The six statues of Cornelius Coot (plus two others)
Feb 27, 2024 11:42:15 GMT
dancruz, muggyruglugg, and 2 more like this
Post by LP on Feb 27, 2024 11:42:15 GMT
In Statuesque Spendthrifts, the Maharajah of Howduyustan erects a statue of Cornelius Coot. Eager to show that he is richer and willing to spend more money, Scrooge erects a larger Coot-statue. The Maharajah counters by erecting an even larger statue. This continues until there are six progressively larger Coot-statues looming over Duckburg. At this point, the Maharajah instead erects golden statue resembling himself. Scrooge follows suit and has a diamond Scrooge-statue made. In the end, eight statues have been erected. Coot-statues #1, #3, and #5 were erected by the Maharajah, whereas #2, #4, and #6 are Scrooge's. Statue #7 is the golden Maharajah-statue, and finally #8 is the diamond studded Scrooge.
This thread asks the questions Where are the statues now? Which ones are still standing? What happened to the ones who are not? I would say that Duck-comics tend to show two of these Coot-statues: One which is large enough to be part of the Duckburg skyline, and one that is relatively small and, just like in Statuesque Spendthrifts, is generally located in a park.
When we see the smaller park-based statues, statue-Coot is often scaled up a few times in relation to his real size, but these park-statues are never depicted as giant. Below is a collage of a few examples of this from various artists:
This is consistent with Statuesque Spendthrifts. At the end of this story, we can see that one small statue remains in the park:
I will assume that all of the ones in the collage represent the same statue as this one. The question is - which of the six Coot-statues is it? Looking at the sizes of our options, the most likely candidates are statues #1 and #2.
However, after the statue-contest, the Maharajah is broke and disliked by the Mayor of Duckburg:
This statue-contest only started because the Mayor wanted a Coot-statue in his city. Now he has six - and half of them are made by a man he despises. I believe statues #1, #3, and #5 were torn down and dismantled to their core materials, which were then repurposed for more appropriate uses. The same is likely true for statue #7. Why would the Mayor keep a golden statue of the Maharajah, when he can melt it down to gold and make his town rich?
With this in mind, I believe that these smaller Coot-statues in the park are all statue #2.
Let's move on to the big one. Don Rosa frequently drew a giant Coot-statue in the Duckburg skyline. Despite the fact that statues #4, #5, and #6 would all be visible, Rosa never showed us more than one large Coot-statue in the skyline. See examples below:
Please note that this big boy is clearly a separate statue from the #2 in the park. Rosa showed his version of a small park-based statue in Cash Flow, whereas his larger one is located downtown as seen in His Majesty, McDuck:
Also, as you can see, the location and rotation of the skyline-statue in relation to the Money Bin is very inconsistent. It tends to teleport around town, sometimes several times within one single story. However, hopefully we can all agree that all of these are still meant to represent the same single statue.
Now, the question is "which statue is Rosa's statue?". My earlier rationalization about the Mayor removing the Maharajah's statues applies here too, but there is something else pointing to Scrooge being the one who erected this giant Coot-statue. Namely the fact that Scrooge flat out tells us so in Gyro's First Invention:
Thus, we are down to it being either statue #4 or #6. Looking at the size of Rosa's giant Coot, the base of the statue is generally as tall as the surrounding buildings. That's more or less consistent with statue #4. Also, in Gyro's First Invention, the Money Bin lands in the giant statue's hands. According to the blueprints from Rosa's own The Beagle Boys vs. the Money Bin, the Bin is 127 feet (38.7 meters) tall. If this was statue #6, the Bin would be like a sugar cube in Coot's hands. Therefore, everything points towards this being statue #4.
So what happened to statue #6? I don't know, but it clearly isn't there looming over Duckburg anymore. Statue #4 could get away with being lost amongst buildings, but #6 would constantly be casting massive shadows over Duckburg and be visible at all times. My attempt at a rational explanation for this is that, like with the Maharajah's statues, the Mayor likely had it torn down. Statue #6 is absurdly big, it's blocking the sun, and its mere existence is probably a danger to Duckburgians everywhere.
Finally, this leaves #8 - the diamond statue depicting Scrooge. Where is this thing? What happened to it? I have no good answer to this one. Maybe it isn't something you would want to display out in the open? People would probably try to steal the diamonds at night. And diamonds would probably reflect sunlight in an annoying way, which might blind the Duckburgians. And who would want to see an 80 feet tall statue of the rich guy who practically owns the city anyways? My best guess is that this one was torn down too.
In conclusion, I believe that only statues #2 and #4 are still standing. The others were torn down shortly after they were unveiled to the public. I would love to see a sequel to Statuesque Spendthrifts where we see all of the extra work that has to be done just to clean up after these two billionaires. Maybe you could explain the disappearance of statues #6 and #8 by having Witch Hazel do some magic and make them come alive? They could fight each other and terrorize the city. Kaiju Coot vs. Diamond Scrooge. It wouldn't be too outlandish, considering these stories are supposed to be set in the 1950s.
Okay, now I've droned on for too long again. I might have gone too far in a few places... But hey, what do you think? Which statues are still standing, and what happened to the others?
This thread asks the questions Where are the statues now? Which ones are still standing? What happened to the ones who are not? I would say that Duck-comics tend to show two of these Coot-statues: One which is large enough to be part of the Duckburg skyline, and one that is relatively small and, just like in Statuesque Spendthrifts, is generally located in a park.
When we see the smaller park-based statues, statue-Coot is often scaled up a few times in relation to his real size, but these park-statues are never depicted as giant. Below is a collage of a few examples of this from various artists:
This is consistent with Statuesque Spendthrifts. At the end of this story, we can see that one small statue remains in the park:
I will assume that all of the ones in the collage represent the same statue as this one. The question is - which of the six Coot-statues is it? Looking at the sizes of our options, the most likely candidates are statues #1 and #2.
However, after the statue-contest, the Maharajah is broke and disliked by the Mayor of Duckburg:
This statue-contest only started because the Mayor wanted a Coot-statue in his city. Now he has six - and half of them are made by a man he despises. I believe statues #1, #3, and #5 were torn down and dismantled to their core materials, which were then repurposed for more appropriate uses. The same is likely true for statue #7. Why would the Mayor keep a golden statue of the Maharajah, when he can melt it down to gold and make his town rich?
With this in mind, I believe that these smaller Coot-statues in the park are all statue #2.
Let's move on to the big one. Don Rosa frequently drew a giant Coot-statue in the Duckburg skyline. Despite the fact that statues #4, #5, and #6 would all be visible, Rosa never showed us more than one large Coot-statue in the skyline. See examples below:
Please note that this big boy is clearly a separate statue from the #2 in the park. Rosa showed his version of a small park-based statue in Cash Flow, whereas his larger one is located downtown as seen in His Majesty, McDuck:
Also, as you can see, the location and rotation of the skyline-statue in relation to the Money Bin is very inconsistent. It tends to teleport around town, sometimes several times within one single story. However, hopefully we can all agree that all of these are still meant to represent the same single statue.
Now, the question is "which statue is Rosa's statue?". My earlier rationalization about the Mayor removing the Maharajah's statues applies here too, but there is something else pointing to Scrooge being the one who erected this giant Coot-statue. Namely the fact that Scrooge flat out tells us so in Gyro's First Invention:
Thus, we are down to it being either statue #4 or #6. Looking at the size of Rosa's giant Coot, the base of the statue is generally as tall as the surrounding buildings. That's more or less consistent with statue #4. Also, in Gyro's First Invention, the Money Bin lands in the giant statue's hands. According to the blueprints from Rosa's own The Beagle Boys vs. the Money Bin, the Bin is 127 feet (38.7 meters) tall. If this was statue #6, the Bin would be like a sugar cube in Coot's hands. Therefore, everything points towards this being statue #4.
So what happened to statue #6? I don't know, but it clearly isn't there looming over Duckburg anymore. Statue #4 could get away with being lost amongst buildings, but #6 would constantly be casting massive shadows over Duckburg and be visible at all times. My attempt at a rational explanation for this is that, like with the Maharajah's statues, the Mayor likely had it torn down. Statue #6 is absurdly big, it's blocking the sun, and its mere existence is probably a danger to Duckburgians everywhere.
Finally, this leaves #8 - the diamond statue depicting Scrooge. Where is this thing? What happened to it? I have no good answer to this one. Maybe it isn't something you would want to display out in the open? People would probably try to steal the diamonds at night. And diamonds would probably reflect sunlight in an annoying way, which might blind the Duckburgians. And who would want to see an 80 feet tall statue of the rich guy who practically owns the city anyways? My best guess is that this one was torn down too.
In conclusion, I believe that only statues #2 and #4 are still standing. The others were torn down shortly after they were unveiled to the public. I would love to see a sequel to Statuesque Spendthrifts where we see all of the extra work that has to be done just to clean up after these two billionaires. Maybe you could explain the disappearance of statues #6 and #8 by having Witch Hazel do some magic and make them come alive? They could fight each other and terrorize the city. Kaiju Coot vs. Diamond Scrooge. It wouldn't be too outlandish, considering these stories are supposed to be set in the 1950s.
Okay, now I've droned on for too long again. I might have gone too far in a few places... But hey, what do you think? Which statues are still standing, and what happened to the others?