I actually started writing a headcanonical "Biography of Donald Duck" (not the one on the Scrooge McDuck Wiki) about a year or so ago but never got any further than 1946/1947. That said, looking back at my "Biography", there are a lot of things that need to be changed. Having changed those things and taking some inspiration from the other great and interesting posts in this thread, here are my ideas for a twelve-chapter Life and Times of Donald Duck.
I do prefer your predominantly comics-based take on Donald's biography to ones that attempt to incorporate aspects of the cartoons and animated features. I look forward to your take on future chapters. Was Gyro ever stated to be a Junior Woodchuck, though?
I actually started writing a headcanonical "Biography of Donald Duck" (not the one on the Scrooge McDuck Wiki) about a year or so ago but never got any further than 1946/1947. That said, looking back at my "Biography", there are a lot of things that need to be changed. Having changed those things and taking some inspiration from the other great and interesting posts in this thread, here are my ideas for a twelve-chapter Life and Times of Donald Duck.
I do prefer your predominantly comics-based take on Donald's biography to ones that attempt to incorporate aspects of the cartoons and animated features. I look forward to your take on future chapters. Was Gyro ever stated to be a Junior Woodchuck, though?
Thank you very much. Personally, I don't make too much of a division between comics and cartoons, but there's not a lot of cartoon material that fit in with what I envisioned the first chapter being about. The Gyro bit is really just fanfiction. There's no official backing for it as far as I know. The idea probably took root in my head after reading this thread.
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1. Donald's and Della's birth. Hortense and Quackmore (I estimate they were close to their 50s when the twins were born) are undergoing some sort of mid life crisis because they haven't managed to have children yet. They resort to several ludicrous methods to get Hortense pregnant (including Grandma Duck's herbs). When they finally reconsider their world view and decide that not everyone is destined or cut out for being parents and they're better off without children... SURPRISE!
This seems like a pretty fun idea for a story. It would probably be considered too adult to actually be published, but I would definitely read it. There's plenty of potential for comedy and a more in-depth look at Hortense and Quackmore's personality. That said, Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck didn't start out with Scrooge's conception, so I feel like this would work more as a prequel to The Life and Times of Donald Duck instead of actually being a part of it.
I would also end one of the previous chapters on Donald buying a seaside inn with HDL, leading into his first *adventure* with them ("Pirate Gold"); this could be Chapter 11, with Chapter 12 focusing on the aftermath of "Pirate Gold". I want some Yellow Beak in that Life and Times of Donald Duck, dammit. Yellow Beak is very underrated!
If Donald's Bay Lot (from 1944) was before Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold (from 1942), we could establish that he bought and installed the inn with the money from the sale of the house of "Donald's Bay Lot" (he wanted to live in the beach, and now he has some money...); or perhaps it was the self-employed job that he was finding in the "The Tramp Steamer" (also from 1944) - he was searching for a place to sell pencils, and, by some sequence of events, he ends with a inn.
I really like this kind of stuff. I think most Duck authors like Carl Barks don't really have a strict timeline in their stories (unlike Floyd Gottfredson's newspaper comics, which make so many references to each other that their chronological order is pretty clear), and I like seeing attempts to make a timeline out of it. I love seeing people's ideas for in what order the stories take place and how certain stories which probably weren't intended by the author to connect to one another actually tie-in universe.
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Post by Baar Baar Jinx on May 19, 2020 2:41:22 GMT
Gyro being a Woodchuck would be the most natural thing, considering that (as per Rosa at least) his father was one. But somehow I just don't see it. I feel as if it would have come up at some point during his multiple interactions with HD&L. Even Rosa resisted the temptation of that theory, which is saying something.
I actually started writing a headcanonical "Biography of Donald Duck" (not the one on the Scrooge McDuck Wiki) about a year or so ago but never got any further than 1946/1947. That said, looking back at my "Biography", there are a lot of things that need to be changed. Having changed those things and taking some inspiration from the other great and interesting posts in this thread, here are my ideas for a twelve-chapter Life and Times of Donald Duck.
I do prefer your predominantly comics-based take on Donald's biography to ones that attempt to incorporate aspects of the cartoons and animated features. I look forward to your take on future chapters. Was Gyro ever stated to be a Junior Woodchuck, though?
We'll he is sort of "dorky" or "nerdy" in the Dutch "Young Donald" series, and that's the very type of boys that were almost always in The Boy Scouts. If ANY young Duckburger would have been a Junior Woodchuck, HE would have been, at least until the adult pack leaders would have kicked him out for correcting them so often, whenever they said or did something incorrect, or that he could give a better answer, or could demonstrate something better.
I'm sure I've seen him as a Jonge Woudloper in some Dutch stories, and even as a Junior Woodchuck in a flashback to Donald's youth in a couple mid '60s stories drawn by Tony Strobl and/or Kay Wright.
No surprise, my sketch of Donald’s backstory is closest to Baar Baar Jinx’s. For me: no cartoons or animated shorts aside from Caballeros (exception thanks to Rosa), no characters from the Mouseworld, no Donald Duckling nor any “raised by Grandma” scenario, no Taliaferro or other newspaper strips. I differ from BBJ in a few particulars: I don’t think the Grandma in “Donald’s Best Christmas” is Hortense; and I don’t think Della was an unmarried mother.
Like some others I can’t really see there being enough for twelve chapters in Donald’s Life and Times...certainly nowhere near the development and adventures Scrooge’s long life affords.
So: childhood with Hortense, Quackmore and Della, visiting Grandma as HDL later do. Hortense and Quackmore are alive through the twins’ adolescence and maybe into their early adulthood. In childhood Donald is a Little Boonehead after getting himself thrown out of the JWs, while Della is a Chickadee. It’s possible that Donald spent a month each summer at Grandma’s farm while Della was at Chickadee summer camp (the Booneheads not being organized enough to run a camp). The only thing I take from Geradts’ 80 tale is the idea that in childhood Della wanted to be a pilot while Donald wanted to be a sailor. Only canonical story of Donald’s childhood for me is Distelfink plus child-D’s cameo appearance in the L&T.
I’m okay with Gyro and Donald being friends in high school, though I’d think they would have to have had some hobby in common to be buddies, since they are unlike in temperament and interests generally. It’s easiest for me to imagine them spending time together at the fishing hole. (This accords with the end of Korhonen’s “Mr. Gearloose Leaves Town,” where Gyro decides he needs to spend more time fishing with Donald.) I don’t think Donald met Daisy until their early adulthood.
After high school, Donald joins the Navy. (I have a personal preference for the Coast Guard, but the Navy makes it easier for him to meet Jose and Panchito.) Adventures with the other two Caballeros. While he’s in the Navy, Della marries and has the triplets. After the Navy Donald goes back to Duckburg where he lives on his own for a while with Tabby, and Fethry drives them crazy. Fethry takes a job as a reporter (specializing in fads) for Topolino and moves to Italy. (I am the source of the theory that Fethry hung out with Donald before he became the boys’ legal guardian—nice to see that that theory has been adopted by a couple of you!) Della and her husband die in an accident which is neither the fault of one of them nor the fault of their children, because it’s bad enough they die. It’s possible that Hortense dies in the same accident (Quackmore having died previously, of natural causes). A lot of untimely death, here, which is a large part of why it would be difficult to write this up in funny, all-ages comics! Donald becomes HDL’s legal guardian. The boys are initially rather destructively wild and uncontrollable, which makes sense given their traumatic bereavement (remember, I don’t go by Taliaferro or cartoons and don’t have to accept that they were Katzenjammer Kids when their parents were alive). Events of WHADALOTTAJARGON. After the boys show their new JW-cultivated sense of purpose and responsibility, Donald agrees to let them adopt a dog of their own, Bolivar. At some point Daisy moves to the neighborhood and catches both Donald’s and Gladstone’s eye. Daisy’s arrival and the inauguration of the cousins’ rivalry over her could make for a fun story.
The blending of Donald's histories from animation, newspaper comic strips, and comic book comics causes problems for fans trying to accept any life-long timeline for Donald, when considering trying to reconcile the timing of changes in Mickey's anf Goofy's lives, and Pete losing his lower leg. The cop-out of Pete getting a new, natural-looking prosthetic leg, isn't very satisfying, - making the Donald Duck comic book fans question any attempt to reconcile Donald's lifeprogression timeline with that of Mickey's and Pete's.
I think I disagree about the timing issues. Since the characters doesn't really age in the cartoons (by which I mean, their model sheets rarely get radically updated), I assume they take place in a pretty limited amount of time. That's why I don't like the idea that a story must take place at the time of publishing or release. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "reconcile the timing of changes in Mickey and Goofy's lives". I'd mostly place the Mickey-Donald-Goofy-adventures in between 1935 and 1941. What changes during that time would be hard to reconcile with what?
I would have liked for Pete to have kept his peg-leg. However, saying that the realistic prosthetic leg is just that and not a magical real leg is much more satisfying than splitting Pete into two separate characters. Once again, I'm not sure what you're getting at in the last sentence. Donald pretty much stops interacting with Mickey and Pete once he gets his own strip. I'm not super-familiar with the cartoons, but if every cartoon-appearance of Pete's realistic prosthetic leg is placed after The Mystery at Hidden River, there shouldn't be too many problems.
Post by Baar Baar Jinx on May 19, 2020 12:28:04 GMT
Do the flashback events in "Sign of the Triple Distelfink" occur before or after Scrooge's return to Duckburg? Has Rosa ever stated, or are there any in-story indications?
Also, this story cements for me that Donald and Della grew up with their parents rather than on Grandma's farm. I also don't like the idea that Quackmore and Hortense lived on Grandma's farm ... Quackmore is an accountant in the Rosa-verse, surely he would need to live in the city (even if he wasn't working for McDuck Enterprises).
On another thread, we discussed how the early Barks stories (and Taliaferro strips) have Donald living in Burbank. Perhaps the most logical way to deal with this is to mentally substitute "Duckburg, Calisota" for "Burbank, California", but I think we also speculated that after their estrangement with Scrooge, Donald's family decided to move from Duckburg (since they would no longer be working for McDuck Enterprises) and moved to Burbank for Quackmore's job. It was there that Quackmore died, that HD&L were born, and then Donald came into guardianship of his nephews. Then for some reason, perhaps after Hortense also passed (does "Christmas on Bear Mountain" state that Donald lives in Duckburg? Maybe he's still living in Burbank at this point and drives over to Bear Mountain), Donald and the boys move back to Donald's old hometown (and next to Jones). One problem with this is that Donald's early adventures with Tabby and Fethry would then have to take place in Burbank, not Duckburg.
BTW, is it accurate to say that Taliaferro introduced Daisy by having her move in next to Donald? Could someone repost that strip here? I believe that we discussed it in the context of a discussion about whether Daisy was related to HD&L, but I can't find it easily. But yes, I prefer Donald and Daisy meeting in adulthood to knowing each other in childhood or going to high school together.
The only problem with all of this is that I'm currently wavering on when exactly Donald was born, so some of the dates will be left vague. According to my "based on actual canonical information" notes, Donald was either born (whether this means "his egg was laid" or "he hatched from his egg" I do not know) sometime from August 13, 1909 to February 13, 1920. I would actually kind of like for him to be born later than those dates to make him younger during Editor-in-Grief(implied to take place in 1935, I believe) and for another reason that I'll discuss later.
Aah, I had completely forgotten about the newspaper-date in Editor-in-Grief! Thanks, Moose! That 1935-date is really helpful, since Editor-in-Grief is (according to INDUCKS) only the third story in which Donald hangs around with Mickey in Mouseton. So I'd say it's fair to say Donald moved there not too long before! (I've edited and updated my chapter-post to reflect this date!)
Oh, and be sure to post the rest of your chapter-breakdowns! It's so interesting to read these different takes on Donald's past!
When it comes to Rosa in this respect, I prefer to ignore him. Partly because I don't like the backstory in Sign of the Triple Distelfink, and because The Empire-Builder of Calisota is a huge pain when it comes to dating.
I've always interpreted Triple Distelfink as taking place after Scrooge's return, because Donald talks. In Empire-Builder, he's silent -- presumably because he can't speak yet. But that's my interpretation.
I've always interpreted Triple Distelfink as taking place after Scrooge's return, because Donald talks. In Empire-Builder, he's silent -- presumably because he can't speak yet. But that's my interpretation.
That makes sense. Of course, it doesn't mean Donald's parents stuck around in Duckburg too long after Scrooge's return ... they could just have been visiting Grandma's for the party (Burbank to Eureka [Duckburg] is a ten-hour drive ... not exactly a day trip).
Also, re-reading "Christmas on Bear Mountain", Scrooge's mansion is said to be "across town" from Donald's house ... so they already live in Duckburg in this story. Reconnecting with Scrooge isn't the reason they moved back.
Also, this story cements for me that Donald and Della grew up with their parents rather than on Grandma's farm. I also don't like the idea that Quackmore and Hortense lived on Grandma's farm ... Quackmore is an accountant in the Rosa-verse, surely he would need to live in the city (even if he wasn't working for McDuck Enterprises).
But don't forget that in Empire-Builder, Rosa depicts a farm of Grandma's located much closer to Killmule Hill than the Quacktown farm we're familiar with from the present day. If Quackmore and Hortense work in the Bin throughout Scrooge's years of travel, it would make complete sense for them to continue living on the "original" Duck Farm a few paces away, rather than go apartment-hunting in the increasingly expensive, increasingly urbanized city center springing up on every other plot of land close to Killmotor Hill.
Then, of course, you've got the climactic falling-out of Scrooge and his sisters at the end of Empire-Builder, where Quackmore presumably quits his job with Scrooge anyway. I don't have a solid idea of the ensuing family drama, but within a Grandma-as-Hortense-'s-mother-in-law framework (much as I like it, there's no sense bringing Elvira McDuck into this heavily Rosa-tilted version of events) it seems to me Elvira would probably tentatively take Hortense and Matilda's side of the quarrel, though being less explosive and bridge-burning about it than they were. This would track with her finally agreeing to sell what remains of the original Duck farm to McDuck Enterprises, who promptly raze it and build a new skyscraper, while falling back to another of the farms she owns thanks to her Coot inheritance.
Since this means Quackmore and Hortense are out of a job, it makes complete sense to me that until they can get back on their feet, Grandma would not only offer them to come live with her on the "new" farm, but to have Quackmore help out as a farmhand again as he did before Invader of Killmotor Hill. Of course, Hortense's dignitiy wouldn't bear to permanently mooch off Elvira's kindness, so she'd insist on taking a non-farm job somewhere; meaning they'd be too busy to rear Donald on their own, and still need to have him stay with Grandma most of the time, whether they eventually bought a new house or flat or not.
In Empire-Builder, he's silent -- presumably because he can't speak yet. But that's my interpretation.
Hm, interesting thought. The thing is that per Don Rosa's authorial intent that Donald was born circa 1920 and that Empire-Builder is circa 1930, he can't have been intended to be that young, can he? If you bring in the basic cartoon fact of Donald's unusually quacky voice, maybe he took a long time as a child to work up the courage to speak in public despite being made fun of over it. Or maybe he was just shy and cowed in the presence of all these unfamiliar adults — wouldn't be unusual for an 8-year-old.
When it comes to Rosa in this respect, I prefer to ignore him. Partly because I don't like the backstory in Sign of the Triple Distelfink, and because The Empire-Builder of Calisota is a huge pain when it comes to dating.
I've always interpreted Triple Distelfink as taking place after Scrooge's return, because Donald talks. In Empire-Builder, he's silent -- presumably because he can't speak yet. But that's my interpretation.
My personal interpretation is that Donald and Della don't talk in The Empire-Builder From Calisota because they are so amazed to be finally meeting the great Scrooge McDuck that their mother has told them about for so many years. I could definitely see them being at a stage where they are verbose and gregarious around their friends but tend to become shy and starstruck around famous adults like Scrooge. Rosa's Scrooge McDuck was already speaking at 10-years-old, and according to Rosa's estimates, Donald would be roughly ten during The Empire-Builder From Calisota, so I'd be a little bit surprised if Rosa himself believed that Donald was incapable of speech when the story took place.
No matter what I say or do, know that Jesus loves you.
