Fun fact: according to Rosa, Scrooge and Glomgold are the same age. Scrooge dies at 100, Glomgold at 99. Glomgold's very last thought is that Scrooge beat him even at this.
Fun fact: according to Rosa, Scrooge and Glomgold are the same age. Scrooge dies at 100, Glomgold at 99. Glomgold's very last thought is that Scrooge beat him even at this.
I really like that idea. Well, I don't think Glomgold and Scrooge did die, but for the "AU" where they did, this is perfect.
1. Did Don Rosa ever mention that Donald was born in 1920? Even if he did, he was probably asked by someone and answered with a rough estimation without giving it much thought. If Donald was born in 1920, that means he's 10 at 11th chapter, but the way he's drawn indicates Rosa considered him way younger than 10 at that point. I still think my 1924 estimation makes more sense.
Rosa's timeline can be seen here. As the legend says, the dates are approximations as virtually all of them use increments of 5.
In "The Duck Who Never Was" Donald is writing his year of birth, but we only see him write the first two numbers ("19").
Donald may seem very young in Lo$ part 11, but that's just because we don't see him speak. He does speak, however, in the flashback of "The Sign of the Triple Distelfink", which takes place before the end of Lo$ part 11.
By the way, having Donald be born so late (1924) would further increase the age in which Quackmore and Hortense became parents (which is pretty high already), and would also further decrease the age in which Della became a mother, so I think that 1920 makes more sense than 1924.
2. If it wasn't stated, it's an error of my country's translation. In the version i read, when Scrooge and Glomgold were sitting next to the fire and eating, at some point, Glomgold said something like: ''I wish i could teach you something'' and Scrooge answered: ''You? But, we have the same age''.
I checked the original version, and you are right: Glomgold tells Scrooge "Perhaps I can repay your kindness by teaching you a lesson as well!", and Scrooge replies "You? You're no older than I! Besides, I always learn from my experiences!" It was the Italian version who reworded the first part of Scrooge's line, removng any reference to their ages.
At any rate, it seems that Scrooge meant that all of his mentors so far have been people (like his uncle Pothole and Howard Rockerduck) who were a generation older than him, so he would find it strange to learn something from someone whose apparent age is similar to his own. I don't think we are meant to believe that they necessarily have the same age down to the year, or that Scrooge even knows Glomgold's exact age (he doesn't even know his name!).
3. Are you sure they were only a few years older than 13? They look at least in their early 20s to me.
Well, people in their teens can have long mustaches if they never shave them (except to give them that form) to look more adult. Plus, the fact that here Blackheart doesn't look much different from his sons tells me he was probably a young father, and even in part 10 he seems a middle-aged man judging by his hair color.
4. I forgot they were arrested. Can you remind me what they were arrested for? That could help us estimate how long they stayed in jail.
They went to Fort Duckburg and tried to rob Scrooge's eight barrels of money with his first billion. In the process, they kept Scrooge and his sisters captive, so there's also the question of what were they going to do to them: Scrooge was locked in a barrel, and a Beagle said he would not get out of that barrel.
By the way, I like to think that for an important period of time in his youth (around 18-20 years old?) Donald Duck left Duckburg (actually, Grandma's farm) to move to Mouseton.
Although this is not the best thread to discuss this, I prefer the idea (from Rosa's stories and also the recent Dutch 1-pagers) that Donald was raised by his parents rather than the idea (from Paperino Paperotto and some other sources) that he was raised by Grandma Duck.
Fun fact: according to Rosa, Scrooge and Glomgold are the same age. Scrooge dies at 100, Glomgold at 99. Glomgold's very last thought is that Scrooge beat him even at this.
Is this a joke, or what? Rosa gave Scrooge a year of death, but I don't think he ever gave one to Glomgold, let alone deciding which were Glomgold's last thoughts.
Out of curiosity: in your opinion, which is the age difference between Scrooge and Goldie? According to your figures, it can be anything from 3 (which would work) to 17 (which doesn't work at all).
Guys, I love this thread. Is so (nerdly) interesting to see how everyone of us has his view of the age of these characters. And in the end all our interpretations look very reasonable.
Donald is around 30 years old Gladstone is as old as him Fethry and Daisy a couple of years younger than Donald Mickey and Minnie some 32 or 33 Goofy and Clarabelle around 36 Horace between 37 and 39 Gyro around 45, or in any case already in his forties Jones in his late forties, but not more than 50 O'Hara in his late 50's, something like 58 or 59 (remark: in Italy he has completely white hair, not brown) Casey not more than 45
and add a couple of quick observations.
On the youth of characters. I assigned ages to the modern version of the characters. It is clear that if one puts Gottfredson's stories from the 30's and 40's in his own Disney head canon, then she must consider that period as "the youth" of Mickey, as if he was in his early 20's back then, or even younger! That would explain a bit the difference in behavior (you know, the frizzy Mickey, but also the annoying Dippy Dawn, the hyper hot-tempered Donad, and so on). By the way, I like to think that for an important period of time in his youth (around 18-20 years old?) Donald Duck left Duckburg (actually, Grandma's farm) to move to Mouseton. That would explain his friendship with Mickey, Goofy, Horace, Clarabelle, Minnie, his appearance in Gottfredson's strips from the 30's, and if you like also the "cartoon's period". (If you want to go that far in your canon!) Then I guess he came back home and started the life that Barks first, and many others after him, told us.
On Magica. According to wikipedia and other sources, Barks took his inspiration for Magica from the two most famous (and among the hottest ) Italian actresses of that age, namely Sofia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, who were respectively 27 and 34 years old when Magica was created in 1961 (Robbk, did you fixed her apparent age at 27 because you knew about the Sofia Loren reference, or is it just a chance?). Now, this does not entail that one must look at her as being that young...but surely not in her 40's or 50's! Also, someone said "some 35 old bad aged". Well, more than bad aged, I would rather say that she has an old school make-up, with heavy eyeliner.
It was just a coincidence, based on her looks. I did watch the Sophia Loren and Gina Lollabrigida films, and knew Sophia was mid 20s then. But that was not the reason. The lines around Magica's eyes, which made her look older were just make-up to make her look sinister. I knew those weren't age wrinkles. The 2000+ was actually a bit of a joke. I also don't feel she was so good as a sorceress to use spells to stay young beyond the normal aging process. She can't even steal a dime from a trilliardaire.
Post by Baar Baar Jinx on Jul 4, 2017 11:08:12 GMT
drakeborough said;
I don't remember that Barks interview, can you link that? Anyway, since Rosa said Donald and Della were born around 1920 and HDL around 1940, that would mean that Della was about 20 when she became a mother, and I see no reason for making her younger than that.
Whew, that was not easy to find. It's actually buried in the sixth comment section in this post:
That said... when I said it was uncertain what happened to Della Duck, Donald's sister and HD&L's mother, I meant officially. I actually happen to know a bit more about the subject, but I didn't mention it in the post itself because it didn't really have anything to do with the story. But, I'll tell it here:
Back in 1994, Carl Barks (who was 93 at the time) was on a tour of Europe and among other places came to Norway for a meeting with the fans, receiving the "Sproing" award (annual Norwegian award for best comic) and an informal Q&A. As a junior member of the Donaldists, I was at this meeting (I was fourteen at the time), and therefore I was present to hear the answer when Barks was asked by one of the fans what happened to Della Duck.
So -- this answer comes directly from the creator of Duckburg himself: Della Duck ran off. She was so tired of raising those kids that she simply shipped them off to Donald, left Duckburg, and never returned. Possibly she's off globetrotting the same way Scrooge did in his younger days?
It's the comments below that speculate about Della having been a single teenage mother, so my memory was faulty, it wasn't Barks himself who reportedly said this. Barks' answer here seems somewhat tongue-in-cheek, maybe he was just tired of being asked the same question about HD&L's parents over and over again. Then again, this is a third party report, and we aren't sure of the context. Is there surviving video of this 1994 Q&A anywhere to clear things up?
EDIT: The same poster says in a later comment that, "According to Barks, (HD&L)'s parents raised them with extreme permissiveness, so they thought they could get away with everything". So apparently there was a father in the picture (in Barks' mind) and there was more to this part of the discussion.
By the way, I like to think that for an important period of time in his youth (around 18-20 years old?) Donald Duck left Duckburg (actually, Grandma's farm) to move to Mouseton.
Although this is not the best thread to discuss this, I prefer the idea (from Rosa's stories and also the recent Dutch 1-pagers) that Donald was raised by his parents rather than the idea (from Paperino Paperotto and some other sources) that he was raised by Grandma Duck.
Never read a Paperino Paperotto story in my life! Actually, no Italian "alternative versions" of the duck (Paperinik, PK, DD, etc) really care to me. I do not even like very much the Italian Donald himself, for his psychology is too far away, and on some aspects even the opposite, of the one that Barks gave him. (I move the same critique to other Italian declinations of the ducks, like for Fethry for instance, but that's another discussion for another time.) My own interpretation of the duck universe is much more influenced by Rosa than what it may seem when I criticize the Rosian Talibalism of some of you here. I also think that Donald was raised together with Della by Hortense and Quackmore. Only, I like to imagine that he lived at the farm with Grandma, not as a kid, but when he was a teenager or a young man. Like if that was the first place where he went to start his life as a grown-up man, or something like that. Now that I am telling you this, I realize that I do not know where this idea of mine comes from. It could be a way to integrate in my mental Disney comics universe the rural origin of the character. Remember that he first appeared in a farm in the Silly Symphonies, and it is hard to remove that iconic image from your mind. To resume: my Donald was raised by his parents, lived as a youngster with his grandma, moved to Mouseton where he spent years hanging around with Mickey and Goofy and making disasters, moved back in the suburban area of Duckburg, went on with little jobs, suddenly found himself with three kids in his house, went around the world with them, met his uncle Scrooge as we see in Barks-Rosa universe, and now keeps having adventures with this crazy family of him. But not with a cap and a mask. My Donald sleeps at night.
EDIT: now I remember, I read one Paperino Paoerotto story in my life, and I asked myself "why am I reading this?".
I'm not all that invested in this topic, but I'm curious if A.) people accept Ludwig's mother still being alive as canon, and B.) what age you assign her?
I'm not all that invested in this topic, but I'm curious if A.) people accept Ludwig's mother still being alive as canon, and B.) what age you assign her?
I do, and I'd say she's a tad older than Grandma Duck.
I don't remember that Barks interview, can you link that? Anyway, since Rosa said Donald and Della were born around 1920 and HDL around 1940, that would mean that Della was about 20 when she became a mother, and I see no reason for making her younger than that.
Whew, that was not easy to find. It's actually buried in the sixth comment section in this post:
That said... when I said it was uncertain what happened to Della Duck, Donald's sister and HD&L's mother, I meant officially. I actually happen to know a bit more about the subject, but I didn't mention it in the post itself because it didn't really have anything to do with the story. But, I'll tell it here:
Back in 1994, Carl Barks (who was 93 at the time) was on a tour of Europe and among other places came to Norway for a meeting with the fans, receiving the "Sproing" award (annual Norwegian award for best comic) and an informal Q&A. As a junior member of the Donaldists, I was at this meeting (I was fourteen at the time), and therefore I was present to hear the answer when Barks was asked by one of the fans what happened to Della Duck.
So -- this answer comes directly from the creator of Duckburg himself: Della Duck ran off. She was so tired of raising those kids that she simply shipped them off to Donald, left Duckburg, and never returned. Possibly she's off globetrotting the same way Scrooge did in his younger days?
It's the comments below that speculate about Della having been a single teenage mother, so my memory was faulty, it wasn't Barks himself who reportedly said this. Barks' answer here seems somewhat tongue-in-cheek, maybe he was just tired of being asked the same question about HD&L's parents over and over again. Then again, this is a third party report, and we aren't sure of the context. Is there surviving video of this 1994 Q&A anywhere to clear things up?
EDIT: The same poster says in a later comment that, "According to Barks, (HD&L)'s parents raised them with extreme permissiveness, so they thought they could get away with everything". So apparently there was a father in the picture (in Barks' mind) and there was more to this part of the discussion.
"HD&L's parents must have raised them with extreme permissiveness" is something Carl said to me in a conversation we had during my first visit to his house. He was laughing when he said it, and prefaced it with "must have" raised them......, so, he, indeed, assumed that both the father and mother raised Donald's nephews, and both must have left Duckburg when Della sent them to Donald. He said it for a joke, not wanting it to be seen as an attempt to "create" an "official" Disney "policy fact", but also to indicated this is the plausible scenario he had in the back of his subconscious mind. I remember him also saying something similar in one of his interviews made during his 1994 trip to Europe.
I was in Europe all through the time of his stay (as I normally bounce from The Netherlands to Germany, Denmark and Sweden, and often also visit friends and/or family in Belgium, Austria, and Norway, and sometimes even France). That year, I was in The Netherlands, Germany Denmark, Sweden and Norway during Carl visit to Europe, but never in any of those countries at exactly the same time that Carl was there. I DID get copies from friends of all his TV shows documenting his visits (including all interviews) from The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. I don't remember in which country's interview he said it. But, I have them on a DVD. The Dutch, German, Danish and Norwegian TV specials were quite long. The Swedish and Finnish were only short news programme sgments. The Norwegian broadcast (longest of them) was an hour long documentary style special, documenting Barks' life and career, visit highlights, interviews, and his effect of Norwegian culture (with many guest speakers). The Danish, German and Dutch we somewhat shorter, but showed much of his visit and had lots of guest speakers and the interviews.
About the Don Rosa timeline, here is the early version of the family tree:
I can't see your image, but looking at its URL I found it here. Since there seems to be a problems with Baidu pictures, I saved it into my pc and then re-uploaded it in Imgur:
EDIT: Now I can see Minotaur's image, so I guess I shouldn't have bothered downloading and re-uploading it.
Where did you take that image from? I guess that it's from one of the many All-Rosa collections that are, or were, printed in several countries.
That image can provide several interesting points to debate. For example, when was this first version of the tree made? In his article "How the Duck Family Tree Was Grown" (a version of which can be seen here), Rosa wrote this:
When I began writing my "Life and Times of $crooge McDuck" series, which is, in essence, a history of Duckburg and all its residents, it became necessary for me to construct a detailed Family Tree to use as a blueprint. Once the Egmont editors learned of this Tree, they asked me to draw it up for publication as a poster for their readers.
And according to what he wrote here, on May 19, 1991 Rosa sent a fax about the idea of a comic book maxiseries telling Scrooge's life (an idea that various editors were discussing: the details are in the link) and received an answer (either the same day, or shortly after that) saying that he was the one that would take on the project if he wanted to.
So, putting together these two pieces of info, any early version of the tree must have been done after May 19, 1991, right? And yet, from Rosa's correspondence with Barks we know that as early as March 31, 1991 Barks sent Rosa his second family tree, supposedly because Rosa had asked him some questions regarding how certain characters were related, though we don't have Rosa's previous message. We also don't have Rosa's answer, but we know that with it he sent Barks the 1950's family tree, which apparently Barks had forgotten about. Then, in or around April 22, 1991 Barks sent Rosa his third tree, which is a combination of the first two versions.
The correspondance described above seems to contradict either the claim that Rosa didn't make the tree until he started doing "Life and Times", or the fact that he didn't start doing "Life and Times" until at least May 19, 1991. A possibility is that Rosa first asked Barks about family relations when writing the plot of "Of Ducks and Dimes and Destinies", which as we know was created before Rosa knew that he was going to do a long series about Scrooge's past, and which features the debut (if we use the production order instead of publication order) of Fergus, Hortense and Matilda. This idea seems supported by the fact that in his letter from May 19, 1991 Barks mentioned that he is not aware of any story about how Scrooge earned his first dime, obviously answering a question by Rosa about that subject: "Of Ducks and Dimes and Destinies" is about how Scrooge earned the Number One Dime.
Also, in this page from the archived version of Sigvald Grøsfjeld jr.'s now closed webiste, there is this Rosa quote of unknown origin, providing another version as to why he made the family tree:
My Family Tree which has been reprinted all over the world is perhaps the single most famous thing I've ever done. And it was all an after-thought for me. I actually was planning a story all about the Duck Family relations. Then the publisher asked me to actually draw the Tree. Once I did that, I didn't need to do the story. But it would still be a nice story, and I still have it in my notes to do someday.
I am not sure if he was ironic and was just referring to "Life and Times" when writing about the "story all about the Duck Family relations", since most characters from the tree appear in it and have their relations definite, or if he was referring to a separate story that he never made.
Has this issue (i.e., clarifying the many different and apparently contradictory versions of why and when he created the tree) ever been discussed before?
Anyway, it's worth noting that, although the first worldwide publication (in Norway) of Rosa's family tree was in July 1993, the sketch version was updated after that, given that the DCML message in which David Gerstein informed Rosa about an old American story naming Grandma's late husband Humperdink was written on October 12, 1994, and Rosa's message in which he said he would change "Dabney" into "Humperdink" was published on the same day.
So, which are the differences between the early sketch version and the final version of the tree? Well, some of them were pointed out by Rosa himself in his article that I linked above
Above is my rough-draft of the Family Tree which I submitted to Egmont before completing the final version. Here you'll see some interesting ideas that were omitted from the final tree either by my choice or Egmont's. They are:
Professor Ludwig Von Drake — Not a Barks creation, he was created in 1961 to be the animated host of Disney's new TV series "The Wonderful World of Color"; RCA sponsored this new show to help sell new color TVs. Ludwig was short-lived in American comics; appearing only in a few issues in 1961. However, Barks did use him (probably on orders from his editors) in a one-page gag (US 54, 1964), thereby making him part of my Barksian Duck Universe. I decided that he would make a perfect husband for $crooge's sister Matilda. When Matilda left Duckburg in 1930, I figure she moved back home to Europe and eventually met Austrian professor Ludwig Von Drake. This would make Ludwig Donald's uncle, just as he is said to be. But the Egmont editors of 1993 did not like the character Ludwig Von Drake and told me not to include him in my final Tree... so out went poor LVD. However, in my own version of the Tree, Ludwig is the husband of Matilda and uncle of Donald. (He must have been away from home on a lecture tour during the events involving Matilda in my "A Letter from Home" (see vol. 9).)
Susiebelle Swan — in Barks' great "The Gilded Man" adventure (DD/FC 422, 1952), the story that gave us the one and only mention of Calisota, it is mentioned that Gladstone Gander had a deceased relative named Susiebelle Swan. You can see Miss Swan on my rough-draft Tree. I figured the simplest way she could be a relative of Gladstone is if she was the unmarried sister of Goostave Gander's grandmother. But, believe it or not, even I decided this was too complicated to fit onto the final Tree and I left it out.
Daisy Duck/April, May & June — Daisy a relative of Donald?! I and other Duckfans have always toyed with this idea. Huey, Dewey and Louie always call her "Aunt Daisy". Perhaps this is more than just a term of polite respect. What if Daisy was actually the sister of the kids' father? She would not really be related to Donald so they could still be sweethearts, and it would give her a rightful place on this Duck Family Tree, and even allow Barks' characters of April May and June to be part of the Tree since they are Daisy's nieces. But again I decided that it was too complicated an idea. You see it outlined in my rough-draft Tree, so you can decide for yourself if it's true or not. In any case, they were included in a sidebar, as friends of the family, in the published final version of my Tree.
Huey, Dewey and Louie's father, husband to Donald's twin sister Della! But that was a decision that I did not feel comfortable to make... it was too important! So I put it off until another time... maybe never... and summoned a curious bird to land in the Tree to obliterate that entry.
Another aspect of this rough-draft Tree is that I needed to give all these characters approximate (in increments of 5) years of birth and death so that I could make sure which ones were alive at different points in the "Life of $crooge" series. Remember that my stories all take place in the early-mid 1950's. It was difficult to deal with Grandma Duck since we think of her as about the same age as $crooge when she is actually of a previous generation, being the mother of $crooge's sister Hortense's husband. But since Hortense is 10 years younger than $crooge, if I have Grandma Duck be only about 20 when Quackmore is born, I can make her maybe only 10 years older than $crooge. But that would still be old -- getting close to 100 when my stories take place in the early-mid 1950's! As you can see from the death date on her entry, I don't decide exactly what year she passed on, but it was real soon after the last time you saw her.
You'll note a year of death for $crooge McDuck! After sipping the invigorating waters of the Fountain of Youth in Barks' "That's No Fable" (US 32, 1960), I figure he could live at least 100 years, but from what final year do I count back? The easiest way to choose a year of $crooge's death is to pick 1967, the year that his creator Carl Barks retired from writing and drawings his adventures. For me, that was the death of $crooge.
Other differences include names that are either different from the final version (like Downy's maiden name being Duck instead of O'Drake) or were temporarily left in blank since they were about "filler" characters (like the wives of Dingus, Eider, Casey, Clinton etc.) created only to link together the main characters.
Plus, some of the given dates are different from the other list of Rosa dates, and somethimes even to "Life and Times", like Downy dying in 1898 instead of 1897.
It's also strange that Hugh "Seafoam" McDuck, whose birth and death dates are given as 1770 and 1776, is depicted as being 6 (!) generationd older than Scrooge, who was born less than a century later in 1867. In Lo$ part 1, Fergus refers to him as "great-grandfather" while talking to Scrooge and, assuming this is meant in reference to Fergus himself rather than to Scrooge, we may deduce that Seafoam is 4 generations older than Scrooge, which seems confirmed in the unused sketches for the first chapter, in which there's a montage of mini-bographies for various McDuck, and Seafoam's life is described before that of Potcrack McDuck, which in turn comes before Dingus (Scrooge's grandfather). In Lo$ part 4 Scrooge says Seafoam is his great-great-great-grandfather, meaning he is 5 generations older than him rather than 4, but this is usually regarded as a mistake, though I don't know if modern reprints corrected it. At any rate, none of these chapters suggest Seafoam is 6 generations older than Scrooge.
By the way, it is easy to find high-quality images of family tree in English without the sidebar...
... but the English version with the sidebar seems to only be available online in low quality:
Last Edit: Jul 4, 2017 16:37:56 GMT by drakeborough
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Jul 4, 2017 16:38:08 GMT
All interesting stuff. Apparently, according to this sketch, Hortense is dead, but Quackmore isn't?… Also, I'm feeling kind of proud that as recently as yesterday, I had the very same idea as Rosa to include Susiebelle Swan in my new ducktree…
1. Donald may seem very young in Lo$ part 11, but that's just because we don't see him speak. He does speak, however, in the flashback of "The Sign of the Triple Distelfink", which takes place before the end of Lo$ part 11.
2. By the way, having Donald be born so late (1924) would further increase the age in which Quackmore and Hortense became parents (which is pretty high already), and would also further decrease the age in which Della became a mother, so I think that 1920 makes more sense than 1924.
3. Well, people in their teens can have long mustaches if they never shave them (except to give them that form) to look more adult. Plus, the fact that here Blackheart doesn't look much different from his sons tells me he was probably a young father, and even in part 10 he seems a middle-aged man judging by his hair color.
4. They went to Fort Duckburg and tried to rob Scrooge's eight barrels of money with his first billion. In the process, they kept Scrooge and his sisters captive, so there's also the question of what were they going to do to them: Scrooge was locked in a barrel, and a Beagle said he would not get out of that barrel.
1. It doesn't matter whether he speaks or not. He looks young. Also, in the 12th chapter, he says he was younger than the nephews (who were 7 at that point) when he met Scrooge for the first time.
2. A 48 year old woman is perfectly capable of having children. Also, Della is hardly the only teen mother around.
3. That makes more sense. If his sons were 18 at the 2nd chapter (1880), we can reduce his age to 35, so he's 110 at the stories.
4. For keeping the ducks captive, they probably received 4-5 years as a sentence. Now, about their attempt to steal one billion, that's a huge amount of money, equivalent of trying to rob a bank. I've heard that trying to rob a bank can result to pretty harsh punishments, even 20 years. Do you think they got that much? In that case, maybe the beagle boys are at around Donald's age.
) Italian actresses of that age, namely 
