Share any stories with a really bad Scrooge

[Scrooge MacDuck]

So I'm just going to leave this here, from the latest scanlation I'm doing…



(Now to be fair, the story does acknowledge Scrooge is losing his temper more than usual as of late. But still.)

[deb]

Some of the earliest Barks Scrooge stories set the stage for "evil Scrooge", especially Voodoo Hoodoo, where Scrooge is laughing about having stolen a native tribe's land and the fact that Donald is stuck with the voodoo curse meant for McDuck himself.

[Spectrus]

Aug 2, 2016 19:01:59 GMT jubalpomp said:

coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=I%2FD+2011-004

In this story, not just Scrooge but Daisy and HDL too, are really evil.

I had just started re-reading that one before i realized how it ended and just stopped. Jesus, what a horrible plot. Donald is pretty much everyone's doormat.

The "evillest" behaviour I have seen takes place in stories by Spectrum Associates or Mark & Laura Shaw. Though the latter tend to use Daisy for that, but there are examples of Scrooge as well - the most notorious is the ending of this where Donald gets tractated with a micro-flame-thrower (or electro-shock device or whatever) attached to a video drone controlled by Scrooge at the end for something that he didn't even do himself (though it looked like it, admittedly).

[Ramapith]

Dec 19, 2017 19:33:12 GMT Spectrus said:

The "evillest" behaviour I have seen takes place in stories by Spectrum Associates or Mark & Laura Shaw. Though the latter tend to use Daisy for that, but there are examples of Scrooge as well [...]

Spectrus, please be fair and check out the level of slapstick violence in classic Italian stories by Guido Martina.

Here and elsewhere, you tend to relentlessly condemn the Shaws, in particular, as if they uniquely distort the Duck characters—as if their level of comedy violence has no precedent. In my view, regardless of whether I might personally like it, there's a TON of precedent, most of it Italian, British, and 1930s American. By not putting this in perspective, you come off as punishing a few for the "sins" of many, in public spaces where it could unfairly affect their professional reputation.

As a "pro" myself, I'm not going to comment further in this thread, but I'd appreciate it if you'd contact me privately through this message board.

[Spectrus]

Dec 20, 2017 17:38:13 GMT Ramapith said:

Dec 19, 2017 19:33:12 GMT Spectrus said:

The "evillest" behaviour I have seen takes place in stories by Spectrum Associates or Mark & Laura Shaw. Though the latter tend to use Daisy for that, but there are examples of Scrooge as well [...]

Spectrus, please be fair and check out the level of slapstick violence in classic Italian stories by Guido Martina.

Here and elsewhere, you tend to relentlessly condemn the Shaws, in particular, as if they uniquely distort the Duck characters—as if their level of comedy violence has no precedent. In my view, regardless of whether I might personally like it, there's a TON of precedent, most of it Italian, British, and 1930s American. By not putting this in perspective, you come off as punishing a few for the "sins" of many, in public spaces where it could unfairly affect their professional reputation.

As a "pro" myself, I'm not going to comment further in this thread, but I'd appreciate it if you'd contact me privately through this message board.

I have thousands of Disney comics, my opinion is an informed one. Yes there are stories by Guido Martina I do not like, but they are a time and a place. The Italians in general and even Martina himself shied away from such depictions in later stories. So all of a sudden while the Italian stories were mostly civil and didn't cross the lines, we get the influx of D-coded stories where the characters really only seem to exist in order to beat the **** out of each other. A story should have a plot, not an excuse for destructive behaviour. You think I should be happy about that? The contrast makes it even harder to believe. Stories like "Ring thrice and I'll clobber you, my lad!" nearly stopped me buying Disney comics altogether, how's that? And even today when I start reading their stuff it tends to put me in a horrible mood.

Even Guido Martina usually seemed to JUSTIFY the behaviour of his characters in some way. And as I said, just because it was OK in the 30s to 50s doesn't mean you have to cling to something like that in the modern age. By the same logic we could go back to racism and the like, so that's not a good argument at all IMO.

Credit where credit is due, there are a fair few of their stories I do like ("Quack of the Wild" is probably the best example). But otherwise there is a disproportionate amount of torture/aggression scenes compared to all other artists I know (including Martina). And I'm not the only one who thinks like that. Check out the reactions when our LTB 329 (a horrible book) was released, comments like mine came forth from all sides. I was not part of the fan community back then but reading through those old discussions I completely agree with all the comments. I mean, in "Mistaken Identity" a character gets beheaded - where do we draw the line? 

Every author has a bad day, but few have failed so regularly to appeal to me. And there are cases where I really regretted paying any money for product that was simply appalling to me. In that sense, I can only say I'm happy our LTBs have been Shaw-/Gilbert-/Petrucha-/Spectrum-Associates-/etc.-free in the last couple of years. Believe me, it led to a huge improvement... the only one that remains from my old "class of hate" is Andreas Pihl and I'm happy to say that he has improved hugely over the nonsense that we were offered by him years ago. "The Secret of Shapur" was one of the best stories I've read this year, which really surprised me.

That said, some of the four-tiered comics I've read by the Shaws more recently were OK, and the last three-tiered ones at least lost that "constant aggression" edge but seemed to go off into even weirder directions like "The Money Tree" where Scrooge was behaving so wildly out of character I had a hard time accepting him as Scrooge.

Finally, even if I may have singled them out more than other authors whose work I also largely detest (and please don't tell me I'm not allowed to do this - it is constructive criticism in the sense that I wish these artists would actually use their talent to produce GOOD material), I have only mentioned them thrice here, so I'm wondering what else you are referring to? Are you observing me or what? 

Also, I'm not the only one who thinks like this... see here: featherysociety.proboards.com/post/2038/thread

[Ramapith]

Dec 30, 2017 10:10:02 GMT Spectrus said:

Finally, even if I may have singled them out more than other authors whose work I also largely detest (and please don't tell me I'm not allowed to do this - it is constructive criticism in the sense that I wish these artists would actually use their talent to produce GOOD material), I have only mentioned them thrice here, so I'm wondering what else you are referring to? Are you observing me or what?

To be fair—and to correct a possible error, thus my rejoining this thread—I know you're German, and thought I remembered a "Spectrus" on the German Comicforum having damned the Shaws with faint praise. But rechecking, I now see that was "Spectaculus," so maybe it wasn't you? (I've been "David G" and "ramapith" on that forum at various times...)

Check out the [Comicforum] reactions when our LTB 329 (a horrible book) was released, comments like mine came forth from all sides. I was not part of the fan community back then but reading through those old discussions I completely agree with all the comments.

Speaking as a private individual: even when working at Egmont, I liked some of our productions and disliked others. Show me a Comicforum thread, and I'll surely agree with at least a few critiques. But I'll disagree with a few, too.

Most critically, in the early 2000s I was struck by how the Comicforum readers—as much as they obviously love comics!—tended to make sweeping generalizations about Egmont's productions; to blame writers for the acts of artists and vice versa (this was a big one); and most critically, to overlook the influence of editors, publishers, and even readers on the types of themes that were used in the stories.

(Publishers constantly polled younger readers in the early 2000s; kids overwhelmingly wanted more slapstick and creepiness; whether one likes the result or not, whose fault was it if some were required to deliver—and did?)

[Spectrus]

Jan 3, 2018 5:04:01 GMT Ramapith said:

Dec 30, 2017 10:10:02 GMT Spectrus said:

Finally, even if I may have singled them out more than other authors whose work I also largely detest (and please don't tell me I'm not allowed to do this - it is constructive criticism in the sense that I wish these artists would actually use their talent to produce GOOD material), I have only mentioned them thrice here, so I'm wondering what else you are referring to? Are you observing me or what?

To be fair—and to correct a possible error, thus my rejoining this thread—I know you're German, and thought I remembered a "Spectrus" on the German Comicforum having damned the Shaws with faint praise. But rechecking, I now see that was "Spectaculus," so maybe it wasn't you? (I've been "David G" and "ramapith" on that forum at various times...)

After I logged off, it dawned on me that you might be referring to my Inducks comment. I've changed that now, but now I see you are actually referring to what I said on the DCF (and yes, Spectaculus is the German name of my favourite villain Spectrus). But in that case, I am really puzzled; it was actually the most positive comment I've ever made about them!  So if you wanted to illustrate that I was picking on them, you couldn't have picked a worse example; after all I was lauding them and saying they actually produced the highlight of the magazine! You might call it faint praise (OK, it wasn't such a good issue after all ) but it was genuine surprise, since I can't stand most of what they have written ("Quack of the Wild" and a precious few others excluded). So yes, I stand for damning most of their stuff. I found it (and still find it) thoroughly disturbing and off-putting. But if I read something I like, I will justly appreciate such, no matter who wrote it.

Writers blamed for artists...? Not sure I see that angle, when it came to the "modern Mickey" everybody was picking on the artists (Xavi, Gonzalez, Joaquín etc.). It wasn't until the cooperation was started that fans really realized where the problem lies: HERE you can read how many of us felt. Cavazzano (who was almost universally loved) suddenly started drawing like a mixture of Bancells and Flemming Andersen (at his worst). Aggressive and soulless. Guess who wrote that story (and several similarly disappointing follow-ups?) All blame lies solely with the authors. Conversely, I would have liked the Egmont artists to collaborate with Italian writers far more, the few examples of that have been very good and the art style tends to look far more appealing to me (even from artists like Bancells or Pasquale, whom I normally can't stand). Very often you can sense the writer's input in the drawings, it's far more important than one might think. Like, Lorenzo Pastrovicchio drawing a Casty story and then a Vitaliano one. There is a difference. The Blot looks different, the characters move in different ways. Actually, the best example is comparing inducks.org/story.php?c=D+2009-278 to inducks.org/story.php?c=D+2009-298

speaking as a private individual: even when working at Egmont, I liked some of our productions and disliked others. Show me a Comicforum thread, and I'll surely agree with at least a few critiques. But I'll disagree with a few, too.

Most critically, in the early 2000s I was struck by how the Comicforum readers—as much as they obviously love comics!—tended to make sweeping generalizations about Egmont's productions; to blame writers for the acts of artists and vice versa (this was a big one); and most critically, to overlook the influence of editors, publishers, and even readers on the types of themes that were used in the stories.

(Publishers constantly polled younger readers in the early 2000s; kids overwhelmingly wanted more slapstick and creepiness; whether one likes the result or not, whose fault was it if some were required to deliver—and did?)

While that explains something, it doesn't explain everything. Namely 1) why Egmont was mostly moving in a direction that Disney Italia had long given up for good (and with a perceived improvement of output), 2) why there was the need to move in such a direction anyway when the LTB had been going very well without creepy stuff from a Duckburg filled with vicious people, 3) why apparently nobody saw the need to censor or at least mellow down things that could be seen as potentially traumatizing. I think the editors in the Mickey Mouse magazine type stories (Byron Erickson?) did a very good job and I don't remember such atrocities from those "larger" D-coded stories.

I was a kid back then, by the way, and I hated those stories so much that I repeatedly gave up buying LTBs because of them. I had no way of participating in polls though and I would wager that even if those polls were representative (which I have my doubts about), it's still a mistake to turn something into something else. I don't think Disney should be the place for zombies mumbling "green slime", resurrecting dead people, cutting people into two halves, beheading people, turning people into stone, Donald permanently brainless at the end of one story, Daisy permanently covered in waterproof blue paint at the end of another ... and as I said before, the clash between how characters acted in Egmont stories as opposed to modern Italian ones was just too huge. I'd say if readers want creepiness, they should be reading something else. Pandering to a lowest common denominator can lead to a dilution of personality. I do realize that TNT comes from that angle and mostly those stories were OK (Andersen also seemed to put more love into the TNT stories compared to his other work from the era), some were bad, some were great too. Overall not my cup of tea but they didn't have those egregious flaws.

Oh, I forgot to make my point about slapstick/comedic violence. Mickey pulling on the nose of his doppelganger in "The Monarch of Medioka" - that's comedic violence. It's funny. But it's just one scene from a brilliant story, not the main focus. And when the entire plot seems to be constructed with the aim of leading to a "violence scene", including logical errors, wrong characterizations etc., I reserve my right to criticize that. Plus; mostly the violent scenes are not funny at all.

Finally, I don't see the point about sweeping generalizations. If something has disappointed you a hundred times, you will likely start moaning about reading what's possibly the same stuff again a 101th time. And I think nobody ever doubted that Egmont could produce good stories at times: "The Tinderbox", "The Swindling McSwines", "Dialing for Disaster" or "The Woman in Lavender" are eternal favourites of mine and of many CF users. The quality drop just becomes even more unbelievable when you start comparing those to the constant invasion of mutated people, aggression galore and aliens/monsters. Read "Problems in Pink": it recycles all the bad elements of "The Lathe of Donald"...

Another edit. Even creepiness or a feeling of threat can be a great stylistic device in good hands. PKNA is a good example. And Guido Martina may have gone over the edge sometimes, but "The Blot's Double Mystery" is a stone cold classic exactly because of how ruthless it is. Not that I would want to constantly read something in that vein, but I'm not damning it in general. What I do damn is constant legitimation of immoral/illegal destructive/violent behaviour.

[Spectrus]

Moving back to the topic of the thread, these have not appealed to me because of the way Scrooge is portrayed:

inducks.org/story.php?c=H+2015-234 - Scrooge helps Santa Claus, but only to save his image. In the first part of the story he tells Donald he can buy presents for the kids later (i.e. after Christmas), then he says on the TV he wouldn't mind if Santa Claus crashed with his sleigh. Then exactly that happens... but unlike most Christmas stories, he is not changed at all. He appears even more miserable at the end!

inducks.org/story.php?c=D+2007-054 - when he is forced to decorate his house for Christmas, he is more than happy to watch his nephews go in debt to pay for HIS freaking decoration! What the heck?