Which Scrooge do you prefer?

[Hector]

-Barkses Scrooge: A living legend.
-Rosa's Scrooge: A deeply humane figure.
-Scarpa's Scrooge: A jolly, meditteranean type.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Sept 26, 2016 23:40:22 GMT Hector said:

-Barkses Scrooge: A living legend.
-Rosa's Scrooge: A deeply humane figure.
-Scarpa's Scrooge: A jolly, meditteranean type.

I disagree somewhat with the characterizations of the various incarnations of Scrooge that you cite. Barks' Scrooge, I would argue, is the more flexible, fungible version of the character; often driven by the pursuit of wealth and little else, whose frugality is a source of humor and whose relationships with family and friends are somewhat underexplored with a few exceptions ("Only a Poor Old Man", "Back to the Klondike"), an adventurer whose adventuresomeness is often underplayed. It's Rosa's Scrooge who's more of the "living legend", who's rubbed shoulders with Teddy Roosevelt, who excelled in most endeavors in his youth, whose exploits are celebrated; but Rosa also turned Scrooge into a bitter, cynical, at times cruel figure with fleeting moments of sentimentality. It's hard to know what to make of Scarpa's Scrooge, a weird, hyperenergetic, frenetic and unrestrained character in a universe full of such characters, but then, since I'm only able to read his stories in English, it's possible that things get lost in translation. I think there needs to be an additional iteration of the character added to this list , the DuckTales version, probably the closest to the "deeply humane figure" you suggest, with a deep love of family and community and a vastly attenuated sense of greed and selfishness, suitably watered down so that he can carry a TV series on his own.

Rosa's Scrooge is the most complex of them all, so that's the one that gets my vote.

[RobbK1]

I like Barks' Scrooge best. He could be a hero, villain or goat, mean, nice, sentimental, selfish, smart, blinded by greed - the whole range of human emotions and traits, just like Donald, and Huey, Dewey and Louie.
I also like Barks' artwork much better than that of Rosa(and his storywriting, too), and don't like Scarpa's Ducks (although I love his Mouse characters' artwork). I like Daan Jippes' and Freddy Milton's Scrooge.

[That Duckfan]

My, I think there's many more Scrooges than those just three. It would be a useful fan-exercise to distinguish all the different characterizations out there.

When I was younger, I would have said Rosa's Scrooge in a heartbeat. I still hold him in high regard, but relatively less so. I'm not sure if anyone has overtaken him, but it's possible.

In terms of pure character breadth, Barks' Scrooge takes the cake. But I don't think Barks took full advantage of this characterization, and it generally sits in second place behind the stories (and it doesn't help that the prime Scrooge period, 1954-1962, is my least favorite Barks period of all).
There's something of the 'absent-minded professor' about Barks' Scrooge, who somehow manages to be both very successful and the typical fool, which has rarely been picked up on by later writers. Adapted Scrooges are either legendary and sentimental (Rosa), antagonistic and melodramatic (old Italy), adventurous (Holland and Denmark, modern Italy), or secondary to the plot/author's general style (Van Horn, among others). I think that on the whole, Italian stories have pushed the 'Scrooge the fool' angle the furthest, in stories that don't fit him. Admittedly, it's hard to fit with the fact that he's super successful.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Also, though few people would think of him as the best version, we can't forget DuckTales Scrooge (sort of a nicer, less antagonistic Barks Scrooge, I guess you could say).

[deb]

There is also the newspaper strip Scrooge, who was either the rich guy or Donald's boss.