Sales Resistance

[Baar Baar Jinx]

I was just rereading the Barks ten-pager from WDC&S 83, and discovered two interesting tidbits relevant to previous discussions we've had on this forum and the DCF.

1. Donald refers to Grandma Duck as "the boys' grandmother". This would seem to contradict Rosa's contention (and Barks' own later declaration in his unpublished Duck Family Tree) that Grandma Duck is Donald's grandmother. 
2. Donald refers to Mickey! This is the only instance I can recall in a Barks-penned piece where the Mouse Universe is even acknowledged.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

I hadn't noticed the 1. (perhaps it had been erased in the French translation I read), but the 2. I had noticed -- and added on Picsou Wiki.

[RobbK1]

Did Carl Barks really refer to Mickey Mouse as a "real" person in a story? I remember him drawing comic books with Mickey on the cover, and reading "Mickey Mouse" on them. But, just how did Barks have Donald refer to "Mickey Mouse" in a Walt Disney's Comics and Stories story?

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jul 3, 2016 15:56:45 GMT RobbK1 said:

Did Carl Barks really refer to Mickey Mouse as a "real" person in a story? I remember him drawing comic books with Mickey on the cover, and reading "Mickey Mouse" on them. But, just how did Barks have Donald refer to "Mickey Mouse" in a Walt Disney's Comics and Stories story?

In the story, Donald disables his doorbell, because he's tired of being constantly bothered by pesky salesmen when he's trying to sleep, but then worries that he might not hear it if "Daisy or Mickey" come calling. Yes, he says "Mickey", not "Mickey Mouse", but there are no other Mickeys in the Duck Universe that he could be referring to. It just struck me as odd I can think of no other instance where Barks even mentioned Mouse Universe characters in his Duck stories. This was way out of left field and almost felt like an editorial diktat of some sort. It was completely gratuitous. I know the rules are much more liberal these days and the mixing of Duck and Mouse Universes is almost encouraged (a pet peeve of mine but a topic for separate discussion) but I didn't know that Barks had done it too, however tangentially. 

I was also unaware of Barks having drawn covers with Mickey in them. Can you provide some examples? The only official published Barks use of Mickey that I'm aware of is "The Riddle of the Red Hat" (apart from the character's inclusion in lithographs; I'm also not counting storyboards for animated cartoons).

[RobbK1]

I seem to remember a cover or, perhaps, a panel in a comic book story, in which Huey, Dewey and Louie are reading comic books, and one of them says Mickey Mouse Comics and shows him on the cover, and in another story, the comic book title was "Walt Disney's Comics".

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jul 3, 2016 20:15:29 GMT RobbK1 said:

I seem to remember a cover or, perhaps, a panel in a comic book story, in which Huey, Dewey and Louie are reading comic books, and one of them says Mickey Mouse Comics and shows him on the cover, and in another story, the comic book title was "Walt Disney's Comics".

Yes, I do recall something similar. Which would indicate that Barks, like Rosa,  considered Mickey Mouse a fictional entity in the Duck Universe. Making that solitary reference in WDC&S all the more bizarre.

[RobbK1]

Jul 3, 2016 20:26:15 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Jul 3, 2016 20:15:29 GMT RobbK1 said:

I seem to remember a cover or, perhaps, a panel in a comic book story, in which Huey, Dewey and Louie are reading comic books, and one of them says Mickey Mouse Comics and shows him on the cover, and in another story, the comic book title was "Walt Disney's Comics".

Yes, I do recall something similar. Which would indicate that Barks, like Rosa,  considered Mickey Mouse a fictional entity in the Duck Universe. Making that solitary reference in WDC&S all the more bizarre.

Well, he mentioned "Mickey" but, NOT "Mickey Mouse".  So, To ME, that was NOT a reference to Mickey Mouse, but to, perhaps, a dog-faced character named "Mickey", analogous to "Speedy" the race driver, or "Joe" the TV repairman.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jul 3, 2016 20:51:06 GMT RobbK1 said:

Jul 3, 2016 20:26:15 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Yes, I do recall something similar. Which would indicate that Barks, like Rosa,  considered Mickey Mouse a fictional entity in the Duck Universe. Making that solitary reference in WDC&S all the more bizarre.

Well, he mentioned "Mickey" but, NOT "Mickey Mouse".  So, To ME, that was NOT a reference to Mickey Mouse, but to, perhaps, a dog-faced character named "Mickey", analogous to "Speedy" the race driver, or "Joe" the TV repairman.

That sounds like a stretch, to be honest. I know of no such character in the Duck Universe that would merit such a mention in the context in which it occurred. No character named "Mickey" actually appears or is referenced again at any time in the story, so clearly this was intended to be an established and significant character that the audience is expected to be familiar with. I mean, sure, if one were desperate to maintain that Barks never invoked Mickey Mouse in a Duck story, I guess one could clutch at the "some other Mickey being casually mentioned" straw, but really, his intent seemed pretty obvious to me.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Indeed, I second Baar Baar's opinion. If you are very intent on keeping Mickey out of the Duck world, like Rosa is, then you can headcanon that this was some other Mickey… but it probably wasn't Barks's intent. The Mickey Mouse comics are probably more like fourth wall gags than a conscious effort to establish Mickey as a fictional character, unlike Rosa.

[RobbK1]

I don't have a problem with Mickey Mouse being in "The Duck Universe", as I accept him and Goofy with Donald in the Gottfredson stories, and I think that Taliaferro drew them together, at least a few times. And, even Barks drew Morty and Ferdie in a story with Gyro Gearloose and Grandma Duck (albeit after he'd drawn them as Huey, Dewey and Louie first, and been forced to cut them out of the story). I also accept them together in some Tony Strobl Disneyland stories, and some very old Italian and British stories.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Why only in the old Italian and British stories? Why not in more recent efforts (like "The Zodiac Stone") ?

[RobbK1]

I meant that I am not opposed to Mickey and Goofy appearing in stories with Donald.

I don't know about "The Zodiac Stone" because I don't buy almost any new comic books, these days. I buy mainly just issues with my own stories, or with those of a handful of friends and colleagues. I don't buy most of the IDW books, nor The Dutch Weekly, DD Extra, or even most of the Dutch special books, unless they have stories by myself, Jan Gulbransson, Freddy Milton, Daan Jippes, Henrieke Goorhuis, Ben Verhagen, or a few special stories by Frank Jonker, Gorm Transgaard or Mau Heymans, to which I've been alerted (or a new printing of a Daniel Branca story, which has never been printed in The Netherlands. I don't like The Italian drawing style, and so, only have bought IDW books with mainly "Mouse stories" by Romano Scarpa. I don't really like his drawing style of The Ducks (although, I have bought several books with his longer 1950s "Duck Stories".

I already have storage problems for all my comic books, regular books and vinyl records.

[RobbK1]

Jul 3, 2016 21:26:59 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Indeed, I second Baar Baar's opinion. If you are very intent on keeping Mickey out of the Duck world, like Rosa is, then you can headcanon that this was some other Mickey… but it probably wasn't Barks's intent. The Mickey Mouse comics are probably more like fourth wall gags than a conscious effort to establish Mickey as a fictional character, unlike Rosa.

What are "fourth wall gags"?

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jul 4, 2016 11:13:51 GMT RobbK1 said:

Jul 3, 2016 21:26:59 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Indeed, I second Baar Baar's opinion. If you are very intent on keeping Mickey out of the Duck world, like Rosa is, then you can headcanon that this was some other Mickey… but it probably wasn't Barks's intent. The Mickey Mouse comics are probably more like fourth wall gags than a conscious effort to establish Mickey as a fictional character, unlike Rosa.

What are "fourth wall gags"?

Fourth wall gags are when characters acknowledge to the audience, usually subtly, that they are fictional, such as when a TV character looks into the camera and winks, or a comic book character talks directly to the reader ("see what I have to deal with?"). Not sure if the Ducks reading a Mickey Mouse comic book exactly qualifies if Mickey is considered a fictional character within the Duck universe (as Rosa contends but Barks never clarifies), but HD&L holding an issue of WDC&S with, say, Donald on the cover certainly would.

With regards to the separation of the Duck and Mouse universes, there was a highly informative thread on the DCF that explained the history behind that tradition; IIRC, its origins lay in the decision by an employee of King Features Syndicate (apparently mandated by rules in place at the time governing syndication of newspaper comics) that since Donald was going to get his own newspaper strip to mirror his increasing popularity in the cartoons, he could not simultaneously appear in the Mickey Mouse strip (in which he had been a recurring character till that point). Donald thus disappeared from the Mouse Universe, and Taliaferro set about laying the foundation for the Duck Universe in the Donald Duck strip. When Barks starting doing Duck comics for Dell, he followed the rules that Taliaferro worked by, and thus the separation was solidified. I always found it remarkable that this separation of the Duck and Mouse Universes was the result of arcane rules governing newspaper strips in the thirties ... had they not been in place, who knows what Disney comics would look like today? Non-comic fans are probably bewildered by these separate universes ... after all, Mickey and Donald appear together on screen all the time! That doesn't bother me, though, because in my mind, the animated versions of these characters are completely different from the comic book ones.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

I'm on the very opposite end of the spectrum -- I see all the comics AND cartoons as one big continuity. But the separation of the universes (except in cases like Don Rosa when it is acknowledged that Mickey and Donald don't know each other) is easily explained in-universe by the fact that Mickey and Donald live in two different cities.