LP's relatively in-depth review of Young Donald Duck

[Spectrus]

This "Greg's Diary" version of YDD is also set to come out in German, alongside a book about Minnie and Daisy as spies (a topic that was also explored in a miniseries similar to YDD, but by different artists). It's all a bit confusing...

[LP]

I've never liked when characters have multiple contradicting backstories. I would greatly prefer if Donald, Mickey, and the others each had something like a 'Life and Times' series of their own, if only to definitively hammer in that "yes, this is their canon past"... even if few people care about canon. But I think that having one concrete origin story would be more of a selling point than several different smaller series. What we have now is a mess.

Why is there a spike in young Donald Duck-stories right now of all times? Is the fact that Young and Club came out so close to each other simply a coincidence?

[That Duckfan]

Jun 24, 2020 19:23:47 GMT LP said:

I've never liked when characters have multiple contradicting backstories. I would greatly prefer if Donald, Mickey, and the others each had something like a 'Life and Times' series of their own, if only to definitively hammer in that "yes, this is their canon past"... even if few people care about canon. But I think that having one concrete origin story would be more of a selling point than several different smaller series. What we have now is a mess.

Why is there a spike in young Donald Duck-stories right now of all times? Is the fact that Young and Club came out so close to each other simply a coincidence?

Boy, you would hate Heinz Doofenshmirtz's backstory.

I couldn't disagree more with this. Look at superhero universes on how not to integrate decades of writers ignoring one another into one giant whole. Donald's backstories may contradict one another, but they each provide an interesting take that is typical of their time: Gottfredson/Taliaferro, This is Your Life, Donald Duck, From Egg to Duck, Italy's YDD comics, the new series... Only 1930s kids understand the true reason why Donald is wearing a sailor suit (beside the fact that he's a duck). You need to connect with the kids, man.

Imagine if Donald's backstory were like Batman's. Man, that would be boring!

[TheMidgetMoose]

Jun 24, 2020 19:23:47 GMT LP said:

I've never liked when characters have multiple contradicting backstories. I would greatly prefer if Donald, Mickey, and the others each had something like a 'Life and Times' series of their own, if only to definitively hammer in that "yes, this is their canon past"... even if few people care about canon. But I think that having one concrete origin story would be more of a selling point than several different smaller series. What we have now is a mess.

Why is there a spike in young Donald Duck-stories right now of all times? Is the fact that Young and Club came out so close to each other simply a coincidence?

I don't mind the contradicting backstories, too much, so long as these contradictory backstories are not explicitly intended to take place within the same continuity as one another. To institute a "canonical past" for each character would seem weird to me. Since I view stories as taking place in a variety of different canons, a "one size fits all" canonical backstory would just be odd. Different continuities and opinion should be allowed to flourish in Duck comics. I do like the idea of more characters getting biographies; I just don't agree with forcing others to comply with that version of events.

[LP]

Jun 24, 2020 21:57:44 GMT That Duckfan said:

Boy, you would hate Heinz Doofenshmirtz's backstory.

I wouldn't say "hate", but I a few minutes in, the contradictions really started to annoy me.

Look at superhero universes on how not to integrate decades of writers ignoring one another into one giant whole. 

I don't know how to interpret this sentence. Also, I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to.

Donald's backstories may contradict one another, but they each provide an interesting take that is typical of their time: Gottfredson/Taliaferro, This is Your Life, Donald Duck, From Egg to Duck, Italy's YDD comics, the new series... Only 1930s kids understand the true reason why Donald is wearing a sailor suit (beside the fact that he's a duck). You need to connect with the kids, man.

"You need to connect with the kids". I super-disagree with the implications of that statement... at least in principal. By saying that, you're more or less saying that the audience buying the stories is more important than the quality of the stories - Donald Duck becomes nothing more than a soulless product. 
Here's the thing - I agree that that's how Disney see him, but I very much wish that he became a character too. I prefer to think of him that way. And I think that's why all of this upsets me. I get that Disney only sees Donald that way, so I guess their view is that connecting with the kids is imperative, so I guess Disney agree with you.

I would also like to bring up my previous example of Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge's childhood took place in the late 1800s in that story. It connected to me, even though I'm not a 1870s-kid. When writing a story, it doesn't need to take place in your current time frame in order to resonate with you. As long as the character's struggles and stuff like that are relatable, I don't see why we couldn't have a story about young Donald growing up in the 1930s that kids today can relate to. 

Imagine if Donald's backstory were like Batman's. Man, that would be boring!

I don't know which aspect of Batman's backstory you're referring to here. The fact that it's basically the same every time and that it's repeated over and over? Isn't that basically how Scrooge's backstory works? He shined shoes to earn his first dime, and he made it big by digging gold in Klondike. Those aspects of his backstory are firmly integrated in both his character and popular culture by now. That doesn't make it boring. People seem to think that established facts are somehow a limitation to storytelling. I mostly disagree with that.

However, if someone shot Hortense and Quackmore when Donald was young, that would explain why we never see them in any stories!

[Matilda]

I do think that the main reason why we can't have a commonly-agreed-on complete backstory for Donald is the issue of the death/disappearance of major characters: his parents, his sister, and the boys' father, if he was ever in the picture for more than one night. True, people can and have come up with different depictions of Donald's youth which avoid or elide those deaths/disappearances, but I don't think any such depiction would satisfy LP's wish for a L&T-like backstory. And Disney isn't going to allow any backstory which clearly accounts for the deaths/disappearances.

While Hortense and Quackmore have not been *shown* in comics depicting Donald's youth outside the L&T, young Donald and Della are said to be living with their mother in Geradts' Donalds Eerste Geldles. It annoyed me no end that the references to the children's "mother" were changed to "Grandma" in the IDW printing! Because I personally hold that Della and Donald *were* raised by their parents, who lived at least until they were in their teens, possibly until they were young adults. Of course, I also don't think that Della and Donald were interacting with Scrooge at that age, so it's not like the one-pager would have made my headcanon in any case. Still, I wanted this nod to the possibility that Donald and Della got to grow up with their parents...or at least with their mother.

That Duckfan: While it's true that only 1930's or 1920's kids know the *out-of-universe* reason why Donald wears a sailor suit, anyone who's read Transgaard's The Odyssey knows an *in-universe* reason why Donald always wears a sailor suit! If you haven't read it, ask Orora!

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jun 25, 2020 20:19:51 GMT Matilda said:

While Hortense and Quackmore have not been *shown* in comics depicting Donald's youth outside the L&T, young Donald and Della are said to be living with their mother in Geradts' Donalds Eerste Geldles. It annoyed me no end that the references to the children's "mother" were changed to "Grandma" in the IDW printing! Because I personally hold that Della and Donald *were* raised by their parents, who lived at least until they were in their teens, possibly until they were young adults. Of course, I also don't think that Della and Donald were interacting with Scrooge at that age, so it's not like the one-pager would have made my headcanon in any case. Still, I wanted this nod to the possibility that Donald and Della got to grow up with their parents...or at least with their mother.

I agree with this. In my headcanon, Hortense lived until 1947, and the references to "(the boys') grandmother" in some early Barks stories like "Maharajah Donald ", "Sales Resistance" and "Volcano Valley" are to Hortense, not Elvira. I also like to think that the "Grandma" we see in "Donald Duck's Best Christmas" is Hortense. Hortense's death is what prompted Scrooge to reach out and try to reconnect with her surviving family in "Christmas on Bear Mountain". Quackmore, I believe, died much earlier ...   shortly after "The Empire Builder from Calisota". Outside of Rosa's work (and the Geradts one-pagers cited above), though, I think the idea that Donald was raised by his parents isn't widely accepted. Even DuckTales '17 seems to be going with Scrooge raising Donald and Della (which completely changes his backstory and his relationship with Donald from the comics, of course). 

[arzcena17]

Jun 24, 2020 13:56:56 GMT Spectrus said:

This "Greg's Diary" version of YDD is also set to come out in German, alongside a book about Minnie and Daisy as spies (a topic that was also explored in a miniseries similar to YDD, but by different artists). It's all a bit confusing...

What's the German title of Young Donald Duck reading book?

[Spectrus]

Jun 26, 2020 13:01:48 GMT arzcena17 said:

Jun 24, 2020 13:56:56 GMT Spectrus said:

This "Greg's Diary" version of YDD is also set to come out in German, alongside a book about Minnie and Daisy as spies (a topic that was also explored in a miniseries similar to YDD, but by different artists). It's all a bit confusing...

What's the German title of Young Donald Duck reading book?

www.amazon.de/Lustiges-Taschenbuch-Lesespaß-01-Donald/dp/384132620X/

[arzcena17]

Did Donald turns himself into a kid in this story?

[LP]

Jul 1, 2020 21:26:04 GMT arzcena17 said:

Did Donald turns himself into a kid in this story?

I don't know how to react to that. XD

[Spectrus]

Jul 1, 2020 21:26:04 GMT arzcena17 said:

Did Donald turns himself into a kid in this story?

No. He and Scrooge returned from some treasure hunt, and the local natives cast some spell on him (that only affected his body beyond the head). He grows back to normal within a few pages.

[arzcena17]

Young Paperinik will appear in Club Donald Duck.

[LP]

Jul 30, 2020 22:01:47 GMT arzcena17 said:

Young Paperinik will appear in Club Donald Duck.

Hmmm... It seems like Club Donald Duck isn't trying to be a true prequel, informing us of Donald's childhood. Rather, it reminds me of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, The Flintstone Kids, or Muppet Babies.

[Spectrus]

What the actual funk.