General Timeline discussion thread (Rosa/Barks)

[LP]

Inspired by That Duckfan's threads Keno Korner and When does Scrooge return to Duckburg?, I decided to revive the topic of trying to make sense of the chronological conundrum that is the Rosa/Barks-universe. It seems I suffer from an unhealthy fascination with fictional family trees, maps, and of course, timelines. Below, I've started with a handful of stories that (I think) most people would agree takes place in the following order:


(edit: image has been removed as it contained mistakes and misinformation. Please see page 3 of the thread for version 2.0)


As you can see, any chronological issues or continuity errors are written in red text.
It has been suggested elsewhere that Last Sled to Dawson might be a fitting final story to Rosa's Duck universe. I personally really like this interpretation, and having the "present era" span 1947-1954 sounds reasonable. This would allow for Huey, Dewey, and Louie to barely have reached puberty by the timeline's end, which would explain why they always look like children.
All this to say, this disregards stories such as The Fabulous Philosopher's Stone and Back To Long Ago!, which take place in 1955 and 1956 respectively. Therefore, this first attempt at a timeline looks as it does.

Obviously, there are hundreds of stories not yet placed - this timeline is just a starting point! Feel free to join in and write suggestions of where other stories might be placed! Or just stop by and tell me how wrong I am and how silly my arguments are!


And finally, here's an obvious disclaimer: Of course Carl Barks never intended for there to be any continuity between his stories. Don Rosa did, to a certain extent, with his own stories, but it's clear he never actually worked out a timeline 100%. This thread is specifically about trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle that was never supposed to fit together. This is a waste of time, but it's a fun waste of time! (…for some of us, at least!)

[Fethryfan]

Your dedication of making a reasonable continuity of the Duckverse is incredible, LP. Congratulations

I have a very similar approach about the timeline. To me, the stories Barks made before 1947 are all set in 1946 and the ones made during and after 1947 are set between 1947 and 1954 (Still not sure about how to fit all of Barks' christmas stories in this timeline but i'll find a way). A Letter From Home is the "ending" of the Barks-Rosa timeline in my headcanon, being set in 1955. I'm also willing to accept Ivan Saidenberg's stories (the only author besides Barks and Rosa that i'm willing to consider canon), and i probably would set them between 1955 and 1967, since he rarely used HDL there is nothing that makes impossible for most of his stories to take place later on, when they were teens or young adults. I would place Saidenberg's few stories which feature HDL around 1953-1954 but i'm probably starting to getting off-topic here...

I do think 1956 onwards is a bit late for the ducklings to still be children, but instead of ignoring stories set in those years i would rather ignore the dates and place them during 1947-1953. Don Rosa made something similar with Voodoo Hoodoo: instead of following Barks' statement that 70 years have passed since Bombie started following Scrooge, he changed it to 40 years to fit in his continuity. A small and inoffensive change

One last thing, i don't think A Letter From Home has any contradictions. Let's suppose the 11th chapter of L&T is set in August 1930 and A Letter From Home is set in July 1955. It would still be set in 1955 and Matilda and Scrooge's last meeting would still have happened nearly 25 years before, no big problem here. ALFH could be set anywhere in 1955, as long as it's set before the 25th anniversary of the last time Scrooge saw his sisters

[LP]

Sept 6, 2021 21:38:34 GMT Fethryfan said:

Your dedication of making a reasonable continuity of the Duckverse is incredible, LP. Congratulations

I have a very similar approach about the timeline. To me, the stories Barks made before 1947 are all set in 1946 and the ones made during and after 1947 are set between 1947 and 1954 (Still not sure about how to fit all of Barks' christmas stories in this timeline but i'll find a way). A Letter From Home is the "ending" of the Barks-Rosa timeline in my headcanon, being set in 1955. I'm also willing to accept Ivan Saidenberg's stories (the only author besides Barks and Rosa that i'm willing to consider canon), and i probably would set them between 1955 and 1967, since he rarely used HDL there is nothing that makes impossible for most of his stories to take place later on, when they were teens or young adults. I would place Saidenberg's few stories which feature HDL around 1953-1954 but i'm probably starting to getting off-topic here...

I do think 1956 onwards is a bit late for the ducklings to still be children, but instead of ignoring stories set in those years i would rather ignore the dates and place them during 1947-1953. Don Rosa made something similar with Voodoo Hoodoo: instead of following Barks' statement that 70 years have passed since Bombie started following Scrooge, he changed it to 40 years to fit in his continuity. A small and inoffensive change

One last thing, i don't think A Letter From Home has any contradictions. Let's suppose the 11th chapter of L&T is set in August 1930 and A Letter From Home is set in July 1955. It would still be set in 1955 and Matilda and Scrooge's last meeting would still have happened nearly 25 years before, no big problem here. ALFH could be set anywhere in 1955, as long as it's set before the 25th anniversary of the last time Scrooge saw his sisters

Thank you! I think my timeline-interests stem from the fact that I like to solve problems (especially those that don't seem to have a proper solution!)

I largely agree with you about the timeline-approach. However, I rarely use the year a story was made to place it in the chronology. The content of the story and the story's place within the bigger picture, are what matter to me.
Barks' numerous Christmas stories is a problem I'm not looking forward to dealing with. 
I'm not familiar with Ivan Saidenberg. A quick look on INDUCKS reveals that none of his Duck-stories had been released in Swedish when I was a kid and read the weekly Kalle Anka & co!
I agree that ignoring dates would probably be the best course of action. Still, I'll refrain from ignoring dates for now. I'll try to be "objective" and gather "facts" for now. I may very well change course in the future and instead go for a more compressed 1947-1954/1955 timeline.

There are a few problems with A Letter From Home taking place in 1955 (or rather, in the same year as The Fabulous Philosopher's Stone). First of all, as my timeline shows, the Philosopher's Stone is in Scrooge's possession in Return to Xanadu. My solution is that Return to Xanadu takes place shortly after The Black Knight Glorps Again (which, for reasons outlined in my timeline, has to take place post-1955 (even post-1956)). So you'd have to find an alternate explanation to why the Stone was in Scrooge's possession during Return to Xanadu.
Secondly, The Crown of the Crusader Kings begins at the end of a year and ends at the start of the next year. (Darn, I just realized that this means that another Christmas is "occupied"!) We're told that the Ducks are in Haiti during Christmas Day, and the story continues until the 3rd of January the following year. This means that The Fabulous Philosopher's Stone (the prequel to The Crown of the Crusader Kings) has to take place the year before A Letter From Home (the sequel to The Crown of the Crusader Kings). 
So if you want the timeline to end with A Letter From Home in 1955, you'd have to ignore The Fabulous Philosopher's Stone's 1955-setting and push it back to at least 1954. Or rather 1953, as The Black Knight is said to take place the year before The Black Knight Glorps Again. (It's a mess and I'm here for it!!!)

[That Duckfan]

I'm not going to comment on this in detail, as I'm planning to work on the timeline later this year. It's quite similar to my own timeline, so far as I've worked it out. We can work together on it if you like, but at the moment I'm still busy with a few INDUCKS things.

Your point about Scrooge being relatively unknown in North of the Yukon caught my attention as well. I have it as a very early story for that reason, in the winter of '48. But HDL are with the JW's, which they joined earlier that summer.

Lost in the Andes is a tough one. It features the museum director, who clearly doesn't recognise Donald in the much later Son of the Sun. Circumstances suggest it's pre-Scrooge, but you can't set it too far back, because the two homesick roosters from Plain Awful need to be alive for their Return. I've opted to pair it with the other story where Donald works in the museum: The Golden Helmet. That's a pre-JW story, going by HDL's general ignorance. I don't have it quite as far back as that, but I should probably change that. So I guess the Awfultonians just raise some long-lived chickens, then!

[LP]

Sept 10, 2021 14:50:04 GMT That Duckfan said:

I'm not going to comment on this in detail, as I'm planning to work on the timeline later this year. It's quite similar to my own timeline, so far as I've worked it out. We can work together on it if you like, but at the moment I'm still busy with a few INDUCKS things.

Your point about Scrooge being relatively unknown in North of the Yukon caught my attention as well. I have it as a very early story for that reason, in the winter of '48. But HDL are with the JW's, which they joined earlier that summer.

Lost in the Andes is a tough one. It features the museum director, who clearly doesn't recognise Donald in the much later Son of the Sun. Circumstances suggest it's pre-Scrooge, but you can't set it too far back, because the two homesick roosters from Plain Awful need to be alive for their Return. I've opted to pair it with the other story where Donald works in the museum: The Golden Helmet. That's a pre-JW story, going by HDL's general ignorance. I don't have it quite as far back as that, but I should probably change that. So I guess the Awfultonians just raise some long-lived chickens, then!

I would love to work together! Just send me a PM when the time is right!

I would prefer to have North of the Yukon as early as possible too. But as you say, there's the JW-problem. I'd prefer if HDL join as early as possible, as they are portrayed as very childlike in WHADALOTTAJARGON, but then I decided that The Money Well probably has to be after Christmas for Shacktown. Thus, Shacktown would be Christmas 1948, and HDL joins the JW sometime in 1949, with North of the Yukon later that year. It's not optimal, but I don't know how else to explain the drilling in The Money Well.

I would agree that The Golden Helmet is pre-JW for the same reason as you. However, I'd need to re-read pretty much every relevant story in order to have anything to say here. Although, I know Donald applies for a job at the museum another time in the Rosa story The Duck Who Never Was. So it wouldn't be totally crazy to separate Golden Helmet and Lost in the Andes and simply say he works there at different times. (Although, Donald working at the same place in two separate Barks-stories is a rare bit of Barks-continuity. I do understand the desire to keep those two close together!)

Anyways, I've been re-reading Barks' work from the beginning (more closely this time) and I've been taking continuity-notes along the way to help place them on the timeline. The earliest confirmed date is from Kite Weather, which takes place on March 1st 1944. The Ducks haven't even moved to Duckburg at this point, as they live in Quackville. I sort of have an idea of how to arrange the stories in an order which would make the journey to Duckburg sort of make sense, but I'll get back later when I have read more!

[LP]

A little update here. I've gone back to the beginning and read a few of Barks' early stories. I've reached a few conclusions.

We know of three different addresses that Donald lives at in Duckburg. 1313 Webfoot Walk (The Secret of Atlantis), 13 Quack Street (The Day that Duckburg Got Dyed), and an unknown number on Oak Street (Donald Tames His Temper). I guess HDL imply that they live on Fifth Street in Three Dirty Little Ducks, but let's get back to that later. 

In Good Neighbors, the Ducks move to "the last house on the last street of town" in order to get as far away from Jones as possible. So if they, for example, lived on the north side of Duckburg before, they now move to the south side instead. However Jones accidentally moves in next to them this time too. This means that we have two consecutive addresses with Jones living next to Donald.
Okay, with that out of the way let's see my conclusions: According to The Day that Duckburg Got Dyed, the Ducks live on Quack Street, which is only a block away from Gyro’s shop. According to The Madball Pitcher, Gyro’s shop is in the south side of Duckburg. This means that Quack Street is on the south side of Duckburg and, presumably, also that 13 Quack Street is one of the two Good Neighbors-addresses, as it's located on one of the far edges of Duckburg. This further means that the other address was located on the north side.

I would nominate 1313 Webfoot Walk as the north address. In The Secret of Atlantis, Scrooge sends Donald to 1313 Webfoot Walk to demand that the resident pay back his debt to Scrooge. Donald doesn't recognize the address as his own, and doesn't realize that he himself lives there until HDL open the door and tells him. This implies that he has recently moved here. In this story, Scrooge claims that 1950 was 4 years ago, placing this in 1954. So, I'd say that Donald lived at 13 Quack Street at least during 1947-1954, then Good Neighbors happens and he moves, and shortly after The Secret of Atlantis takes place.

Is everyone with me so far? Good, because now it's all going to fall apart.
As previously stated, The Secret of Atlantis takes place in 1954. However, the story ends with Donald learning that there is big money to be made in collecting valuable stamps. This means that every story in which he is collecting stamps should take place after Atlantis, right? Well, enter The Gilded Man, in which Donald is collecting stamps and travels to Guiana in order to find a super-rare stamp. In this story 1856 is said to have been 96 years ago... placing The Gilded Man in 1952... two years before Donald first learns that stamps can actually be valuable in Atlantis...
At this point, I think the best course of action is to just ignore stated dates and years in the stories, and just place them in the order that makes sense based on actual events in the stories.
Another problem that arises is that Donald has a stamp collection in Donald Tames His Temper. It is accidentally destroyed by HDL, placing it after every other stamp collection-story. However, the reason HDL destroy it is because they are rather immature and fight like little brats. Setting this after the other stories where they seem much more mature feels wrong... 
Oh yeah, and as previously stated, the Ducks live on Oak Street in Donald Tames His Temper, so they must have moved again after Atlantis. More specifically, they must have moved away from Jones as a next-door neighbor. But never fear, there are in fact stories chronicling this! 

Outfoxed Fox features Donald living next-door to Jones (this Jones is named "Jughead Jones", but I assume that this is the regular old Jones anyways). Scrooge wants to buy both of their lots, but none of them are selling. Then there's The Price of Fame, where Donald tries to become a musician. The noise he makes causes all of his neighbors to move away. Finally, in Wispy Willie, Scrooge has bought every house on Donald's street except for Donald's. Finally, Donald decides to sell his house. He presumably moves to Oak Street after this.

Okay, so in conclusion, that leads to a timeline that looks like this:
The Day that Duckburg Got Dyed (The Ducks live on Quack Street) > Good Neighbors (The Ducks move across Duckburg) > The Secret of Atlantis (Donald isn't familiar with his own Webfoot Walk-address yet. He also discovers the potential value of stamps) > Outfoxed Fox (Scrooge wants to buy Donald's house) > The Price of Fame (Jones sells his house) > Wispy Willie (Donald sells his house) > Donald Tames His Temper (Donald lives on Oak Street and his stamp collection is destroyed)

Oh yeah, and then there's Three Dirty Little Ducks, in which HDL live on Fifth Street. Their next-door neighbor is Herbert the piglet. He appears in one other story, Ten Cents' Worth of Trouble, in which Donald is collecting rare coins. Since HDL and Herbet still hang out, the Ducks presumably still live on the same address in that one. However, Donald is ignorant of the value of old coins in The Secret of Atlantis, so both of the Herbert stories have to take place after that one. But the plot of Three Dirty Little Ducks is about HDL swearing to never taking a bath again, which is super-immature. I don't feel good about placing such an event that late on the timeline. This is a mess, and now I'm a bit less here for it.

[Daniel Maline]

I have been trying for a long time to create a so-called "master timeline of Scrooge's time in Klondike."

Since there are several stories in Klondike, I have had to decide which ones belong to the same canon as the stories of Barks and Rosa. So far I’ve only accepted Arild Midthun’s Klondike stories as an unofficial part and that’s why I’ve put them in the brackets.

So...

On the eve of the gold rush, young Scrooge arrives in Skagway from Australia. Unfortunately, he meets Wyatt Earp and therefore has to borrow money from Soapy Slick. But because a large gold deposit has been found in the Bonanza River, Soapy raises the interest from 10% to 100%.

In the early winter of 1896, Scrooge arrives on the Chilkoot Trail and then he rides a moose all the way to Dawson City, Canada. There, he navigates north from the mouth of Bonanza River and discover the unknown valley of White Agony Creek behind the Mooseneck glacier.

Scrooge setups his mine in the White Agony Creek and visits Dawson City only once a month to replenish his stocks and repay the loan. (Shortly before Christmas, Scrooge solves a case of the mathematical bear and the disguised thief. Goldie is also trying to rob Scrooge's gold for the first time.)

During this winter, Scrooge builds a cottage for himself to protect from the cold. And the following spring, 1897, he arrives fatally in Dawson City. Then one of Soapy Slick’s river boats will be destroyed this spring in uncertain conditions and Soapy will be deported from Canada by Scrooge.

The location of Scrooge's mining site has been revealed and it is now attracting thieves which will result that Scrooge accidentally find his biggest gold nugget. He arrives to show it to Dawson, at which point Goldie steals it and stuns Scrooge.

This causes a big fight that leads to Goldie being kidnapped. For the next three months, Goldie will be working at Scrooge mine and the relationship between the two will deepen. Meanwhile, Soapy Slick hires rescue patrol of three legends who fail in their mission. In the end, Goldie gets to return to Dawson City.

In January of the following year, 1898, Samuel Steele arrives in the starving Dawson City. Goldie takes advantage of the cavalry to attract Scrooge to her and she succeeds in doing so ​when Scrooge arrives in town with a sea of flames behind him. After the events, he gives Scrooge a letter, but Scrooge doesn't read it.

After paying off his loan, Scrooge is finally a millionaire in 1899 and he buys a plot of land in Calisota. However, Scrooge’s mine is starting to run out so he decides to visit Dawson City once more before leaving. On the way, Scrooge's sleigh gets stuck in the ice and he is never allowed to take an important gift to Goldie.

As a result of the accident, Scrooge leaves directly for White Horse and buys a White Horse's bank. So from White Horse, Scrooge begins to grow his first business empire. He start a sawmill, shipping company and a fishing company. Scrooge will spent a total of five years in Klondike until he is a billionaire.

(However, Scrooge is bothered by homesickness so he decides to sell his business and travel to Scotland. He sends a letter to his family, but in the meantime, the Beagle Boys rob White Horse’s bank and pack the money in barrels. With the help of Goldie, Scrooge manages to get the money back and transport them to the other side of the United States. In gratitude for the help, Scrooge agrees to grant a loan to her.)

[giorgosdk]

Sept 20, 2021 10:22:42 GMT LP said:

However, Donald is ignorant of the value of old coins in The Secret of Atlantis, so both of the Herbert stories have to take place after that one. But the plot of Three Dirty Little Ducks is about HDL swearing to never taking a bath again, which is super-immature. I don't feel good about placing such an event that late on the timeline. This is a mess, and now I'm a bit less here for it.

Maybe, HDL and Herbert still hang out as friends and not only neighbours? Maybe Herbert parents bring him to HDL's house to play?

[Fethryfan]

Sept 30, 2021 19:28:45 GMT giorgosdk said:

Sept 20, 2021 10:22:42 GMT LP said:

However, Donald is ignorant of the value of old coins in The Secret of Atlantis, so both of the Herbert stories have to take place after that one. But the plot of Three Dirty Little Ducks is about HDL swearing to never taking a bath again, which is super-immature. I don't feel good about placing such an event that late on the timeline. This is a mess, and now I'm a bit less here for it.

Maybe, HDL and Herbert still hang out as friends and not only neighbours? Maybe Herbert parents bring him to HDL's house to play?

That's not the point. HDL's attitudes in Three Dirty Little Ducks are very immature for their late characterization, so it should be placed earlier in the timeline, when they were 5 years old (as implicity stated on a story made by Barks during the same period)

[giorgosdk]

Oct 1, 2021 0:55:35 GMT Fethryfan said:

Sept 30, 2021 19:28:45 GMT giorgosdk said:

Maybe, HDL and Herbert still hang out as friends and not only neighbours? Maybe Herbert parents bring him to HDL's house to play?

That's not the point. HDL's attitudes in Three Dirty Little Ducks are very immature for their late characterization, so it should be placed earlier in the timeline, when they were 5 years old (as implicity stated on a story made by Barks during the same period)

I mean that Donald and HDL live in 5th Street in "Three Dirty Little Ducks" before "The Day that Duckburg Got Dyed" and the "Ten Cents' Worth of Trouble" is after "Secret of Atlantis", they don't yet live in 5th Street but they still hang out with Herbert.

[Daniel Maline]

Oct 1, 2021 5:42:30 GMT giorgosdk said:

Oct 1, 2021 0:55:35 GMT Fethryfan said:

That's not the point. HDL's attitudes in Three Dirty Little Ducks are very immature for their late characterization, so it should be placed earlier in the timeline, when they were 5 years old (as implicity stated on a story made by Barks during the same period)

I mean that Donald and HDL live in 5th Street in "Three Dirty Little Ducks" before "The Day that Duckburg Got Dyed" and the "Ten Cents' Worth of Trouble" is after "Secret of Atlantis", they don't yet live in 5th Street but they still hang out with Herbert.

In the story of the Three Dirty Little Ducks, the Fifty street is the neighborhood where Herbert lives and it located a walking distance from Donald's house. From this we can conclude that Donald is not a neighbor of the Herbert's family but possibly his house still located on Fifty Street. At the beginning of the story, the club of Four F meets in the Duckburg dump very next to Herbert's house until Herbert's mother picked up her son and took her inside the house. And this dump is presumably the same dump as in the story of The April Foolers.

[LP]

I just realized that HDL are already Junior Woodchucks members in A Christmas for Shacktown, meaning that it has to go after W.H.A.D.A.L.O.T.T.A.J.A.R.G.O.N.. Whoopsie. So disregard the first post of this thread. I'll have to rework the timeline later if I find the time... and motivation.

[That Duckfan]

It takes some getting in to, finding a foothold that you can confidently base your timeline on. An earlier draft of mine began by following characters 'in-universe', starting with the chapters of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. That works... up to a point.

What I've done now is made a list of all the stories/characters/situations that are referenced in Rosa's comics, just start with the earliest story created. There's about 215 in total, and so far I've done 2: Donald's Nephews (1937/38) and Donald's Cousin Gus (1938/39). Of course, due to time constraints, those stories are now set in the future. I've settled on 1945 personally. 1946 is doable, but it gets a bit crammed with all the seemingly pre-Scrooge holiday tales, especially the Thanksgivings.

I understand that my method of jettisoning Barks stories not implicitly linked to Rosa stories is an unorthodox one, but it does reduce the amount of headaches considerably. For instance, I don't have any Barks comics featuring Jones in my timeline, so I don't have to worry about when he's around or not. That's because I have a rule that states: if someone or something is referenced in more than three Barks stories, that just becomes a background element of Barks' Duckburg. Jones appears five times in Barks, none of which are an explicit 'Jones Origin Story' or directly linked to anything Rosa. So here I stick to Rosa only.

Granted, I don't know where the Ducks live, myself. I haven't gotten to that level of detail, but I will be on the lookout for it from now on.

[LP]

Oct 8, 2021 11:51:35 GMT That Duckfan said:

It takes some getting in to, finding a foothold that you can confidently base your timeline on. An earlier draft of mine began by following characters 'in-universe', starting with the chapters of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. That works... up to a point.

What I've done now is made a list of all the stories/characters/situations that are referenced in Rosa's comics, just start with the earliest story created. There's about 215 in total, and so far I've done 2: Donald's Nephews (1937/38) and Donald's Cousin Gus (1938/39). Of course, due to time constraints, those stories are now set in the future. I've settled on 1945 personally. 1946 is doable, but it gets a bit crammed with all the seemingly pre-Scrooge holiday tales, especially the Thanksgivings.

I understand that my method of jettisoning Barks stories not implicitly linked to Rosa stories is an unorthodox one, but it does reduce the amount of headaches considerably. For instance, I don't have any Barks comics featuring Jones in my timeline, so I don't have to worry about when he's around or not. That's because I have a rule that states: if someone or something is referenced in more than three Barks stories, that just becomes a background element of Barks' Duckburg. Jones appears five times in Barks, none of which are an explicit 'Jones Origin Story' or directly linked to anything Rosa. So here I stick to Rosa only.

Granted, I don't know where the Ducks live, myself. I haven't gotten to that level of detail, but I will be on the lookout for it from now on.

In my brief time of trying to create a timeline, I hit so many walls that my motivation sort of disappeared. Some problems just can't be solved. To be honest, when making the original post in this thread, I didn't re-read every story as carefully as I should have. That's why I missed the JW in Shacktown. After that, I started re-reading Barks' stories all the way from the beginning. Starting then, I took notes on most every detail. That's when I truly started realizing just how impossible this task is, just how many contradictions we would be dealing with here. One way to deal with that is to just say "all of this happens sometime during 1945-1954" and not think too hard on the actual timeline; another is to do what you have done and remove some stories completely. 

For what it's worth, my head-canon timeline has HDL first coming to live with Donald in 1945. When I started re-reading Barks' earliest stories I seriously thought of pushing it back to 1943 or '44... But then I realized that there are far bigger problems in the timeline then that, so I'll stick with '45 for now.

I know Rosa had "1313 Webfoot Walk" on Donald's mailbox at least once. I can't remember which one, though.

[That Duckfan]

Oct 9, 2021 17:24:41 GMT LP said:

In my brief time of trying to create a timeline, I hit so many walls that my motivation sort of disappeared. Some problems just can't be solved.

Personally, I would have thought a comprehensive Duck family tree would be a much more difficult project, yet you've managed to work through that. That does mean diverting from both Barks' and Rosa's wishes, so it really becomes your own thing.

I abandoned the idea of a Barks-Rosa Universe a long time ago, because that just means you're reading Barks wrong. Rosa too, but the continuity vortex is too strong not to.

To be honest, when making the original post in this thread, I didn't re-read every story as carefully as I should have. That's why I missed the JW in Shacktown. After that, I started re-reading Barks' stories all the way from the beginning. Starting then, I took notes on most every detail. That's when I truly started realizing just how impossible this task is, just how many contradictions we would be dealing with here. One way to deal with that is to just say "all of this happens sometime during 1945-1954" and not think too hard on the actual timeline; another is to do what you have done and remove some stories completely.

And I'm still fiddling around with which stories fit. I had a long debate with myself over Clock Cleaners, considering it's about the last thing that can be salvaged from The Starstruck Duck. Other stories have multiple versions.

For what it's worth, my head-canon timeline has HDL first coming to live with Donald in 1945. When I started re-reading Barks' earliest stories I seriously thought of pushing it back to 1943 or '44... But then I realized that there are far bigger problems in the timeline then that, so I'll stick with '45 for now.

1944 is a brick wall, because of the Three Caballeros stories. I'm not willing to move "Aquarela do Brasil" / The Three Caballeros from their respective release dates, given how closely they're caught up with real-life events. For me, they represent Donald's wild years before he settled down, meaning that pre-Scrooge stories with the nephews need to take place largely in that 1945-47 window.

FWIW, you still got me tied with that Atlantis + Gilded Man conundrum, not to mention that I've got The Trouble with Dimes (where Donald learns the same lesson) to deal with as well. I have a few "nuclear options", like hypnotism, amnesia, and the like to reset characters, but those are in short supply. (And even then, Donald's and Scrooge's attitudes toward hypnotism between The Hypno-Gun and Back to Long Ago! are mutually exclusive, to put it lightly.)