I was happily reading along in Mike Kupari's brand-new SF book, Her Brother's Keeper, in which Catherine, spaceship captain, gets hired by her aristocratic father to rescue her brother, who is being held for ransom by baddies on a planet faraway. And here is what I read:
Something about it bothered her. He had practically thrown the money at her, barely concerning himself with the details of her expenses and fees. This, coming from Augustus Blackwood, the notorious, penny-pinching tightwad who was even more obsessive-compulsive about managing his money than Mordecai was. (There was an unflattering rumor that her father kept a large bin of hard currency somewhere, simply so he could swim in it. That one wasn't true, so far as Catherine knew.) --p. 40
I wonder whether Kupari is a comics reader, or whether he just watched DuckTales?
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jan 31, 2017 10:00:03 GMT
Well, the fact that that certain duck swims in money is popular culture. It's common knowledge. I think that everybody in Western society has that image in mind, even those who have never read any comics in their life. Or is something that applies only to Western Europe? I know that in the US Scrooge is not as popular as here...but still I assumed that everyone knows who he is! Wrong assumption?
In Italy when some magazine shows its annual stupid rating of the richest stupid people in the word, like Forbes or something like that, and such a stupid (non-)news is reported by another news media, this other news media says something like "here comes the annual Forbes rating of the Paperoni [the Scrooges] of the world". The assumption is that if you don't get the reference then you have probably been raised by wolfs in the woods.
Sadly, Scrooge is not as well known in the USA as he is in Western Europe. People might know that Donald's Uncle Scrooge is rich, maybe, but that he has a bin full of money which he swims in--that many won't know. Unless they watched DuckTales. People over 60 may remember the comics from their childhood, when they were popular here.
I think the image of the swimming in the coins is engrained enough thanks to Ducktales- even if you didn't watch it, you'll know about Scrooge McDuck diving in his money, odds are.
Sadly, Scrooge is not as well known in the USA as he is in Western Europe.
This is very true, unfortunately. From this 2013 article containing an interview with producer Rey Jimenez about the most recent DuckTales video game:
[...] A show that perhaps we grew up with, but I don’t think many kids these days know who “Unca Scrooge” is. They don’t. They absolutely do not and that is no joke. We did focus tests when they played the game. They had no idea who the character was and didn’t know what Ducktales was. What did kids say during the focus tests? They go, who is this “Grandpa Duck?” They didn’t have a real connection to him apart from him being part of the duck family in Ducktales. [...]
This would be unthinkable in Italy, where Scrooge and his world are part of our popular culture, and the character name is often used as a metaphor to indicate someone who is wealthy. How was it possible that Scrooge (whose comic title could sell up to 3 million copies in the 1950's) became an obscure character in the USA still baffles me, and I guess it will be the subject of another discussion.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jan 31, 2017 16:12:09 GMT
Ahah, the funny thing is that when I watched DuckTales on TV as a kid, it stroke me for being...highly uncanonical! I did not know Barks in those days, only stories coming from Topolino. It was not the presence of new characters like Jet McQuack or the robot duck guy that troubled me much. But rather the little details. Like...where the heck is Donald? Why in this strange Duckburg you can see no sign of the devastation created by Fethry? The white/gray bin! And wait a minutes...is that Gladstone dressed in...blue?!? (was that blue or I remember incorrectly? Anyway, he was wearing a green jacket, that was my problem...)
Ahah, the funny thing is that when I watched DuckTales on TV as a kid, it stroke me for being...highly uncanonical! I did not know Barks in those days, only stories coming from Topolino. It was not the presence of new characters like Jet McQuack or the robot duck guy that troubled me much. But rather the little details. Like...where the heck is Donald? Why in this strange Duckburg you can see no sign of the devastation created by Fethry? The white/gray bin! And wait a minutes...is that Gladstone dressed in...blue?!? (was that blue or I remember incorrectly? Anyway, he was wearing a green jacket, that was my problem...)
It's "Launchpad McQuack", not "Jet McQuack". Aside from that, yes, I agree with most of this. As for Gladstone, he was wearing, if I recall correctly, an orange jacket, which is, oddly, neither the Italian color scheme (as you say, it's green), or the American one, where it's somewhere between red and maroon. Fethry's absence had not occurred to me, but you're right, he is sort of missing; there are few other comic-born characters who'd work as well as him in the sort of Looney-Tunes-esque cartoon style DuckTales was going for.
As for Fethry, most probably the writers of the show did not even know him
That's very likely: before the show started in 1987, Fethry had only appeared in 10 stories in the USA, printed at irregular intervals between 1966 and 1984. Of these 10 stories, only 5 appeared in mainstream comic book titles (Donald Duck and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories), while the other 5 were printed in obscure giveaways comics.
"you never know where a certain Duck will show up!": I will also provide a few examples.
The movie "Corvette Summer" (1978) has a character saying "Just call me Gladstone Duck" after being lucky (even though they got his surname wrong).
"Martin Mystère" #100 (July 1990), written by Alfredo Castelli and drawn by Giancarlo Alessandrini, features Plain Awful:
As part of the Martin Mistère franchise there's also "Storie da Altrove" #10 (October 2007), written by Carlo Recagno and drawn by by Sergio Giardo:
CAPTION BOX: North of the Yukon, January 1898...
LONDON: Now, Colonel, are you happy to be returning to your base?
STEELE: Absolutely, Mr. London...
STEELE: My mission of patrolling this area has ended... even though Dawson is an interesting city, flooding with life. Sooner or later I could return...
STEELE: I wouldn't mind, one day or another one, to set foot again in the "Blackjack" saloon and see again its owner, the fascinating Goldie O'Gilt... LONDON: I understand you... LONDON: ... even though she only had eyes for that Scottish gold prospector...
STEELE: Too bad! We did our job here, and there's nothing else to do for an officer of the North West Mounted Police... and not even for you as a reporter...
[Note that Goldie and the Blackjack are called by their original names rather than their Italian names.]
Finally, in Dylan Dog Color Fest #7 (August 2011), written by Sergio Badino and drawn by Giancarlo Alessandrini, we can see a "Shacktown Road":
Last Edit: Oct 24, 2019 21:37:13 GMT by drakeborough
LONDON: Now, Colonel, are you happy to be returning to your base?
STEELE: Absolutely, Mr. London...
STEELE: My mission of patrolling this area has ended... even though Dawson is an interesting city, flooding with life. Sooner or later I could return...
STEELE: I wouldn't mind, one day or another one, to set foot again in the "Blackjack" saloon and see again its owner, the fascinating Goldie O'Gilt... LONDON: I understand you... LONDON: ... even though she only had eyes for that Scottish gold prospector...
STEELE: Too bad! We did our job here, and there's nothing else to do for an officer of the North West Mounted Police... and not even for you as a reporter...
[Note that Goldie and the Blackjack are called by their original names rather than their Italian names.]
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I’m not terribly surprised to see people knowing Barks, but this reference of Rosa is unexpected. It was published just after the Prisoner of White Agony Creek!
I’m not terribly surprised to see people knowing Barks, but this reference of Rosa is unexpected. It was published just after the Prisoner of White Agony Creek!
True, it was published just after "The Prisoner of White Agony Creek", though the reference is obviously to the earlier "Hearts of the Yukon".