Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Mar 30, 2017 10:58:36 GMT drakeborough said:

Mar 9, 2017 9:30:20 GMT sirredknee said:

Lo and behold, there are other instances of Donald being a Junior Woodchuck. This should cover the complete HDLJW comic book series now:

coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW++++3-01
coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW++++3-03
coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW+++21-02
coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW+++26-01
coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW+++27-01

Another instance, which predates all the stories mentioned above, is the Italian story Paperino e l'alce bianco (1967), written by Rodolfo Cimino and drawn by Guiuseppe Perego:

HDL call Donald "commander" in the second panel.

There is a bloodhound named Dingo, but I don't know if he's a new character if he's meant to be Barks' Snoozie (who had several Italian names in the past): if it's the latter, then Inducks forgot to add him to the list of characters appearing in the story.

He kinda looks like Pluto, though. And Pluto has been known to appear in Snoozie's place in some JW stories. So my guess is that Cimino and Perego saw some stories where Pluto was the official hound, but either didn't notice it was Pluto, or decided to change that, but still remembered that the "classic JW hound" would have orange fur and black ears.

[drakeborough]

Mar 30, 2017 15:16:37 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

He kinda looks like Pluto, though. And Pluto has been known to appear in Snoozie's place in some JW stories. So my guess is that Cimino and Perego saw some stories where Pluto was the official hound, but either didn't notice it was Pluto, or decided to change that, but still remembered that the "classic JW hound" would have orange fur and black ears.

I also thought that he looks a bit like Pluto, but he is also different from the classic Pluto design. He is also different from the Snoozie design, it's true, but I think it's fair to say that in 1967 it was easier to get Snoozie's design off than to get Pluto's design off. Also, the first story with Pluto as the offical JW hound was published in 1971. Maybe Cimino meant him to be Snoozie, but Perego was unfamiliar with the character (wrters and artists often didn't cooperate while creating a story together) and came up with an original hound design. Maybe Perego was familiar with Snoozie, but didn't like his design and/or thought he couldn't draw him well in that design, so he changed it. I guess we will never know. Anyway, the orange fur is a choice of the colorist, not the artist (let alone the writer).

By the way, when Jippes redrew the Barks JW scripts, he used Snoozie (following the scripts) instead of Pluto (which was added by Western artists against Barks' scripts). There is one exception, however: in the two versions of "The Day the Mountain Shook", both Wright and Jippes used Pluto as the JW hound. Did Barks gave up after seeing that Snoozie wouldn't make it to the final story? Did the editors told him to stop using Snoozie in his scripts? Or did Barks actually use Snoozie, and for some reason Jippes didn't use him in his restored version? If the original scripts are still available somewhere, we could have answers to this and other questions.

[drakeborough]

Mar 30, 2017 10:58:36 GMT drakeborough said:

Mar 9, 2017 9:30:20 GMT sirredknee said:

Lo and behold, there are other instances of Donald being a Junior Woodchuck. This should cover the complete HDLJW comic book series now:

coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW++++3-01
coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW++++3-03
coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW+++21-02
coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW+++26-01
coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=W+JW+++27-01

Another instance, which predates all the stories mentioned above, is the Italian story Paperino e l'alce bianco (1967), written by Rodolfo Cimino and drawn by Guiuseppe Perego:

HDL call Donald "commander" in the second panel.

There is a bloodhound named Dingo, but I don't know if he's a new character if he's meant to be Barks' Snoozie (who had several Italian names in the past): if it's the latter, then Inducks forgot to add him to the list of characters appearing in the story.

About the last point: I see that there's at least another Italian story in which the JW hound is called Dingo. The story is Zio Paperone e la sabbiatura funesta (1965), written by Rodolfo Cimino, and drawn by Romano Scarpa. So, apparently Dingo was an old Italian name for Snoozie, even though the colorist made him violet here. And for some reason, Inducks does not list Snoozie as appearing in this story, even though there's a note saying he appears. Strange choice.

[drakeborough]

Mar 6, 2017 10:42:04 GMT drakeborough said:

Changing the subject: TV Tropes's description of the JW guidebook explains Rosa's lampshading of the fact that a small book cannot contain so much information, but then adds:

"However, other comic creators explained it by saying that there are actually numerous volumes that make up the complete Guide, just like any large encyclopedia. They always happen to have exactly the volumes of the Guide applicable to the topic at hand, though, and it is often handwaved."

Does anybody know which story say this? Wikipedia also made a similar claim, though I removed the following sentences in February 2016 because they were unsourced:

"(though many stories reveal that the Guidebook consists of a great number of volumes, the full collection being stored at the Junior Woodchucks' Headquarters. However the Woodchucks have an uncanny knack for always having the right volume with them for the task at hand)"

I found something that may answer my own question: the Donald Duck story Adventure At Gluey Woods (written by an unknown author and drawn by Tony Strobl), publihsed in Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #1 (October 1962).

Here is the first page of the story:

The image is too small to read the dialogue, but I found a bigger scan in Italian:

In the fourth panel a nephew mention "volume #4 of our library", and the volume is shown in the next page with the following title: "Volume 4 - System for improving the memory - A Junior Woodchuck remembers everything, always!"

If this "volume 4" is meant to be the fourth volume of the JW Guidebook, then there is at least one story to use this idea (which I don't like) that the Guidebook is made up of several volumes. Are there other stories which make the same claim? And does anyone know what the original version of this story say?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

May 2, 2017 15:49:02 GMT drakeborough said:

-

I found something that may answer my own question: the Donald Duck story Adventure At Gluey Woods (written by an unknown author and drawn by Tony Strobl), publihsed in Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #1 (October 1962).

Here is the first page of the story:

The image is too small to read the dialogue, but I found a bigger scan in Italian:

In the fourth panel a nephew mention "volume #4 of our library", and the volume is shown in the next page with the following title: "Volume 4 - System for improving the memory - A Junior Woodchuck remembers everything, always!"

If this "volume 4" is meant to be the fourth volume of the JW Guidebook, then there is at least one story to use this idea (which I don't like) that the Guidebook is made up of several volumes. Are there other stories which make the same claim? And does anyone know what the original version of this story say?

In the French version, I see it's refered to as "Volume 4 de notre Bibliothèque" (literally Volume 4 of our Library). Unless anyone knows whether French translations of American stories used to be based on the Italian versions (which I find unlikely, as the Journal de Mickey where this story was published practically never used Italian stories), then I think it's rather compelling evidence that "library" was used in the original English version too.

[drakeborough]

May 2, 2017 17:29:03 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Unless anyone knows whether French translations of American stories used to be based on the Italian versions (which I find unlikely, as the Journal de Mickey where this story was published practically never used Italian stories)

Well, there seem to be some precedents to French translators basing their versions of American stories on the Italian versions. This explains why, for example, Glittering Goldie was called Doretta Doremi (the same name she has in Italy) in an old French translation.

Anyway, if I use violence on my eyes and try to read the fourth panel of that too-small-to-read image it seems the text is "A Woodchuck would! See volume four of the Woodchuck library!".

[Zantaf]

Indeed it says "library", here's a high-res scan of the original

[drakeborough]

May 2, 2017 18:38:37 GMT Zantaf said:

Indeed it says "library", here's a high-res scan of the original

Thanks for the image, do you have a big archive of old American Disney comics? Anyway, I am going to repost your image:

Incidentally, those rectangular balloons were really ugly. Well, this was around the same times Barks was forced to use rectangular balloons in "Oddball Odyssey" and other stories. Fortunately, editors realized that they looked bad and returned to standard balloons.

Now we now that at least one story use the "many volumes" idea, and we only have to discover if this idea was also used in other stories.

And I see there's an old question for which an answer hasn't been found yet: where it is said that the guidebook does not contain obvious information, like the location of Cape of Good Hope?

[Zantaf]

I do have a pretty big archive and I'm always happy to help with duck-related research