the Dutch printing of that one. But, I'm not with my Dutch comics now (only German issues and Barks Collected Works). I don't think my Egmont editors will have a problem with my sending scrooge to some years of elementary school. I will not conflict with Barks, Barks/Lockman, Strobl/Gregory or Branca/Antrobus.