Ludwig Von Drake

[drakeborough]

Jul 28, 2017 19:29:05 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Is this the only time he commented on the matter? I seem to recall an earlier statement from him that suggested more clearly that he was searching for a way to add Ludwig in and chose to "arrange" a marriage with Matilda because that was the easiest way to do it. Does anyone have access to the text that Gladstone published in WDC&S#600, where the Duck family tree was first published in the US? That may be what I'm remembering.

There is also this DCML quote from 1993:

And what other changes did I make in Barks old Family Tree? The only other one I can think of is that I eleiminated the business of Gladstone's parents dying from overeating at a free picnic, so he was never adopted by $crooge's sister Matilda. I saw no purpose behind such a "plot twist" which would have been very hard to get included in a comic book. Unfortunately, this left Matilda an "old maid"; I wanted to have her married to Ludwig Von Drake; I like Ludwig and that would be the ONLY way he could actually be a relative of Donald. But I was vetoed by everyone from Bob Foster to Carl Barks on that one... so poor Matilda is still an old maid. (Actually, she'd be DEAD by now, anyhow. $crooge is the last McDuck alive.)

Of course, Rosa later changed his mind about Matilda being dead. In this DCML message (also from 1993), he discussed the changes the editor made to his article in WDC #600, the one that was just uploaded by Zantaf in this thread:

You seem to have gotten a wrong idea due to the way they editted a few lines out of my text piece that accompanied my Duck Family Tree in WDC&S #600. I had written that the only way Ludwig Von Drake could be Donald's uncle is if he were married to Matilda... but I went on to say that various editors and such asked me not to include Ludwig for reasons I don't recall. So I left him out. But in my own private notes, I have Ludwig married to Matilda McDuck. The same way that, in my private notes, Fethry Duck does NOT exist.

This is from Matilda's entry in Gilles Maurice's explanatory table of Rosa's family tree (at the moment I can't find the origin of the quote in italics):

"Don Rosa first wanted her to be married to Ludwig von Drake for several reasons : he grew up with Ludwig on TV and liked the character, Barks didn't create the character but used him once in "Flowers Are Flowers" (1961), she is the only way Ludwig Von Drake could actually be a relative of Donald, and it would be a "perfectly logical idea having the two European members of the Duck family being married and living far away". But neither Barks, who had a low regard for the character, nor the publisher, who considers Ludwig as "officially dead", agreed. So what happened here is kind of the opposite of what happened with Fethry."

The following quote is from a Papersera message dated 2010:

"ML-IHJCM:

>>>>>I am puzzled. Are you implying that Matilda is a barksian character? When did he use it? I thought it was your own creation.

Gosh, no! I did not create ANY characters in that Duck Family Tree *except* those required to link already existing characters, created by Barks and others, together. I think that involved only creating husbands for wives or vice-versa. My purpose was never to create new characters in Barks' universe... only to solidify the Universe he had already created.

Matilda McDuck, $crooge's sister, was created by Barks in a Family Tree he constructed for his own private reference in the early 1950's. Her original purpose was to explain Gladstone Gander's position in the Duck family -- Matilda and husband Gustave Gander (another Barks creation) were Gladstone's adoptive parents. But that involved the death of Gladstone's actual parents in a sort of black humor scenario. (Apparently they were deadbeat bums and "died of overeating at a free-lunch picnic".) It was a morbid joke that was never intended to be seen by readers and also the adoption idea was needlessly complicated.

When I was asked by Egmont in 1991 to create a Duck Family Tree, I contacted Mr. Barks for his assistance and to be sure he was in agreement with what I did with his characters. He sent me some new versions of a Tree and he & I developed a different and less morbid way for Gladstone to be in the family, by moving Barks' Gustave Gander over to Donald's side of the Tree. This left Barks' Matilda character without a husband or adopted child, so I decided (as previously discussed) she would now serve the obvious function of being Ludwig Von Drake's only possible link to the family. Egmont, however, nixed that idea, which left Matilda a bit lonely. But she still existed in Barks' old notes, so I still inserted her into the Tree."

There are other similar quotes here and there, but I think it would be pointless to report all of them.

Jul 28, 2017 19:29:05 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

While I don't think the supposed marriage between Matilda and Ludwig is an important matter, I am curious of something: does you theory that the animated and comic book version of Disney characters are basically different also apply to Ludwig?

Yes, it should, and I know what you're going to say: why then should anything stated about Cartoon-Ludwig (such as his being Donald's father's brother or being a bachelor) apply to Comics-Ludwig? And you'd have a point. So I guess it comes down to personal preferences. To me, Ludwig somehow fits better as being related to Donald on his father's side and both he and Matilda seem to be suited to being unmarried for life, but I understand that others feel differently (and this late in the game, even a published story by showing them married, like the story showing Della alive and lost in space, would represent just "one version" of events).

I understand your point of view.

Jul 28, 2017 19:29:05 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

The point I was trying to make was that if Rosa was trying to suggest that having Ludwig be married to Matilda was the only way he could be an uncle of Donald's, then I disagree.

Well, it's the only way if youdon't make up new character and interpret "uncle" in a close sense, meaning either direct uncle ("mother's brother" or "father's brother") or uncle by marriage ("mother's sister's husband" or "father's sister's husband").

Of course, it's not the only way if you make up a new aunt for Donald (either maternal or paternal), if you interpret "uncle" in a looser sense, or if you imagine some contrived stories of people not getting their fathers' names and/or people divorcing, remarring, and having children from each marriage.

Jul 28, 2017 20:07:03 GMT Zantaf said:

Jul 28, 2017 19:29:05 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Here's the text from WDC&S#600:

As I said above, the text has been shortened by the editor. Here is the extended version, though it contains some bloopers (like "Of Ducks and Dimes and Destinies" mentioned as Downy's debut, or "Bear Mountain" said to be from 1948), which I am not sure if were corrected for the printed version. 

Jul 29, 2017 8:36:20 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Wait, really? It was Barks who said that Gladstone was adopted by Matilda, whereas Rosa did not like it? That is interesting. So, in this affair Barks is the wise one, in that he recognized the need to explain that peculiar behavior of Scrooge. I was crediting Rosa with even more common sense than what he deserved on this problem.

But then why Scrooge treats Gladstone like a nephew, according to Rosa? 

Jul 29, 2017 9:41:13 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Yeah, I know, that's one of my favorite Barks's stories (read only recently from the Fantagraphic book). And the panel where Gladstone explains his relation to Scrooge was a joke. He declared a convoluted connection with Scrooge because that was funny to read. That panel in that story is the reason why people should not take too seriously the tree family stuff.

Far from being a joke, that panel comes right after the one in which Donald said Scrooge was his uncle on his mother's side (which was already obvious, since Donald and Scrooge have different surnames). Why did Barks have Gladstone say "Scrooge McDuck is my mother's brother's brother-in-law"? Simple, it's because that was one of the only two ways Gladstone could be related to Scrooge while being Donald's cousin and not having the surname Duck or McDuck. Barks obviously took the time to think up of a relation that makes sense and is coherent rather than making up a nonsense funny expression.

Then, in "The Trail of the Unicorn"(1950), Barks hints again at Gladstone not being actually related to Scrooge, as the former says "My noisy cousin, Donald Duck, going toward his uncle Scrooge's place!"

Finally, in "Some Heir Over the Rainbow" (1953), Barks says for a third time that Gladstone is not related to Scrooge. In fact, Scrooge says "My only relatives are my nephew, Donald, and his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, and my distant nephew, Gladstone Gander!"

Barks' first family tree, made sometimes in the 1950's, is coherent with this, as it shows Gladstone is not an actual relative of Scrooge, and in the tree Scrooge is his mother's brother's brother-in-law, just like in "Race to the South Seas". However, and this is clearly the (private) joke, Barks also added a twist where Gladstone's parents had died from overeating at a free picnic so that Gladstone was adopted by Scrooge's sister Matilda and her husband.

In Barks' second tree (1991), which he made without remembering the first, Scrooge is once again Gladstone's mother's brother's brother-in-law, and Barks specified he used "Race to the South Sea" as a source for that bit. However, the needless and morbid idea of dying by overeating was not there this time. Then, after seeing his first tree, Barks created a third one that combined the first and the second, with the adoption bit being absent as it was pointless. Rosa started from here, and he didn't include the adoption bit in his tree or in his stories.

This should sum up everything about the history of the adoption idea, but if you feel something is incomplete or unclear feel free to ask.

[drakeborough]

Jul 29, 2017 14:01:42 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Jul 29, 2017 10:16:23 GMT RobbK1 said:

I defer to Barks' DETAILED description of Gladstone's relationship to Scrooge, spoken by Gladstone, himself, while bragging (and "proven" by Gladstone's lawyer having used that relationship to file a legal claim), rather than some unpublished "family tree" Barks hastily drew up for his own reference, which he never consulted while writing stories, and which has several contradictions from Barks' later printed stories.

You raise an interesting point re: "Some Heir Over the Rainbow". Scrooge clearly mentions Donald, HD&L and Gladstone as his only relatives. This seems to be definitive proof that Hortense, Matilda, Quackmore and Della are deceased. I'm surprised this isn't cited more often.

That's not the only example: for example, in "Voodoo Hoodoo" Donald is referred to as Scrooge's "nearest living relative", and I think other stories, both from Barks and from Italian authors, raised the same point. It may seem this is not cited often, but I see that it's reported in Wikipedia and other Wikia when describing the possible fate of Della.

Anyway, Scrooge lost contact with his sister for almost 25 years and then he was surprised to find Matilda at Castle McDuck, not knowing her whereabouts and possibly not even knowing if she was still alive or not, so it makes sense that Scrooge wouldn't include his sisters in the list when he's thinking about his possible heirs. And if Della disappeared under mysteryous circumstances, or went into some trouble that put her outside of the family, then it's possible Scrooge wouldn't think about her too, so I'd say the proof is not really definitive.

[RobbK1]

Interesting that Carl told Don Rosa the same joke he told me at one of my visits to his home during the 1960s. When I asked Carl whether he imagined Gladstone's whole nuclear family as super lucky, and asked him why he had never used any of them in any of his stories, he said that: "a whole family full of super-lucky people would be boring!"; and he told me (while chuckling) that he imagined that Gladstone was an orphan, and that "his parents died of overeating at a free banquet!" He, of course, didn't mention anything about Gladstone being adopted by anyone. I assume he assumed that Gladstone was already an adult when his parents died.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jul 29, 2017 15:09:48 GMT drakeborough said:

You seem to have gotten a wrong idea due to the way they editted a
few lines out of my text piece that accompanied my Duck Family Tree in WDC&S
#600. I had written that the only way Ludwig Von Drake could be Donald's
uncle is if he were married to Matilda... but I went on to say that various
editors and such asked me not to include Ludwig for reasons I don't recall.
So I left him out. But in my own private notes, I have Ludwig married to
Matilda McDuck. The same way that, in my private notes, Fethry Duck does NOT
exist. (1)

This is from Matilda's entry in Gilles Maurice's explanatory table of Rosa's family tree (at the moment I can't find the origin of the quote in italics):

"Don Rosa first wanted her to be married to Ludwig von Drake for several reasons : he grew up with Ludwig on TV and liked the character, Barks didn't create the character but used him once in "Flowers Are Flowers" (1961), she is the only way Ludwig Von Drake could actually be a relative of Donald, and it would be a "perfectly logical idea having the two European members of the Duck family being married and living far away". But neither Barks, who had a low regard for the character, nor the publisher, who considers Ludwig as "officially dead", agreed (2). So what happened here is kind of the opposite of what happened with Fethry."

(1) Hmm. But then what of his own creation Lulubelle Loon? Does she "exist" in his personal headcanon? I mean, a wife of Eider and father of Whitewater has got to exist, but is she Lulubelle Loon? Because clearly the only reason he drew and named her this way was to propose a humorous "genetic origin" for Fethry's wackiness, down to the wild hairs.

(2) Aside from the "both are living far away" argument, the interesting new factoid here is that according to Maurice, it would appear Barks himself was consulted on the subject of Ludwig's inclusion and appeared to dislike him. Any sources on that?

[RobbK1]

Jul 29, 2017 15:30:55 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Jul 29, 2017 15:09:48 GMT drakeborough said:

You seem to have gotten a wrong idea due to the way they editted a
few lines out of my text piece that accompanied my Duck Family Tree in WDC&S
#600. I had written that the only way Ludwig Von Drake could be Donald's
uncle is if he were married to Matilda... but I went on to say that various
editors and such asked me not to include Ludwig for reasons I don't recall.
So I left him out. But in my own private notes, I have Ludwig married to
Matilda McDuck. The same way that, in my private notes, Fethry Duck does NOT
exist. (1)

This is from Matilda's entry in Gilles Maurice's explanatory table of Rosa's family tree (at the moment I can't find the origin of the quote in italics):

"Don Rosa first wanted her to be married to Ludwig von Drake for several reasons : he grew up with Ludwig on TV and liked the character, Barks didn't create the character but used him once in "Flowers Are Flowers" (1961), she is the only way Ludwig Von Drake could actually be a relative of Donald, and it would be a "perfectly logical idea having the two European members of the Duck family being married and living far away". But neither Barks, who had a low regard for the character, nor the publisher, who considers Ludwig as "officially dead", agreed (2). So what happened here is kind of the opposite of what happened with Fethry."

(1) Hmm. But then what of his own creation Lulubelle Loon? Does she "exist" in his personal headcanon? I mean, a wife of Eider and father of Whitewater has got to exist, but is she Lulubelle Loon? Because clearly the only reason he drew and named her this way was to propose a humorous "genetic origin" for Fethry's wackiness, down to the wild hairs.

(2) Aside from the "both are living far away" argument, the interesting new factoid here is that according to Maurice, it would appear Barks himself was consulted on the subject of Ludwig's inclusion and appeared to dislike him. Any sources on that?

When I asked Carl why he didn't use Ludwig Von Drake in any of his stories, he said to me: "I didn't use him because he wasn't very interesting."  He didn't say to me anything about Western editors telling him to use Ludwig, or not to use him.

[drakeborough]

Jul 29, 2017 15:30:55 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

(1) Hmm. But then what of his own creation Lulubelle Loon? Does she "exist" in his personal headcanon? I mean, a wife of Eider and father of Whitewater has got to exist, but is she Lulubelle Loon? Because clearly the only reason he drew and named her this way was to propose a humorous "genetic origin" for Fethry's wackiness, down to the wild hairs.

Why shouldn't he exist in his headcanon? As you said, somene had to be a wife for Eider and a mother (you wrote "father", but you obviously meant "mother") for Abner "Whitewater". I wouldn't put too much thought on her design: since Fethry had to be there, it looks good to have her mirror his design just like Eider mirrors Abner's design. But even if Fethry is removed, her design doesn't necessarily looks off. Plus, it seems Rosa based her design on Worden's Daphne.

Jul 29, 2017 15:30:55 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

(2) Aside from the "both are living far away" argument, the interesting new factoid here is that according to Maurice, it would appear Barks himself was consulted on the subject of Ludwig's inclusion and appeared to dislike him. Any sources on that?

I can't find it now, but I remember an old DCML message in which Rosa reported Barks writing to him, among other things, that he disliked Ludwig.

[drakeborough]

Jul 29, 2017 15:47:47 GMT RobbK1 said:

When I asked Carl why he didn't use Ludwig Von Drake in any of his stories, he said to me: "I didn't use him because he wasn't very interesting."  He didn't say to me anything about Western editors telling him to use Ludwig, or not to use him.

Even though Barks wasn't told by Western to use Ludwig in the stories he wrote, we know that he was asked to draw a one-pager he didn't write that included the character.

[RobbK1]

Jul 29, 2017 16:00:27 GMT drakeborough said:

Jul 29, 2017 15:47:47 GMT RobbK1 said:

When I asked Carl why he didn't use Ludwig Von Drake in any of his stories, he said to me: "I didn't use him because he wasn't very interesting."  He didn't say to me anything about Western editors telling him to use Ludwig, or not to use him.

Even though Barks wasn't told by Western to use Ludwig in the stories he wrote, we know that he was asked to draw a one-pager he didn't write that included the character.

Yes, I've always known about that one.  I bought that Uncle Scrooge comic book in the early 1960s (1962 or 1963?) when it was originally on the magazine stands.  But Carl didn't refer to it, probably because my question only asked why he didn't use him in stories.

[drakeborough]

Jul 29, 2017 16:03:40 GMT RobbK1 said:

Jul 29, 2017 16:00:27 GMT drakeborough said:

Even though Barks wasn't told by Western to use Ludwig in the stories he wrote, we know that he was asked to draw a one-pager he didn't write that included the character.

Yes, I've always known about that one.  I bought that Uncle Scrooge comic book in the early 1960s (1962 or 1963?)

The actual date is December 1964, and the issue was Uncle Scrooge #54. Here is the Inducks link to the one-pager, which I am also posting below:

By the way, I just noticed that Barks submitted this one-pager on November 1, 1961, just 38 days after the character's debut, which was on September 24 for both animation and newspaper comics (though in the latter he is only mentioned and shown on a photo on that Sunday page, while he first appears in person on the daily stip of the following day, September 25). That's strange: why did the one-pager remain unpublished for more than 3 years?

[rasterax]

It might have been originally planned for an earlier issue but then held back for an ad. Barks submitted it together with several other one- and half-pagers that day, one of which showed up in WDC 262 but was probably meant for an Uncle Scrooge issue too. The editors sometimes shuffled stuff around (there's a one-pager which ended up being never published by Western after it was dropped from the planned issue for an ad).

Interestingly, Barks was paid for both art and story for the gag according to his records. Maybe he came up with the punchline but was told to insert Ludwig somewhere.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Ludwig's appearance in this gag is gratuitous ... it could have been any character playing his role, like Donald, Daisy or Gladstone, with the "And they call me eccentric" line suitably modified. This was clearly an editorial diktat. Is it true Barks did not write this gag?

[drakeborough]

Jul 29, 2017 17:43:22 GMT rasterax said:

It might have been originally planned for an earlier issue but then held back for an ad. Barks submitted it together with several other one- and half-pagers that day, one of which showed up in WDC 262 but was probably meant for an Uncle Scrooge issue too. The editors sometimes shuffled stuff around (there's a one-pager which ended up being never published by Western after it was dropped from the planned issue for an ad).

I guess so, though I don't see the point of paying people for creating stories so that you can publish them, and they wait more than 3 years to do so. I can understand that it was sometimes hard to find space for a story, given that American Disney comics usually have a limited amount of pages, but a one-pager should not have these kind of problems: if I can't be published in an issue because of an ad, it can still be published in the next one, or the one after that.

Not that it's a big deal, but the thing is even stranger if we assume that any comic appearance of Ludwig at the time was basically meant to promote the shows he appeared in (and, in a way, vice versa).

Jul 29, 2017 17:43:22 GMT rasterax said:

Interestingly, Barks was paid for both art and story for the gag according to his records. Maybe he came up with the punchline but was told to insert Ludwig somewhere.

Where can his records be seen?

[RobbK1]

Jul 29, 2017 17:57:07 GMT drakeborough said:

Jul 29, 2017 17:43:22 GMT rasterax said:

It might have been originally planned for an earlier issue but then held back for an ad. Barks submitted it together with several other one- and half-pagers that day, one of which showed up in WDC 262 but was probably meant for an Uncle Scrooge issue too. The editors sometimes shuffled stuff around (there's a one-pager which ended up being never published by Western after it was dropped from the planned issue for an ad).

I guess so, though I don't see the point of paying people for creating stories so that you can publish them, and they wait more than 3 years to do so. I can understand that it was sometimes hard to find space for a story, given that American Disney comics usually have a limited amount of pages, but a one-pagee should not have these kind of problems: if I can't be published in an issue because of an ad, it can still be published in the next one, or the one after that.

Not that it's a big deal, but the thing is even stranger if we assume that any comic appearance of Ludwig at the time was basically meant to promote the shows he appeared in (and, in a way, vice versa).

Jul 29, 2017 17:43:22 GMT rasterax said:

Interestingly, Barks was paid for both art and story for the gag according to his records. Maybe he came up with the punchline but was told to insert Ludwig somewhere.

Where can his records be seen?

Yes, this gag could have been published in the next issue or following one.  But, single page gags just went into a pile of ready-to-go single page gags, and were not taken in the order received.  Lucky we got to see it at all, given that Uncle Scrooge Comic Books had more and more ads and less and less comics pages as time went on during The Gold Key era, especially after 1963.  The "Horse Blinders gag" from 1956, during the Dell period NEVER was printed under Whitman/Dell/Gold Key.  So, we were lucky to see this one.  I thought Barks' artwork on it looked too "old fashioned" and too good for 1964, and I also wondered why he used him in a gag so late.  Now, I know why. 

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Jul 29, 2017 15:09:48 GMT drakeborough said:

Jul 29, 2017 8:36:20 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Wait, really? It was Barks who said that Gladstone was adopted by Matilda, whereas Rosa did not like it? That is interesting. So, in this affair Barks is the wise one, in that he recognized the need to explain that peculiar behavior of Scrooge. I was crediting Rosa with even more common sense than what he deserved on this problem.

But then why Scrooge treats Gladstone like a nephew, according to Rosa? 

Jul 29, 2017 9:41:13 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Yeah, I know, that's one of my favorite Barks's stories (read only recently from the Fantagraphic book). And the panel where Gladstone explains his relation to Scrooge was a joke. He declared a convoluted connection with Scrooge because that was funny to read. That panel in that story is the reason why people should not take too seriously the tree family stuff.

Far from being a joke, that panel comes right after the one in which Donald said Scrooge was his uncle on his mother's side (which was already obvious, since Donald and Scrooge have different surnames). Why did Barks have Gladstone say "Scrooge McDuck is my mother's brother's brother-in-law"? Simple, it's because that was one of the only two ways Gladstone could be related to Scrooge while being Donald's cousin and not having the surname Duck or McDuck. Barks obviously took the time to think up of a relation that makes sense and is coherent rather than making up a nonsense funny expression.

Then, in "The Trail of the Unicorn"(1950), Barks hints again at Gladstone not being actually related to Scrooge, as the former says "My noisy cousin, Donald Duck, going toward his uncle Scrooge's place!"

Finally, in "Some Heir Over the Rainbow" (1953), Barks says for a third time that Gladstone is not related to Scrooge. In fact, Scrooge says "My only relatives are my nephew, Donald, and his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, and my distant nephew, Gladstone Gander!"

Barks' first family tree, made sometimes in the 1950's, is coherent with this, as it shows Gladstone is not an actual relative of Scrooge, and in the tree Scrooge is his mother's brother's brother-in-law, just like in "Race to the South Seas". However, and this is clearly the (private) joke, Barks also added a twist where Gladstone's parents had died from overeating at a free picnic so that Gladstone was adopted by Scrooge's sister Matilda and her husband.

Well, I know all this. (Better: I remember all this now that you tell me, as I tend not to register in my mind these uninteresting details when I read or re-read a Barks' story.) When asking about Fethry and Gladstone I was rather referring to the typical post-barks story, where Fethry and Gladstone are treated by Scrooge as 100% nephews, aren't they? Then the discussion about who came up with the adoption thing drove the thing on Barks.

In Barks' second tree (1991), which he made without remembering the first, Scrooge is once again Gladstone's mother's brother's brother-in-law, and Barks specified he used "Race to the South Sea" as a source for that bit. However, the needless and morbid idea of dying by overeating was not there this time. Then, after seeing his first tree, Barks created a third one that combined the first and the second, with the adoption bit being absent as it was pointless. Rosa started from here, and he didn't include the adoption bit in his tree or in his stories.

On this I insist: no matter if reasonable or not (and no matter if Barks then remained consistent with it), that line was put there in the first place to reinforce the funny exchange between Donald and Gladstone. 

[drakeborough]

Jul 29, 2017 18:28:00 GMT RobbK1 said:

Jul 29, 2017 17:57:07 GMT drakeborough said:

I guess so, though I don't see the point of paying people for creating stories so that you can publish them, and they wait more than 3 years to do so. I can understand that it was sometimes hard to find space for a story, given that American Disney comics usually have a limited amount of pages, but a one-pagee should not have these kind of problems: if I can't be published in an issue because of an ad, it can still be published in the next one, or the one after that.

Not that it's a big deal, but the thing is even stranger if we assume that any comic appearance of Ludwig at the time was basically meant to promote the shows he appeared in (and, in a way, vice versa).

Where can his records be seen?

Yes, this gag could have been published in the next issue or following one.  But, single page gags just went into a pile of ready-to-go single page gags, and were not taken in the order received.  Lucky we got to see it at all, given that Uncle Scrooge Comic Books had more and more ads and less and less comics pages as time went on during The Gold Key era, especially after 1963.  The "Horse Blinders gag" from 1956, during the Dell period NEVER was printed under Whitman/Dell/Gold Key.  So, we were lucky to see this one.  I thought Barks' artwork on it looked too "old fashioned" and too good for 1964, and I also wondered why he used him in a gag so late.  Now, I know why. 

It makes sense. Still, I would think that, even with the occasional out-of-order printing, they would avoid leaving something unpublished for such a long period of time. As for the ads, they are often a problem.

Jul 29, 2017 21:53:25 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Well, I know all this. (Better: I remember all this now that you tell me, as I tend not to register in my mind these uninteresting details when I read or re-read a Barks' story.)

Too bad you think such details are uninteresting, but to each his own.

Jul 29, 2017 21:53:25 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

When asking about Fethry and Gladstone I was rather referring to the typical post-barks story, where Fethry and Gladstone are treated by Scrooge as 100% nephews, aren't they? Then the discussion about who came up with the adoption thing drove the thing on Barks.

Well, the relationship between Scrooge and Gladstone is modern stories is not dissimilar from Barks, in which Gladstone is basically treated as a nephew even though he is said to be a distant nephew.

Jul 29, 2017 21:53:25 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

On this I insist: no matter if reasonable or not (and no matter if Barks then remained consistent with it), that line was put there in the first place to reinforce the funny exchange between Donald and Gladstone. 

To me the fun part of that scene was when they were bragging about their families while debating which of their sides is the superior one, not when they both defined their exact relationship using terms that Barks thought up very carefully so that they made sense and were coherent with each other. That was meant to complete the discussion, as well as showing how they were related to Scrooge: I don't consider that exchange fun in itself.