When I discovered that the rest of the kids of the word didn't go to school on Saturday and that they had one year less of school to reach their high school graduation (18/19 years in Italy, 17/18 years elsewhere in Western Society) I started to have serious mass murder fantasies.
A few years ago, the German government took one year out on the way to high school graduation. Before that, we had 18/19 years in Germany too. I am not very glad that they took one year out, because I think, students were better on the university, than people are now. I think you can't go to university with 18 years, it's too young. 50 % of the germans, who went of school with 18 (so, after the reform) are failing on university! You can be glad, that you lived in a state, where school goes on longer! (My opinion)
I started university at 17 years old, and graduated in 4 years, and got 3 advanced graduate degrees. But, yes, for some students it can be too young.
Returning in topic after a few OT messages: the Fantomius/Fantomallard series has a few mentions or apperances of Duck family members, including one in the current issue of TOPOLINO. In it, we see many newspaper articles, and one of them says "Hortense McDuck announces the birth of two twins".
However, on the old DCF forum, one member claimed that in one Italian story (I believe it was this one: coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL++118-BP ) some notary pointed out that Donald is an orphan. I don't have the story, though.
I checked that 1955 Martina/Bottaro story after getting a copy of it, and the DCF user was right. The notary asks Donald the following question (my translation): "Are you Mr. Donald Duck, son of the late etc. and of the late etc., born on the day etc. of the year etc., living in etc. Street at number etc. etc.?" The first "late etc.", by the way, is Donald's father, and the second "late etc." is Donald's mother, and not vice versa: you can tell that by the different articles used in Italian, while in English the article "the" can by followed by both a male noun and a female noun.
Also, one story that may have Donald growing up with his parents rather than Grandma Duck is this one: coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=S+75182&search=Writes%20a%20book%20Franco%20lostaffa . Donald's mother and father can apparently be seen in a flashback (note that the original dialogue of this story must have been in English, given that it's an S-coded story).
Also, one story that may have Donald growing up with his parents rather than Grandma Duck is this one: coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=S+75182&search=Writes%20a%20book%20Franco%20lostaffa . Donald's mother and father can apparently be seen in a flashback (note that the original dialogue of this story must have been in English, given that it's an S-coded story).
This is the panel in which they appear (from their Inducks page), and I remember having seen that panel in some wiki:
If I remember correctly, Donald says (in the caption box) that his parents were not rich, but they were still fun-loving people, or something like that.
As for the Martina/Bottaro story I commented in my previous message, the notary also says that at the tender age of eight months, Donald was given, to be taken care of, to a Black Cloud, which has just died and left Donald her universal heir. Donald recognizes Black Cloud as her old Indian balia from the Black Feet tribe. The Italian word balia usually means "wet nurse", though I am not sure if Martina actually meant that of if the word was used in a figurative way to indicate a baby sitter. And on an unrelated note, I see that this story uses the Italian equivalent of "three cubic acres", an expression first used in Barks' "You Can't Guess!" (1950); I wonder if it's the earliest non-Barks use of that expression, or if there are earlier examples.
And since you talked about stories showing Donald growing up with his parents rather than Grandma Duck, I will mention this 1997 tale, which shows young Donald and young Gladstone in a gita (an Italian word meaning trip, excursion, outing or jaunt) at Grandma Duck's farm. The implication seems to be that young Donald doesn't normally live there.
If I remember correctly, Donald says (in the caption box) that his parents were not rich, but they were still fun-loving people, or something like that.
Yes, you're exactly right! "My parents weren't propertied, but nonetheless lifelong people."
And since you talked about stories showing Donald growing up with his parents rather than Grandma Duck, I will mention this 1997 tale, which shows young Donald and young Gladstone in a gita (an Italian word meaning trip, excursion, outing or jaunt) at Grandma Duck's farm. The implication seems to be that young Donald doesn't normally live there.
Happy to hear that there's an Italian story from the last twenty years (just barely!) in which the assumption is that young Donald lives with his parents and just visits Grandma Duck. And though the story isn't highly rated, and I don't myself accept stories which attribute Gladstone's luck to a lucky charm, I must say I really like Panarese's art on this page. I like the depictions of young Donald and Gladstone, and Grandma's facial expressions, and the startled chickens. Everything, basically, aside from Italian Grandma's bright yellow hair!
Happy to hear that there's an Italian story from the last twenty years (just barely!) in which the assumption is that young Donald lives with his parents and just visits Grandma Duck.
I guess the reason is that it was the Paperino Paperotto ("Donny Duck") series which made the Donald-raised-by-Grandma idea mainstream for Italian authors and readers. The series started in December 1998 with four 1-pagers while the first long story was published in January 1999. The story with Gladstone from which I took that image predates that series, as it was published in 1997.
That is not to say, of course, that there are not Italian stories predating Paperino Paperotto which also use the same idea. In fact, there are at least two stories: Buon compleanno Paperino (1984) by Marco Rota and Paperino e il gemello perfetto (1990) by Carlo Panaro (text) and Valerio Held (art).
Both stories are strange when it comes to explaining why Donald lives with Grandma. In the former, Scrooge and Grandma (presented as sibilings) adopt him after finding his egg in the middle of a street, which is weird in itself... but there's also the idea that it is a joint adoption, as if Scrooge and Grandma live together! And the place where they supposedly live is neither Grandma's farm nor Scrooge's Money Bin, but (apparently) a mansion:
The latter story has an even weirder (and creepy) explanation as to why young Donald lives with Grandma: a long-lost twin brother of Donald (which actually doesn't exist as we later find out the whole story is a dream) introduces himself this way: "Grandma Duck at the market bought not only you, as an omelet egg, but also me. Two twin egges, if we can say that... and she raised us with great love!"
Is the same idea (Grandma raising Donald) used in other Italian stories predating Paperino Paperotto, beside the two I mentioned? I don't know.
Everything, basically, aside from Italian Grandma's bright yellow hair!
I also dislike Grandma Duck having bright yellow hair, but I guess it can't be helped as for some reason colorists have decided that she can't have grey/white (or even yellow but not bright) hair, and for many years that's how her hair have been colored. In recent years there also seem to have been an increase of characters with bright yellow hair in Italian Disney comics.
Rota's "From Egg to Duck" very clearly shows Donald growing up on Grandma's farm (little Donald even seen chasing some of the farm animals in one scene), not in a mansion, and it's not explicitly stated whether Scrooge lives with Grandma. I actually do like the story, and I find it certainly one of Marco Rota's very best stories-- the artwork is amazing, and I think Grandma and Scrooge being siblings (with Grandma being Donald's adoptive grandmother) works very well in this story. I don't think that Donald's biography here s "weird" or "strange"--it fits perfectly fine with practically every Duck comic, and provides a reasonable explanation as to why Donald was raised by his Grandma, rather than his own parents.
Rota's "From Egg to Duck" very clearly shows Donald growing up on Grandma's farm (little Donald even seen chasing some of the farm animals in one scene), not in a mansion, and it's not explicitly stated whether Scrooge lives with Grandma.
It may be, I haven't read the story in a while so I may be forgetting the details. I do see a few animals in a panel two pages later, so I guess that mansion-looking building is just Grandma's farm with a different design. However, the dialogue between US and GD suggest their are doing a joint adoption, even if they are not living together.
I actually do like the story, and I find it certainly one of Marco Rota's very best stories-- the artwork is amazing, and I think Grandma and Scrooge being siblings (with Grandma being Donald's adoptive grandmother) works very well in this story. I don't think that Donald's biography here s "weird" or "strange"--it fits perfectly fine with practically every Duck comic, and provides a reasonable explanation as to why Donald was raised by his Grandma, rather than his own parents.
I agree that the artwork is good, but I don't really like the plot, for having an unnecessary estended fourth wall breaking, for showing Donald hatching from an egg which was on a nest for some unstated reason, for portraying Scrooge and Grandma as sibilings, for the fact that they decided to adopt Donald as soon as they found him on the street, for the fact that Scrooge doesn't figure out he is his nephew until years later, for the fact that Donald has a cousin even though he doesn't know who his parents are, for the fact that it is not explained how Scrooge figured out Donald is his nephew and who his parents are, for defying the whole point for which the whole adoption plot was created etc. There are just so many things that look strange and/or weird to me.
But these are secondary things, almost an afterthought. The real point I was trying to make in my previous post is that: *The Donald-raised-by-Grandma idea became mainstream for Italian authors and readers with the Paperino Paperotto series, which started in 1998; *There are, however, at least two Italian stories (from 1984 and 1990) that used the same idea before Paperino Paperotto. *I don't know if there are other pre-1998 Italian stories to use this idea.
Dumbella appeared in another Geradts one-pager in today's issue of Donald Duck Weekly. The gag is centered around Dumbella disliking her first name. coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=H+2016-243
Oh, that's lovely. They're being portrayed as teenagers now!
Do I get it right that the story gives Della as her actual name and Dumbella as a nickname she'd prefer to be addressed as? That's interesting since I believe Dumbella was her "actual" name in Dutch until now?
Do I get it right that the story gives Della as her actual name and Dumbella as a nickname she'd prefer to be addressed as? That's interesting since I believe Dumbella was her "actual" name in Dutch until now?
You believe correctly: until now she has been called Dumbella in the translation of the Taliaferro Sunday page mentioning her...
... and in the translation of "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck"...
... and in the translation of Don Rosa's family tree (Did they ever translate the original version, in addition of creating a redrawn version?)...
... and in the Dutch-produced stories with her, namely the Donald Duck 80th anniversary story...
... and the recent 1-pagers, for which I guess no image is needed. I think this last 1-pager may be the only time the name "Della" has been used in a Dutch comic, though I can't be 100% sure since I haven't checked the Dutch translations of this story, this story and possible alternate Dutch translations of the Taliaferro Sunday page.
Dutch translators are not the only ones to have made this choice: in Brazilian translations she is called Dumbela (with one "l"), while in Swedish translations she is actually called Dumbella "Della" Anka, as if Dumbella is her real name and Della the nickname, rather than the other way round.
I also wonder why is Dumbo mentioned. I think they may be commenting that the name Dumbella sounds similar to Dumbo. Anyway, this is a great year for Della: five appearances and one indirect mention, and the year has just started. I guess she's close to making more appearances this year than in the previous 80 years.
As for the continuity of the series, I don't like the fact that in the previous 1-pager the statue of Cornelius Coot had already been built when Donald was having his first driving lesson, but I guess it's a moot point since Geradts said he doesn't care about continuity.