Grandma Duck as Scrooge's sister: where does it come from ?

[RobbK1]

Mar 25, 2017 19:23:12 GMT drakeborough said:

Mar 25, 2017 19:15:00 GMT RobbK1 said:

No doubt that the young male duck in the story is meant to be young Scrooge, Grandma's brother, who was raised with her.

Even if he's meant to be Scrooge, and even if they grew up in the same place, this doesn't mean that they are meant to be brother and sister. See for example this old message of mine from this thread:

Feb 25, 2017 10:50:58 GMT drakeborough said:

Now I have the story, and after checking I can say that story does NOT portray Scrooge and Grandma as sibilings; quite the opposite, it implies they are not.

In fact, in part 2 Mickey asks Scrooge if he can see the diary of his first day of school, but Scrooge says that to save money he naver kept one. Grandma Duck says that it doesn't matter, as they attended the same class in their first year of primary school and so her diary can also be used to know what Scrooge did that day. This is what is written in Grandma's diary (my translation): "Our school was in a little rural center of the West, in which I lived together with the parents of young Scrooge McDuck..." By the way, the story also mentions Scrooge's father when young Scrooge says he was given 25 cents by his father (a big part of the flashback is about Scrooge looking for these 25 cents after losing them).

In part 3, Scrooge recalls an earlier line of Grandma Duck (spoken by her in part 2 at the start of the flashback) by thinking "Eh! Eh! I can't read but I can smell! That little girl was right! There's a bad smell here..."

Since this story doesn't portray them as sibilings, then the earliest known source to do so is still that 1960 combination of poetry+painting.

By the way, Robb, are there any news on your young Scrooge story, or your story set in the past with lookalikes of Grandma Duck, Gus and Grandpa Duck?

Well, then, if this story has a very young Scrooge and Grandma growing up with Scrooge's parents in The Western US, it won't meet the criteria of Barks' canon, and most of Uncle Scrooge's fans.  So, we can ignore it as a source of "usable information".

Both of my stories you mention above are on hold right now as I am working on stories whose short scenarios have been accepted in principle.  For both those "special stories", one each for Sanoma and Egmont, I will have to wait for more publishing space to be allocated.  Already a large portion of pages of 2017's scheduled books has had stories assigned to it.  It's possible they could both not be given the "go-ahead" until 2018. 

The Frisian Folk Tale story about Gus Goose and Grandma and Grandpa, may have to be in a special book, rather than The Dutch Weekly, or, at least, in a special themed weekly.  That means an information page or two about the folk tale must be planned, and then other Dutch cultural related stories planned.  At this point, I haven't yet gotten the concept accepted by the Editorship.  A few of the junior editors said it was a promising idea.  But, I need to get the senior editors to get behind it fully, and have the time to organise the special issue (whatever book in which it will be placed).  It could, potentially be a Weekly issue, devoted especially to West Friesland, OR, more likely, an issue devoted to Dutch cultural inheritance from The Middle Ages, or Dutch literature inheritance from The Middle Ages, or Dutch Folk Tales.  There are several different ways it could be done.  And each different theme would require different preparation, and determination of other stories and informational pages. 

Right now, I'm working on a couple 8-page stories with Jan Gulbransson for Egmont (1 starring Donald, and 1 Scrooge), as well as one 6-page Gyro Gearloose story.  And for Sanoma, I'm working on the final storyboarding of the 10-page audience participation story Donald Duck/Neighbour Jones story that I and a couple colleagues formulated, together with a fan audience providing ideas, at a story writing seminar, at a comic book shop in The Netherlands, over a year ago.  Originally, the story was drawn up as a 4-pager.  But, it has been expanded to 6, and finally, to 10 pages, to better fit the scope of the main plot.  I am also working on a couple of Broer Konijn (Bre'r Rabbit) stories for Sanoma.

[drakeborough]

Thanks for the update. I didn't realize that in some countries it may take so long for a story to be published.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Also notable: in "Good Old Days"'s flashback, Scrooge is wearing his big cap, as per "Getting that Healthy, Wealthy Feeling", and does not have his glasses; these two factors combined make him look eerily like Rosa's redesign of young Scrooge, which is ironic considering how badly that story fits with Rosa's continuity.

[Matilda]

Well, I actually like the idea of young Elvira/Dora/Grandma Duck playing the fiddle for country dances. I do find the character design amusing, though---not only young Scrooge's sideburns, but young Elvira's triple-decker bun! And yes, the big cap is Rosa-esque.

[drakeborough]

Mar 25, 2017 22:11:48 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Also notable: in "Good Old Days"'s flashback, Scrooge is wearing his big cap, as per "Getting that Healthy, Wealthy Feeling", and does not have his glasses; these two factors combined make him look eerily like Rosa's redesign of young Scrooge, which is ironic considering how badly that story fits with Rosa's continuity.

Indeed, the sweater, cap and sideburns of young Scrooge in the pictures I posted yesterday are similar to that from "Getting that Healthy, Wealthy Feeling" (the difference being that in "Getting" young Scrooge has his glasses):

I wonder if his design in "Good Old Days" being similar to "Getting" was planned or if it's a coincidence.

And as we know, Rosa took inspiration from this story for young Scrooge's clothes and his method of earning the Dime, even though Rosa removed the sideburns and glasses, and separed his eyes from the beak.

Mar 26, 2017 1:00:21 GMT Matilda said:

Well, I actually like the idea of young Elvira/Dora/Grandma Duck playing the fiddle for country dances. I do find the character design amusing, though---not only young Scrooge's sideburns, but young Elvira's triple-decker bun! And yes, the big cap is Rosa-esque.

I have nothing against young Elvira playing the fiddle for country dances, though of course I can't have young Scrooge with her in my headcanon. That is, assuming it is him... I find it weird that he doesn't talk nor is identified by name. Maybe he was absent from the script and the artist decided to add it? And kid Elvira's hair being identical of old Elvira's hair is defintely strange: was the artist so worried readers wouldn't recognise her that he decided to gave her an old woman's hairstyle?

Speaking of character designs, young Scrooge from this 1969 Italian story is not much different from Rosa's version. Evn the plot itself, with Magica travelling back in time to get the dime and Scrooge earning it by shining shoes, is basically an ante litteram version of "Of Ducks and Dimes and Destinies". The explanation for why he earned an American coin is different, though.

[drakeborough]

Here is a curious thing I noticed about Scrooge and Grandma Duck being brother and sister in old Italian stories.

In the 1973 story Il segreto del totem decapitato (written by Guido Martina and drawn by various authors) there is a flashback sequence from "25 years ago" showing the first meeting between Scrooge and Grandma Duck. The meeting starts with Scrooge showing up at her farm (in a city called Gold-Town) and saying "Hi, sister!"; she says "H-hi! Uhmm... am I wrong, or did you actually said sister?", and he replies "Yes, sister! Eh! Eh! We never knew each other, it's true! But I know that a sister of mine lives here! And that is you: I have an excellent information service!"

So, what is the curious thing I mentioned above?, Well, the words "fratello" ("brother") and "sorella" ("sister") are written in a lettering that is clearly different from the other words, and this happens every time these two words are used. So, it seems that, after the story was written, drawn and lettered, the editors removed some words from the original text and replaced them with "fratello" and "sorella", supposedly for consistency with previous works that used the idea that U$ and GD are sibilings*. I guess we will never know for sure what the original text said, however Grandma's line "Avevo sentito dire che in famiglia c'è un famoso taccagno! Ed ora eccolo qui!" ("I had heard that in the family there's a famous penny-pinching person! And here he is now!") has a normal lettering, so that line (and the idea of the two of them being relatives) was already present in the original text: maybe the original text said they were cousins? Another word with altered lettering is "incontrato" ("met") in Grandma's line "Sì! Ed è proprio laggiù che ho incontrato Paperon de' Paperoni!" ("Yes! And it's actually down there that I met Scrooge McDuck"), though in this case I don't have a guess as to what the original word could have been.

*According to what we have said so far in this thread, the earliest known source to portray them as sibilings is this 1960 poetry. I don't have a great knowledge of Italian duck comics from 1960 to 1973, so I can't say how much the idea was popular at the time. All I know is that the idea appeared in at least two stories of that period: this Italian story from 1964 and this S-coded story from 1969, published in Italy in the same year. About the latter, I already said in a previous message that I don't know if the sibiling reference was already there in the original version or if it was added by the Italian translator.

[phantomduck]

Really nice information from all of you. Now, as for this.

Apr 1, 2017 21:57:56 GMT drakeborough said:

[...]  *According to what we have said so far in this thread, the earliest known source to portray them as sibilings is this 1960 poetry. [...]

If this is the case, it doesn't surprise me. From this set of 6 pictures (which were given to subscribers if I'm not mistaken), we have also the first case of Italians giving their version of Mouseton an actual name. "A Topolinia gran turbamento", which was then used as an official name on the Romano Scarpa story. Totally unrelated and off-topic, but it surprised me nonetheless. I thought that the only "important" picture for this set was the one about Topolinia, but it seems that we have another one with historic value.

[drakeborough]

Apr 1, 2017 23:19:16 GMT phantomduck said:

From this set of 6 pictures (which were given to subscribers if I'm not mistaken), we have also the first case of Italians giving their version of Mouseton an actual name. "A Topolinia gran turbamento", which was then used as an official name on the Romano Scarpa story. Totally unrelated and off-topic, but it surprised me nonetheless. I thought that the only "important" picture for this set was the one about Topolinia, but it seems that we have another one with historic value.

Before we close the off-topic: the picture you linked ("A Topolinia gran turbamento", 1960) is NOT the first instance of Italians using the name Topolinia to identify Mickey's hometown. The name Topolinia was first used in the (badly written and badly drawn) 1952 story Topolino nella valle dell'incanto (text by Guido Martina, art by Rino Anzi), in a caption box on page 5:

Despite its poor quality, the story is notable for the first Italian appearances of Scrooge McDuck and Chief O'Hara (to Scrooge, it's also the first non-American appearance), for the first mention of Topolinia, and for a mention of the Maharajah of Howduyustan being broke because of Scrooge.

I don't know which is the second use of Topolinia and when it was published; all I know is that in the 1955 story Topolino e la doppia vigilia di Natale (text by Guido Martina, art by Luciano Bottaro) the name was changed to Topolinopoli...

... and the name Topolinopoli was used again in (at least) one other story: Topolino e il sentiero degli elefanti from 1959 (text by Guido Martina, art by Giuseppe Perego):

Of course, the name became Topolinia again in later stories. I don't know when, but browsing thorugh Inducks scans of the first pages of each story I see that in 1960 (the same year of the picture you linked) the name Topolinia was used in at least three stories: Topolino e la droga diabolica (text by Gian Giacomo Dalmasso, art by Giulio Chierchini)...

... Topolino e la rivolta delle ombre (text by Ennio Missaglia, art by Giovan Battista Carpi)...

... and Prologo ai Gialli di Topolino (text by Gian Giacomo Dalmasso, art by Giuseppe Perego):

Since the exact release date of the 6 pictures given to subscribers is unknown, I can't say if these pictures came before, after or inbetween these three stories. Anyway, Inducks scans of the first pages of the stories show that the name Topolinia was used again in 1961 stories, including the Scarpa story you linked.

That said, the idea of Donald and Mickey living in separate cities wasn't set in stone in Italian stories of the 1950's: for example, two of the stories mentioned above ("Topolino nella valle dell'incanto" and "Topolino e la doppia vigilia di Natale") use Topolinia/Topolinopoli not only as Mickey's hometown, but also as Donald's. Conersely, other Italian stories from the same period had Mickey live in Paperopoli (Duckburg), a name that was even used in the translation of at least one Gottfredson story. Some other story of the time had Donald and Mickey live together in an unnamed city.

[phantomduck]

Valuable pieces of historical information right there, thanks! Unfortunately I don't speak Italian so I couldn't have searched on all those stories (especially since they haven't been published in my country), so I based my research on translated articles that assumed that picture was the first appearance of the Italian name of the city.

I think the story Topolino nella valle dell'incanto has great historic value and it's a shame that we haven't seen it outside of Italy. I know it may not stand up very well today, but it would be worth it for archival purposes. What I didn't know, was that appeared the name "Topolinia" in there as well, something that makes it even more valuable, in my eyes at least

[sirredknee]

Apr 1, 2017 21:57:56 GMT drakeborough said:

[...] According to what we have said so far in this thread, the earliest known source to portray them as sibilings is this 1960 poetry. [...]

I don't know if it's been mentioned here, but, according to a reliable Disney comic researcher, in Germany the sibling thing started with the German translation of "Scrooge's Second Childhood", published in Micky Maus in 1958.

[drakeborough]

Apr 2, 2017 11:08:14 GMT phantomduck said:

Valuable pieces of historical information right there, thanks!

You are welcome.

Apr 2, 2017 11:08:14 GMT phantomduck said:

Unfortunately I don't speak Italian so I couldn't have searched on all those stories (especially since they haven't been published in my country)

Well, most of my previous message is based on Inducks scans: this is how I noticed that at least three 1960 stories mention Topolinia even though I don't have any 1960 story. Of course, Inducks does not have scans of whole stories, since that would be a copyright violation, but most of the time there is a scan of the first page of the story, and these first pages can be used for a research: for example, I researched in which pages there was the name Topolinia or Topolinopoli. Needless to say, using only the first pages is a method that gives us approximate results: for example, I may have missed many early mentions of Topolinia or Topolinopoli that were in a story but not in the first page.

That said, for my previous message I didn't just use Inducks scans, but also other sources: for example, Inducks does not say that Topolinia is mentioned in "Topolino nella valle dell'incanto".

Apr 2, 2017 11:08:14 GMT phantomduck said:

so I based my research on translated articles that assumed that picture was the first appearance of the Italian name of the city.

Do you remember which articles said that?

Apr 2, 2017 11:08:14 GMT phantomduck said:

I think the story Topolino nella valle dell'incanto has great historic value and it's a shame that we haven't seen it outside of Italy. I know it may not stand up very well today, but it would be worth it for archival purposes. What I didn't know, was that appeared the name "Topolinia" in there as well, something that makes it even more valuable, in my eyes at least

To say it would not stand up very well today is an understatement. There's a good reason why the story has only been reprinted once in Italy (in 2011), while the only foreign version is a Turkish edition from 1954. That good reason, by the way, was stated quite clearly in an article published in the same 2011 issue that reprinted it.

I agree with you, however, that the story has great historical value.

Apr 2, 2017 13:52:30 GMT sirredknee said:

Apr 1, 2017 21:57:56 GMT drakeborough said:

[...] According to what we have said so far in this thread, the earliest known source to portray them as sibilings is this 1960 poetry. [...]

I don't know if it's been mentioned here, but, according to a reliable Disney comic researcher, in Germany the sibling thing started with the German translation of "Scrooge's Second Childhood", published in Micky Maus in 1958.

So, it didn't start with Italian stories but with a 1958 German translation of a 1956 American story? If true, this would be a surprising thing for me, though it would close the circle with the first post of this thread, which started with "You probably already know that in German translations of Disney comics and a in a small number of Italian stories (but a small number that includes the illustrious From Egg to Duck), Grandma Duck is depicted as being Scrooge McDuck and Gideon McDuck's sister". Though it would be amazing indeed that Italian authors independently came up with the same idea without knowing what Germans had done before.

I would like to see a picture of that, but I guess you don't have it or you would have posted it. Who is this reliable Disney comic researcher? An earlier message in this thread linked a German forum, which conatains this post (written in 2004) saying "Das Geschwisterverhältnis Dagobert/Dorette ist keineswegs eine italienische Erfindung! In Deutschland wurde es in der Geschichte "Onkel Dagoberts zweite Kindheit" (MM 46-47/58) initiiert!". With a little help from a trnaslator, I think it means "Scrooge and Elvira being of the same generation is not an Italian invention! In Germany this idea started in "Scrooge's Second Childhood" (Micky Maus #46-47, 1958)!". If the reliable researcher is the author of this message then he/she was not saying the German translation of that story portrays them as sibilings, he/she was saying that the story portrays them as being about the same generation, which is a different thing.

I don't have "Scrooge's Second Childhood" in any language, buy I saw a review of it on GeoX's website, so I have a general idea of the plot. Scrooge and Grandma do interact in the story, so there are many panels where a translator could have added a "brother" and/or a "sister", and if they did it, it's possible that the reason is the panel in which Grandma apparently describes an episode of Scrooge's childhood (Scrooge chasing butterflies when he was a youngster). On the other hand, it's possible that no "brother"/"sister" was added to the German translation and the user of the German forum simply deduced they were about the same generation from the fact that Grandma recalled a fact from when Scrooge was a youngster:

[Scroogerello]

Apr 2, 2017 15:27:23 GMT drakeborough said:

Who is this reliable Disney comic researcher? An earlier message in this thread linked a German forum, which conatains this post (written in 2004) saying "Das Geschwisterverhältnis Dagobert/Dorette ist keineswegs eine italienische Erfindung! In Deutschland wurde es in der Geschichte "Onkel Dagoberts zweite Kindheit" (MM 46-47/58) initiiert!". With a little help from a trnaslator, I think it means "Scrooge and Elvira being of the same generation is not an Italian invention! In Germany this idea started in "Scrooge's Second Childhood" (Micky Maus #46-47, 1958)!". If the reliable researcher is the author of this message then he/she was not saying the German translation of that story portrays them as sibilings, he/she was saying that the story portrays them as being about the same generation, which is a different thing.

Actually, "Geschwisterverhältnis" means "sibling relationship", so the user of that forum did mean that the German translation portrays them as siblings. I wonder if this was also the case in the Dutch translation.

Also, I figured this would be an interesting addition to the topic: an Illustration from a 1990s issue of the Dutch Donald Duck weekly, showing Grandma, Scrooge and their parents:

The accompanying text also says that Grandma moved from Scotland to the USA.
coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=HC+DD1994-10P

[drakeborough]

Apr 2, 2017 19:45:48 GMT Scroogerello said:

Apr 2, 2017 15:27:23 GMT drakeborough said:

Who is this reliable Disney comic researcher? An earlier message in this thread linked a German forum, which conatains this post (written in 2004) saying "Das Geschwisterverhältnis Dagobert/Dorette ist keineswegs eine italienische Erfindung! In Deutschland wurde es in der Geschichte "Onkel Dagoberts zweite Kindheit" (MM 46-47/58) initiiert!". With a little help from a trnaslator, I think it means "Scrooge and Elvira being of the same generation is not an Italian invention! In Germany this idea started in "Scrooge's Second Childhood" (Micky Maus #46-47, 1958)!". If the reliable researcher is the author of this message then he/she was not saying the German translation of that story portrays them as sibilings, he/she was saying that the story portrays them as being about the same generation, which is a different thing.

Actually, "Geschwisterverhältnis" means "sibling relationship", so the user of that forum did mean that the German translation portrays them as siblings. I wonder if this was also the case in the Dutch translation.

 I never studied German, so thanks for correcting me. Indeed, if I use the German to English translator I get "sibiling relationship". For my previous message I had used the German to Italian translator, and got "relazione di pari livello", which is a bit ambiguous.

Still, I would like to see a picture of the relevant panels translated in German to see if U$ and GD are really said to be sibilings. It's not that I don't trust the person who wrote that post in 2004, it's just that we already had a false positive in this thread regarding an old DCML message that seemed a reliable source about a 1955 Italian story. Plus, a picture of these panels would be interesting from an historical point of view.

Apr 2, 2017 19:45:48 GMT Scroogerello said:

Also, I figured this would be an interesting addition to the topic: an Illustration from a 1990s issue of the Dutch Donald Duck weekly, showing Grandma, Scrooge and their parents:

The accompanying text also says that Grandma moved from Scotland to the USA.
coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=HC+DD1994-10P

This picture is so small it took me a while to see Scrooge being held by his mother. By the way, the image is so... creepy. It is disturbing enough to see stories in which U$ and GD refer to each other as brother and sister, but to see them as kids in a situation where her parents and his parents coincide is really too much.

To my knowledge, Italian authors never used the sibiling idea after this 1999 story, and I hope Dutch and German authors will also drop it someday.

[Scroogerello]

Similarly to the illustration I posted above, this story: coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+PM++187-2 shows flashbacks of young Grandma, Scrooge and Gideon together in Scotland. It seems like a very interesting story, but it seems like it won't be reprinted anytime soon... Here's a scan I could find on an Italian wiki:

(look at the little Loch Ness monster in the background )

[Matilda]

Woah! Child-Elvira with Princess Leia hair-buns!! I guess the artist thought the character would have to have a bun of some kind, though he didn't give her the old-lady triple-decker bun.

Love that little Nessie!