Post by Baar Baar Jinx on Jul 20, 2017 1:24:38 GMT
So it looks like Della Duck is going to be alive, well, and an active participant in the DuckTales '17 universe (based on the solicit from IDW for their DuckTales #2). The solicit originally revealed this spoiler, and it was later corrected to keep the secret, but the initial wording made it clear that she would be interacting with the rest of the cast "in the present" (not in flashback sequences, which is what I would have expected).
This raises several questions. Is this development limited to the comic version of the new DuckTales, or will she appear in the show? How are they going to explain where she was all these years, and now that she's back, why she isn't taking back custody of her sons? Will this forevermore be the "official" explanation of her fate? Also, it must be asked, could it all have been a mistake ... they did change the solicit substantially, so maybe, like the infamous "1869" draft of the cover to DuckTales #0, this got out before being officially vetted? I think it'd make more sense if it were actually Matilda McDuck as the "special new character" being introduced ... more Rosa-compliant. Della being alive in the present day is problematic in many ways (as Rosa has pointed out many times).
And most, if not even all, of those ways may not apply here. We don't know the story and lore they're using. Maybe Della had to leave her kids with Donald for some reason and only recently from the story's present.
In any case she must be some cool character doing some cool stuff in some cool place. Otherwise, why would she leave her sons to his brother.
Well, that's one of the issues with bringing Della back into the main continuity, and one of the problems Rosa mentioned. Gallivanting around the world on adventures while leaving your brother to raise your kids could easily be construed as abandonment or irresponsible parenting. The "Della in Space" story tried to circumvent this (as I understand it) by having Della not know that she was gone for years instead of just minutes (the whole idea has always struck me as somewhat childish and simplistic, but I seem to be in the minority on this since a lot of people on this forum seem to like it). But if they bring her back to adventure with Scrooge, Donald and HD&L in the "present day", as seems to be in store in the DuckTales story in question, how do they explain why she isn't raising her sons from this point on?
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jul 21, 2017 9:03:00 GMT
No, there is a point that you and Don Rosa seem not to get. The fact that we do not see someone in the stories of the ducks does not necessarly implies that such someone is absent in the life of the ducks. Not showing does not entail not existing. (Barks') stories never show Donald hanging around with Goofy? It does not mean that Goofy does not exist in the world of (Barks') Donald, or that the two are not friends. In the same way, Della never shown to communicate with his children in the stories that we read does not mean that she does not do that, or that she does not have the tools to watch over them while she travels the world for adventures.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jul 21, 2017 9:11:57 GMT
Moreover, EVEN if she was an immature loveless mother with no care for her sons, that would be perfectly OK in the duck universe, as long as that behaviour is depicted in a funny way.
No, there is a point that you and Don Rosa seem not to get. The fact that we do not see someone in the stories of the ducks does not necessarly implies that such someone is absent in the life of the ducks. Not showing does not entail not existing. (Barks') stories never show Donald hanging around with Goofy? It does not mean that Goofy does not exist in the world of (Barks') Donald, or that the two are not friends. In the same way, Della never shown to communicate with his children in the stories that we read does not mean that she does not do that, or that she does not have the tools to watch over them while she travels the world for adventures.
I don't think that Della being away for 5-6 years is a terribly difficult problem. Given that Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck always look the same, never growing nor looking older, forces the reader to understand that The Duck stories ALL take place over a relatively short period of no more than a handful of years. The only problem is using Della again, and having The Boys NOT move back in with her. Perhaps we should have Della moving in together with Donald and The Boys? That would create some nice fodder for new comedy stories with her not putting up with Donald's laziness around the house, and not pursuing a real career, and not marrying Daisy, and arguments with Donald over how The Boys are being raised. We could also have some "Mom liked you best" jealousy and arguments.
Della was an astronaut stationed at a far away space station, or she was in a shipwreck and marooned on a desert island, and recently rescued. We could have a wonderful "reunion story". Maybe she can be the female Fethry? She wanted to seek Nirvana, and went off to The Himalyas to study with a Yogi guru, and is now back to spread her message of "enlightenment". We could have her teaming up with Fethry in trying to direct Donald to the "true path", and ruining his peace.
No, there is a point that you and Don Rosa seem not to get. The fact that we do not see someone in the stories of the ducks does not necessarly implies that such someone is absent in the life of the ducks. Not showing does not entail not existing. (Barks') stories never show Donald hanging around with Goofy? It does not mean that Goofy does not exist in the world of (Barks') Donald, or that the two are not friends. In the same way, Della never shown to communicate with his children in the stories that we read does not mean that she does not do that, or that she does not have the tools to watch over them while she travels the world for adventures.
I understand that just because a character is not seen does not mean they do not exist off-screen. But this isn't just any character we're talking about, this is HD&L's mother, and her existence raises questions about why Donald seems to be the legal guardian of the boys if she's alive, well, and fully capable of caring for them.
Moreover, EVEN if she was an immature loveless mother with no care for her sons, that would be perfectly OK in the duck universe, as long as that behaviour is depicted in a funny way.
Don't say that in front of Rosa! He'd have a conniption !
RobbK1 said:
Perhaps we should have Della moving in together with Donald and The Boys?
That would, to quote Rosa, "render the the very fabric of the universe". Besides, in the new DuckTales series, it looks like Donald, HD&L are all moving into Scrooge's mansion. I wonder if Della's going to join them there (in the comic series, if not the animated cartoon)? Quite a full house!
they did change the solicit substantially, so maybe, like the infamous "1869" draft of the cover to DuckTales #0, this got out before being officially vetted?
No, there is a point that you and Don Rosa seem not to get. The fact that we do not see someone in the stories of the ducks does not necessarly implies that such someone is absent in the life of the ducks. Not showing does not entail not existing. (Barks') stories never show Donald hanging around with Goofy? It does not mean that Goofy does not exist in the world of (Barks') Donald, or that the two are not friends. In the same way, Della never shown to communicate with his children in the stories that we read does not mean that she does not do that, or that she does not have the tools to watch over them while she travels the world for adventures.
I agree with the fact that characters not present on screen (or on the page) are not necessarily absent from the main characters' life. For example, I have always claimed that Egmont's reasoning for banning Hortense from "A Letter from Home" (i.e., that there's no possible way to explain why she lost contact with her son unless she is dead) doesn't make any sense, since Donald is an adult and there's no reason why he and his parents should necessarily live in the same city (or even in the same continent). Plus, Scotland is very distant from the USA (and travelling was not as easy as today in the 1950's, especially for a guy like Donald who often has problems with money), and we could still assume that Donald occasionally saw her and contacted her via phone, just like he was confirmed to have done that with Matilda in the same story.
However, the situation with Della is different: her sons are kids, we have dozens of thousands of comics unambiguously showing that they live with Donald, and we were also told many times that Donald is their legal guardian. A story about the return of Della can't just assume that she has been there the whole time, being their actual legal guardian and seeing/contacting them off-screen/off-panel. Doing such a thing would be like insulting the readers' intelligence.
Of course, we don't know what the producers of DuckTales are planning to do, so we can't judge them yet. Maybe they plan to change the status quo and having Della's return be, in the continuity of the series at least, permanent. It wouldn't be the only time in which an animated product tries to change the status quo.
Also, I like to think that Barks' Donald doesn't know Goofy.
I think that today's kids are familiar with families where the mother is absent (often military deployment). If the kids are not with a legal parent (father, etc.), the care-giver needs legal guardianship for medical care and school.
So, in the new DuckTales, HDL's mom is back but the boys are used to adventuring with Uncle Donald and (Great) Uncle Scrooge.
Added edit:
As to Donald and Goofy, they know each other and have worked together occasionally at Disney (The Three Musketeers, etc.), but are not close friends away from the studio.
I understand that just because a character is not seen does not mean they do not exist off-screen. But this isn't just any character we're talking about, this is HD&L's mother, and her existence raises questions about why Donald seems to be the legal guardian of the boys if she's alive, well, and fully capable of caring for them.
However, the situation with Della is different: her sons are kids, we have dozens of thousands of comics unambiguously showing that they live with Donald, and we were also told many times that Donald is their legal guardian. A story about the return of Della can't just assume that she has been there the whole time, being their actual legal guardian and seeing/contacting them off-screen/off-panel. Doing such a thing would be like insulting the readers' intelligence.
I can understand your point of views, guys. As a matter of fact, I do believe that it would be complicated to reintroduce Della as a recurrent character in the (usual) comics cast and make everything look reasonable. Nevertheless, if her appearances would be supported by good plot ideas, good storytelling and a good characterization (not an easy task for a female character!), the readers would quickly get in love with her and forget her odd reappearance (as if there were not already so many odd things in Duckburg and Mouseton!). From this perspective, you can see that RobbK is the comics author in this discussion. He is more concerned about how to give her an interesting and fruitful (= gag-engending) personality, rather than how to explain her appearance. By the way, I like the idea of her being some kind of Fethry (in the sense of Kinney's pesky and hyperactive Fethry, not in the sense of the more naive modern one). But she should also have something more in her bag. Some sense of grandeur, like Donald sometimes has.
The case of Della appearing in DuckTales is yet another thing. DuckTales is a universe per se, and the authors of the show must do anything they want to get a good result. They are not chained to any comics tradition. Writing in Disney animation has always been open and very experimental. Just think to all the changes and experiments in Mickey's figure and personality done by Fred Moore in the late 30's and in the 40's, or the radical satirical idea's developed by the Kinney's brothers for the Goofy series of shorts in the same period, and so on. Disney animations has always been malleable to the extreme: not sticking to any tradition is Disney's tradition (here you can really read "Disney" as referring to Walt, the man). And I am happy that the recent Mickey Mouse TV shorts produced by Rudish in his extreme style went back to that approach. These new DuckTales hopefully are taking that path too.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Jul 21, 2017 20:53:37 GMT
There's an awesome Paperinik fancomic (which I'll translate here one day) entitled Phantom Duck and the Dimensional Distorter, created before 80 is Praachtig (and before the Phantomallard series, for that matter, hence a rather different Lord Quackett design), where Della Duck was shown to be a scientist on a long-lasting mission in the North Pole (which was no place for three toddlers when she dropped them off at Donald's).