Stories with TOUCHING moments!

[Orora]

Are there moments in the comics that you found particularly touching?

I am sure a lot of you will mention Don Rosa's A Letter From Home.

Among others, I remember a story where HDL are attacked by a giant hungry bird, and when Donald saves them, there is an actual heartwarming family bonding moment, where it's shown they actually care about each other. If I could find it again...

[Matilda]

I'd say that the end of Barks' Knight in Shining Armor when Donald's "outdated" heroism is vindicated is the most touching moment for Donald himself. I know a man in his 60's who has loved that story since childhood who does in fact get choked up when he describes the denouement of that story. There's a bit of a similar feel to Charlie Martin's A New Year, A New Donald where Donald (again, dressing up for a costume party) is initially mocked but turns out to be a true hero. Again, Daisy is one of the ones who lauds his heroism.

At the end of the McGreals' Missing the Mistletoe Donald proves himself specifically as a boyfriend/lover, showing that he can occasionally come through with a real romantic gesture. It's a sweet surprise of an ending, and appropriate for a Christmas story.

Christmas stories are the ones where there's often more room for honest sentiment. Scrooge's turn to putting the happiness of his nephews first when searching for the Cuspidoria is appropriately touching. So is the Beagles' empathy for the poor woman and her son in Being Good for Goodness Sake! Also, Gyro's evocation of how important Helper is to him in Janet Gilbert's The Christmas That Almost Wasn't --it gets all the Ducks tearing up, even Scrooge! I'd even add Minima De Spell's innocent concern for Magica in The Secret Santa Spell.

I often find Gyro's appreciation of Helper, and Helper's loyalty to him, touching. That's true from some of the Barks stories on. One explicit demonstration of Helper's love for Gyro is in Seppala's one-pager A Helper for Helper...not to mention Helper's odyssey to return to Gyro in Rota's Little Helper Lost!

In terms of the love bewteen a person and a pet animal (which is where stories for children often get the most touching), my sense is that that sort of love is shown more clearly in the relationship between Mickey and Pluto than in any ongoing person/pet relationship in the Duckworld. The strongest representation of the love of a dog, though, is of course Barks' Scrooge giving up his fortune for Barko in North of the Yukon.

I like the stories that demonstrate the strength of HDL's bond with one another. The two that are most successful in that regard for me are Korhonen's And Then There Were Two (a touching moment also in that one involving the mutual affection of another set of siblings!) and the McGreals' Three Minus Two Is One.

Rosa puts a fair amount of genuine sentiment into his stories in one way or another. In general, I feel that it comes across better when it's mixed with humor. For instance, I find the end of W.H.A.D.A.L.O.T.T.A.J.A.R.G.O.N. to be more successful than the end of Super Snooper Strikes Again in expressing the feelings between Donald and the boys.

[TheMidgetMoose]

Maybe not touching per se, but I quite like Lessons in Love by Kari Korhonen. Donald reads some romantic novels that Daisy insisted he read and is inspired by them to surprise her on Valentine's Day. I won't spoil too much of the story, but, at least for me, it ended on a heartwarming note. Donald and Daisy aren't perfect throughout the story and still have some of the toxicity for which their relationship is known (such as Daisy yelling at Donald frequently, Donald being self-centered, Daisy threatening to date Gladstone instead... you know, the usual), but we're still shown that they do care about each other and that Donald can be quite romantic at times.

As Matilda has already said, Rosa does a great job packing emotion into his stories. For me personally, the greatest example of this is Last Sled to Dawson. I love that story's ending! It's really beautiful and touching. Others of his stories are touching, too, but Last Sled to Dawson is the highlight for me.

[Matilda]

Definitely, the ending of Last Sled to Dawson. I'd second that.

[gadgetphile]

It's a wonderful life (Geez. Poor kids.)

[Spectrus]

Duck Avenger: New Adventures has some really great ones.

In "Tempo al Tempo", the (almost) final scene where Duck Avenger and Lyla are basically torn apart by time... it really brought tears to my eyes. Stunning work by Bruno Enna.

In "Niente di personale": Duck Avenger, himself having become an outcast and a supposed terrorist who has had to go underground, having to comfort the young Trip (son of the Red Raider), who was taken from out of his time. And Donald knows how Trip's father died - Trip doesn't.

SPOILER: Click to show

Although the end of the story undoes all that!

[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure why I'm coming up with all these time travel stories! But here's another one: inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL+1959-A

Mickey suddenly being teleported into the future Mouseton and meeting a significantly older Goofy and Minnie. Goofy takes it relatively easy (he thought Mickey had lost his phone number or was somehow angry at him... and that was the reason they didn't meet for decades?! Thinking about it, that is also pretty hard to take), but poor Minnie totally faints when she sees Mickey. The two panels where she tries to express she thought Mickey was dead and breaks out in tears...

Also, the ending:

SPOILER: Click to show

Mickey, back in his proper time, telling Minnie how young and beautiful she is.

D'awwww!

[snater]

Scrooge deliberately "forgetting" where he buried his cargo of gold in Barks' "Back to the Klondike", enabling Goldie to find it without allowing himself to appear weak. The scene is touching because of the unexpectedness of his generosity (Scrooge was less sympathetic in the early stories) and the fact that he tries to hide it.