Surviving Duck family members

[Matilda]

Oh, cool! Then David Gerstein independently had the same idea Lowell Handy did, that "Dumbella" was Donald's slightly insulting, teasing nickname for Della in their childhood. Great minds.... And Rosa has adopted that idea, at least since my 1998 exchange with him, if not before.

The one thing Lowell adds to this theory is the satisfying proof that an adult sister may actually use such a nickname in writing to her brother!

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jan 11, 2017 9:28:49 GMT drakeborough said:

Incidentally, Della's cameo in that story is so well hidden that Don seems to have forgotten about it, as in at least a couple of occasions he has provided an explanation for her absence!

Do you have a link to where he did that? Was it on the DCML?
And yes, Donald calling Della "Dumbella" as a nickname is the perfect explanation for the Della/Dumbella discrepancy. Sounds like something a young impish Donald (as portrayed in the early Taliaferro strip) would do. Now all we need is for someone to use it in a story to make it official!

[Scrooge MacDuck]

I'd rather say “Della "Dumbella" Duck, également connue sous le nom de Thelma Duck et appelée Margot dans certaines anciennes traductions…” Aside from that, you're right, it would be better.

I was just saying that in the post you cited, Don Rosa was referring to the "alternate theory" he never approved of: that Dumbella "Della" Duck changed her name to "Thelma'.

[drakeborough]

Jan 11, 2017 14:11:31 GMT Matilda said:

Oh, cool! Then David Gerstein independently had the same idea Lowell Handy did, that "Dumbella" was Donald's slightly insulting, teasing nickname for Della in their childhood. Great minds.... And Rosa has adopted that idea, at least since my 1998 exchange with him, if not before.

The one thing Lowell adds to this theory is the satisfying proof that an adult sister may actually use such a nickname in writing to her brother!

I don't want to sound like I want to deprive Lowell Handy from his merits, but while his letter is an interesting proof that an adult sister may actually sign with her old nickname, this idea has been around way before 1998, as the DCML messages show. It's not just Don and David, as many people had discussed this idea. And in a way I think the reasoning is kind of obvious.

When you have "cousing Della" on one hand and "sister Dumbella" on the other, you have to choose one relationship (cousin or sister), and discard the other. At the same time, however, Della and Dumbella are similar enough that one can keep both without discarding anything, as the second name can be considered a nickname of the first, or the first can be considered a shortened version of the second. Considering Dumbella a nickname of Della is the most logical option, given that it sounds like "dumbell", and given that Della is a real-life name.

Anyway, David did say (in a DCML message dated 17 January 1997) "If I ever showed DD and Della together, I'd use "Dumbella" as Donald's mischievous nickname for his sister", though this remained on paper since he never did a Della story. However, I feel that Don, although he agrees in abstract that Della may have been nicknamed Dumbella, wouldn't have actually used the nickname if he did more stories about her.

[drakeborough]

Jan 11, 2017 16:00:24 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Jan 11, 2017 9:28:49 GMT drakeborough said:

Incidentally, Della's cameo in that story is so well hidden that Don seems to have forgotten about it, as in at least a couple of occasions he has provided an explanation for her absence!

Do you have a link to where he did that? Was it on the DCML?

I am thinking of two instances.

1) In 2014, a user of the Papersera Forum asked Don "I'd like to ask you why you've never use Whitewater Duck in your stories set in the present, and why Gladstone's father and Della Duck don't appear in "The sign of the triple distelfink"." Don's answer was "I guess I never had a story where Whitewater would have been useful, and I didn't have any need for the others in the plot of "Distelfink". Simple as that. Certainly the appearance of Della Duck, whom so many fans want to see in a story, would have been very distracting if she was just standing around in the background in the party scene. And if I'd used her in an unneeded non-speaking cameo role, she would still have demanded to be paid full union scale. So she was there, but just off screen." Of course the latter part of the answer is mostly a joke, since it talk about paying Della full union scale if she appeared, but I think he would have answered "Della did appear, look better" if he remembered about it.

2) In an article by Alberto Becattini, published in an Italian comic from last November that reprints the story, there is the translation of something Don wrote; the origin of Don's quote is not stated, but I think it may be an article he wrote for an American publication. I will do an English translation of Don's words (only for the part where he mentions Della), even though the translation of a translation doesn't give back the original text: "At Gladstone's birthday party, in the flashback sequence, we can see Donald's parents, Hortense and Quackmore (called with this name by Barks in his personal notes, in the early Fifties) when they are arguing. Some readers have asked me what happened to Donald's sister, Della, the future mother of Huey, Dewey and Louie. I think I figured there were already too much characters with which confound the readers, so let's say Della was on her own eating salad of potatoes". This time the answer is not a joke, so we can defintely say that when he wrote this he forgot about her small cameo on page 4, panel 7.

Jan 11, 2017 16:21:45 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

I'd rather say “Della "Dumbella" Duck, également connue sous le nom de Thelma Duck et appelée Margot dans certaines anciennes traductions…” Aside from that, you're right, it would be better.

Seems fine to me.

Jan 11, 2017 16:21:45 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

I was just saying that in the post you cited, Don Rosa was referring to the "alternate theory" he never approved of: that Dumbella "Della" Duck changed her name to "Thelma'.

It seems to me that Don was arguing against the idea that Dumbella is the real name and Della is the short version of it. He wasn't arguing against the idea that he changed her name to Thelma, since nobody in that discussion had mentioned that idea. In fact, this idea seems so obscure to me that I never heard of it until today.

[sirtao]

Jan 9, 2017 16:43:26 GMT drakeborough said:

SCROOGE: ...and that's why your mother, Della Duck, sent you to live with you uncle Donald Duck!

Note: in the original Italian they use Della DUCK as name for HLD's mother, instead of Della Paperino(as Paperino it's technically Donald's SURNAME in Italy). Take it whatever you want, but know it's very uncommon for a woman to change her surname after marriage, in Italy

[Matilda]

Jan 11, 2017 16:26:44 GMT drakeborough said:

Jan 11, 2017 14:11:31 GMT Matilda said:

Oh, cool! Then David Gerstein independently had the same idea Lowell Handy did, that "Dumbella" was Donald's slightly insulting, teasing nickname for Della in their childhood. Great minds.... And Rosa has adopted that idea, at least since my 1998 exchange with him, if not before.

The one thing Lowell adds to this theory is the satisfying proof that an adult sister may actually use such a nickname in writing to her brother!

I don't want to sound like I want to deprive Lowell Handy from his merits, but while his letter is an interesting proof that an adult sister may actually sign with her old nickname, this idea has been around way before 1998, as the DCML messages show. It's not just Don and David, as many people had discussed this idea. And in a way I think the reasoning is kind of obvious.

When you have "cousing Della" on one hand and "sister Dumbella" on the other, you have to choose one relationship (cousin or sister), and discard the other. At the same time, however, Della and Dumbella are similar enough that one can keep both without discarding anything, as the second name can be considered a nickname of the first, or the first can be considered a shortened version of the second. Considering Dumbella a nickname of Della is the most logical option, given that it sounds like "dumbell", and given that Della is a real-life name.

Anyway, David did say (in a DCML message dated 17 January 1997) "If I ever showed DD and Della together, I'd use "Dumbella" as Donald's mischievous nickname for his sister", though this remained on paper since he never did a Della story. However, I feel that Don, although he agrees in abstract that Della may have been nicknamed Dumbella, wouldn't have actually used the nickname if he did more stories about her.

Oh, neither Lowell nor I care about who thought this idea up first! I only cited the email exchange from 1998 to source Rosa's response to the idea. Lowell had thought this for a long time before 1998, and he didn't get the idea from online fan conversation since he never read any of that (outside of the letters pages in the comics). So at least two and possibly lots of people thought this up independently. I just think that's a stronger argument for its being a good idea!

[drakeborough]

Jan 11, 2017 23:33:35 GMT sirtao said:

Jan 9, 2017 16:43:26 GMT drakeborough said:

SCROOGE: ...and that's why your mother, Della Duck, sent you to live with your uncle Donald Duck!

Note: in the original Italian they use Della DUCK as name for HLD's mother, instead of Della Paperino(as Paperino it's technically Donald's SURNAME in Italy). Take it whatever you want, but know it's very uncommon for a woman to change her surname after marriage, in Italy

Well, the surnames of many Italian characters are a mess. The fact that Paolino is supposed to be the given name and Paperino the surname is kind of "lost in history": the full name is still mentioned sometimes, but most of the times he is just called Paperino by everyone. However, none of his relatives has the surname Paperino: some relatives have no known surname or a different surname, and the "rare" relatives in the family tree (Quackmore, Della etc. ) keep their original surname. Yes, it means that Donald has a different surname from his father and sister, even though it doesn't make sense. Plus, in the family tree, "the Duck family" is translated as "la famiglia Duck", while in the family photo from "Life and Times" part 10, "the Duck family" is translated as "la famiglia Paperi"; in Barks' "Race to the South Seas" the line "you Ducks" became "voi Paperini". See this link to the Italian family tree.

So no, the fact she is called Della Duck instead of Della Paperino does not imply at all she changed her surname.

Jan 12, 2017 1:36:08 GMT Matilda said:

Oh, neither Lowell nor I care about who thought this idea up first! I only cited the email exchange from 1998 to source Rosa's response to the idea. Lowell had thought this for a long time before 1998, and he didn't get the idea from online fan conversation since he never read any of that (outside of the letters pages in the comics). So at least two and possibly lots of people thought this up independently. I just think that's a stronger argument for its being a good idea!

Yes, the fact that lots of people thought this up independently supports the idea being a good one, in addition of proving that it is an obvious idea.

[Scroogerello]

Dumbella appeared again in today's issue of the Dutch DD weekly, in a new one-pager by Evert Geradts (this one: coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=H+2016-231 ). A young Gladstone Gander appears as well.

[drakeborough]

Great, thanks for the info. I see that Inducks has not yet an image for this 1-pager, but I am sure we will se it soon (even though I will not be able to translate from Dutch or even read that small text).

Of course even before seeing it I can say Hortense and Quackmore don't appear, since the author said they are not allowed by the editor. Likewise, since the author said few days ago that he may use Grandpa Duck if his editors allow him, I deduce he doesn't appear since these stories have been indexed between October and November.

I have a question for you, Scroogerello: does the dialogue in the first 1-pager explain if Donald lives with Grandma Duck in the continuity of this series, or could it be that he was just visiting her?

[Scroogerello]

Jan 12, 2017 17:27:26 GMT drakeborough said:

I have a question for you, Scroogerello: does the dialogue in the first 1-pager explain if Donald lives with Grandma Duck in the continuity of this series, or could it be that he was just visiting her?

It is not adressed whether Donald lives with Grandma in that one-pager, though, given that Geradts wasn't allowed to use DD's parents, I'd say DD does live with Grandma in this series (as he does in other tales about his youth).

[drakeborough]

Thanks for the answer. It's too bad that his parents are not allowed to appear: my hope is that editors will change their minds for future episodes, but I don't hold my breath for that. Well, at least I am glad that it is not explicitly said (so far) that he lives with Grandma, leaving open the possibility that he may be living with his parents (even if they don't appear) and was just visiting Grandma in that 1-pager.

Anyway, it seems Geradts is trying to rotate the cast in this series: Grandma appears in the first episode, Gyro in the second and Gladstone in the third. Donald is the only character who appears in all three episodes (obviously, since the series is about him), while Della appears in two of them.

[drakeborough]

Inducks released an image of the 1-pager:

I see Donald's sister is called by name here, unlike the previous 1-pager (of course she's called Dumbella, since that's Della's Dutch name). It may be asked why these stories are titled "Donald Duck" instead of "Donnie Duck". Could it have to do with the fact that the series will not be always set in the past, as the author said Donald will grow older? Time will tell, I guess.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jan 13, 2017 20:22:07 GMT drakeborough said:

Inducks released an image of the 1-pager:

I see Donald's sister is called by name here, unlike the previous 1-pager (of course she's called Dumbella, since that's Della's Dutch name). It may be asked why these stories are titled "Donald Duck" instead of "Donnie Duck". Could it have to do with the fact that the series will not be always set in the past, as the author said Donald will grow older? Time will tell, I guess.

Seeing these stories with Della, one can't help but feel bad about her absence from Donald and HD&L's life in the present-day, and her possible fate, whatever it was. I almost understand why editors/publishers are reluctant to remind readers about her. 

It would be nice to have IDW reprint these one-pagers soon, but foreign material almost never gets printed in the US that quickly.

EDIT: Just noticed, young Gladstone wearing spats? Really?

[drakeborough]

Jan 13, 2017 21:11:39 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Seeing these stories with Della, one can't help but feel bad about her absence from Donald and HD&L's life in the present-day, and her possible fate, whatever it was. I almost understand why editors/publishers are reluctant to remind readers about her. 

So true, you really feel Donald had a close bond with her.

Jan 13, 2017 21:11:39 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

It would be nice to have IDW reprint these one-pagers soon, but foreign material almost never gets printed in the US that quickly.

Yes, it would be nice to have them published in a language I can understand, thoguh as long as they are 1-pagers I can understand the basics of the scene by looking at the pictures. But reading the dialogues is always better, of course.

I wonder if the series will be only made by 1-pagers or if future stories will be longer. After all, back in 1998 Paperino Paperotto started with a series of 1-pagers before getting longer tales. A 1-pager can be fun, but a fully-fleshed story of many page is always better.