New story about Hortense

[Spectrus]

I'm surprised nobody seems to have picked up on this yet. In the new issue of the German Mickey Mouse there is a story by Kari Korhonen that starts out as a light-hearted self-reference story (somebody turning the Ducks' adventures into a TV series) but then takes a very different turn and delves into the question of what actually happened to Hortense. It doesn't fully answer that question but gives some hints at least.

The most surprising thing is that 

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
Scrooge is convinced she's still alive

in direct contradiction to what Don Rosa was told by Egmont some twenty years ago when he wanted to use her in "A Letter From Home".

I guess after making all those new stories about Scrooge's past, Kari Korhonen was considered good enough to tackle such a difficult subject without it misfiring. Anyone else who already read the story?

Inducks link: inducks.org/story.php?c=D+2023-173

[sim]

May 13, 2024 7:58:32 GMT Spectrus said:

in direct contradiction to what Don Rosa was told by Egmont some twenty years ago when he wanted to use her in "A Letter From Home".

This does not surprise me. Rosa also stated that he couldn't use Ludwig in Egmont stories ("Egmont regards Hortense McDuck, Ludwig Von Drake, Della Duck and Della's unknown husband all as 'officially dead' and unuseable"), but since 2008 he has been "resurrected" and now he is kind of a regular character in Danish production.

[caballero]

May 13, 2024 10:13:22 GMT sim said:

May 13, 2024 7:58:32 GMT Spectrus said:

in direct contradiction to what Don Rosa was told by Egmont some twenty years ago when he wanted to use her in "A Letter From Home".

This does not surprise me. Rosa also stated that he couldn't use Ludwig in Egmont stories ("Egmont regards Hortense McDuck, Ludwig Von Drake, Della Duck and Della's unknown husband all as 'officially dead' and unuseable"), but since 2008 he has been "resurrected" and now he is kind of a regular character in Danish production.

Ludwig is exactly another example I was thinking about when I first read Spectrus' post earlier today! And I do find it annoying that Don wasn't allowed to do several things other creators are now allowed to do.

Spectrus  "Kari Korhonen was considered good enough to tackle such a difficult subject without it misfiring"

But this new story was written by Wanda Gattino according to Inducks, Korhonen only drew it!

[Rrr]

May 13, 2024 13:44:05 GMT caballero said:

But this new story was written by Wanda Gattino according to Inducks, Korhonen only drew it!

Wrong, art by Gattino, script by Korhonen :)

[caballero]

@rrr Thanks for the correction! I need to sleep more.  Anyway, I don't think there is any currently active Disney comic creator whom I trust to do something good with Hortense.

[Matilda]

I Need This Story!! I think having Hortense as a primatologist is a fine idea. I myself have thought in the past that practically the only adventurous careers open to women in that era (assuming one sticks more or less to the Rosa-style 1950's/early '60s "present") were journalist and primatologist! The latter thanks to Louis Leakey, of course. And he only started sending women to study primates in the late 1950's.

Also, I'm very fond of Dr. Beatrice Bruté, in the Darkwing Duck "Apes of Wrath" episode!

[redotakuking]

May 13, 2024 10:13:22 GMT sim said:

May 13, 2024 7:58:32 GMT Spectrus said:

in direct contradiction to what Don Rosa was told by Egmont some twenty years ago when he wanted to use her in "A Letter From Home".

This does not surprise me. Rosa also stated that he couldn't use Ludwig in Egmont stories ("Egmont regards Hortense McDuck, Ludwig Von Drake, Della Duck and Della's unknown husband all as 'officially dead' and unuseable"), but since 2008 he has been "resurrected" and now he is kind of a regular character in Danish production.

I was just thinking today about Ludwig Von Drake. I'm not super familiar with the Egmont output, so I have to ask, why was Ludwig considered dead and/or unusable? I can't think of a reason why he would be either. 

[The KKM]

The way the story gets told is that Egmont editorial considered him un-Barksian and redunctant with Gyro

[juicymcduck]

Oooh! Shiny. I have to convince my editor to publish it in France!

[Matilda]

May 14, 2024 19:23:59 GMT juicymcduck said:

Oooh! Shiny. I have to convince my editor to publish it in France!

Please please please! Let me know if I can bribe someone. And then I have to hope that someone will sell that issue on French eBay... there's a fair chance of that, at least.

[slyemacduich]

That sounds interesting, maybe I'll buy that issue of "Micky Maus".

I like to think that Hortense died when Donald was little, and Matilda raised him instead, because that makes that disturbing scene in "A Letter from Home" where she beats him up and references having done that to him as a child at least a tiny bit more understandable. (I really wish Don Rosa didn't find physical punishment so hilarious. It's probably the one thing I'd change about his comics).

[Matilda]

Jul 21, 2024 17:45:52 GMT slyemacduich said:

I like to think that Hortense died when Donald was little, and Matilda raised him instead, because that makes that disturbing scene in "A Letter from Home" where she beats him up and references having done that to him as a child at least a tiny bit more understandable. (I really wish Don Rosa didn't find physical punishment so hilarious. It's probably the one thing I'd change about his comics).

...and indeed, didn't Rosa originally intend to have Hortense deliver those lines in "A Letter from Home"? Only when he was told he couldn't use Hortense did he smush together the roles of Matilda and Hortense, leading to Matilda saying something that would only be acceptable from a much exasperated mother (of the 1950's!).

Your comment prompted me to look up the story on INDUCKS again, and lo, it has been published in Journal de Mickey! No one selling that issue on ebay.fr now, but I will henceforth check every day until I find it!