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…
Could I ask why do you think it indicates Hortense's death? If you referred to the cross under her name, that is part of the female gender symbol ♀
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?
As you say, this is a third party report, so it's hard to comment a news without knowing if it's true or false. Even if it's real, we don't know which words Barks used, which was the context and how much tongue-in-cheek his answer seemed to be.
Anyway, if Barks did say that I wouldn't be surprised: the two most obvious explanations for the disappearance of HDL's parents are that they are either dead or deadbeat parents, so all Barks (supposedly) did was picking one of these two ideas (the latter to be exact).
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.
Well, given how HDL acted in the classic cartoons and the Taliaferro newspaper comics, and even in Barks' own early stories, it wouldn't be surprising if he mentioned them being raised with extreme permissiveness. The presence of a father is also coherent with what we saw in their first Sunday page.
EDIT: now I remember, I read one Paperino Paoerotto story in my life, and I asked myself "why am I reading this?".
Well, if you did read one PP8 story then you saw him living with Grandma in that series. And even if you skip the PP8 stories in the issues you own, you will still notice while turning the pages that he lived at the farm. You also mentioned once watching a Youtube interview to Korhonen in which he talked about his view of young Donald. Plus, the tradition of Donald raised by Grandma was used in earlier Italian stories predating PP8 (like Rota's 1984 story "Buon Compleanno Paperino" and the 1990 story "Paperino e il gemello perfetto"), and maybe is even referenced in modern stories that mostly take place in the present. Also, it is mentioned several times in character profiles and in forum discussions.
All things considered, I think that it would be a really amazing coincidence if you weren't (either consciously or subconsciously) thinking about that tradition when you casually wrote "actually, Grandma's farm" in the quote that I report below:
"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".
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.)
I agree with you reagarding Donald's alternative versions and his Italian portrayal, and it would be interesting to open a new thread about this subject. A glimpse of that would be some of your comments on the Papersera forum, and they are interesting reads.
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.
Well, that makes sense. Not that I would necessarily want late teen/young adult Donald to briefly live and work at the farm, but I don't see anything wrong with the idea.
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.
The early Disney cartoons showed a rural world indeed, though this is more true for Mickey than for Donald who was created 6 years later. In "The Wise Little Hen" he lives in a houseboat, but this is quickly changed to him living in a normal house in a city.
"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.
As I said before, it makes sense that he said that.
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.
He looks young, but so does Scrooge in chapter 1 when he is 10. That line was confirmed by Rosa to be a mistake, though I don't know if it was corrected in reprints.
2. A 48 year old woman is perfectly capable of having children. Also, Della is hardly the only teen mother around.
I don't doubt that many 48 year old women (not all of them, of course) can still have children, but I don't see the point of making her that old when he became a mother, as if she wasn't old enough if she had him at 44.
And Rosa obviously didn't meant for Della to be a teen mother, so I don't see the point of using his material to make her one.
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.
It's hard to speculate as to which sentence they got, or even if they stayed in jail all the time or got some pardon. At any rate, I think that while Blackheart's sons are triplets, the modern Beagle Boys were not all born together (despite looking alike) since there's just too many of them, not to mention that they are a group of brothers and cousins, not just brothers. So, Rosa's idea that they were born at different times from about 1910 to about 1920 (being either around Donald's age or a bit older) makes sense to me.
Also, the fact that they didn't have children until that late is another clue to Blackheart's sons being younger than 20 in 1880, despite their long mustaches.
I re-uploaded the picture and edited the post. I don't have time to read your full post, but thank you for letting me know the link problem.
A strange thing is that now in my pc I can see your picture both in your edited message and in my message which quotes the old version of your message; in my cell phone, on the other hand, I can see your picture only in the former, but not in the latter. And maybe it will be different if I try again in a few minutes or in a few hours. At any rate, I never had problems with Imgur, so at least I will continue to see the picture that I re-uploaded.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Jul 5, 2017 19:07:32 GMT
Yes, my idea of Donald living at the farm must come inconsciously from something, that's what I was trying to figure out. Your guess is good: I do remember reading Rota's story when I was a kid or a very young boy. Never considered very reasonable even then, the birth by "egg falling from a tree" sounded too mythological even then XD. Still, it can have been an inconscious reference.
Yeah, of course I know that PP8 is a series of stories on Donald's childhood with Grandma'. When I said "never read..." I meant to give you an idea of how improbabile is for my reading of the character to be influenced by PP8.
Tks for saying that my posts are an interesting reading, that is very kind. (But please do not take me too seriously, sometimes I write without thinking too much...)
Thematically speaking, Rockerduck cannot be less than one generation younger than Scrooge. The whole "Old Money vs New Rich" debacle.
You're wrong though. Rockerduck is the one who inherited his fortune (from Howard) while Scrooge is a self-made man.
Not relevant to the theme(and content) of Italian stories. In most of them, ESPECIALLY the older(who couldn't care less of the Barks canon), Rockerduck was portrayed as a Nouveau Riche of sort, flaunting around his material wealth, while Scrooge's stingyness was portrayed as a sort of extreme version of Austere Nobility.
Gianni Agnelli vs Silvio Berlusconi, to make a comparison not-Italians might understand.
About Magica:
Italian stories have her having internal magical powers(whether by pure study or genetics varies upon the story), and dealing with a whole society of magic users.
Many of those are even centuries old, but we usually aren't told the means(if it's natural or some spell\potion\whatever). Also, we aren't told anything about Magica's actual age, which can be interpreted as she being exactly as old as she looks. It has been a while since I've read it, but maybe coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL+3035-5 can help to infer Magica's age, as it's the only story with child Amelia in "the real wold" even if it's a short sequence.
You're wrong though. Rockerduck is the one who inherited his fortune (from Howard) while Scrooge is a self-made man.
Not relevant to the theme(and content) of Italian stories. In most of them, ESPECIALLY the older(who couldn't care less of the Barks canon), Rockerduck was portrayed as a Nouveau Riche of sort, flaunting around his material wealth, while Scrooge's stingyness was portrayed as a sort of extreme version of Austere Nobility.
Gianni Agnelli vs Silvio Berlusconi, to make a comparison not-Italians might understand.
Indeed, the only Italian (and, more generally, the only non-Rosa) story that I recall in which Rockerduck is said to have inherited his fortune is the recent Tutto per un budino (2012), in which there's the following scene:
ROCKERDUCK: After all, how do you think that I built my financial empire?
LUSKY [strangely drawn here]: "Built"? As far as I know, you inherited it!
The scene is obviously based on Rosa's work, and indeed the same story has another Rosa reference when Grandma Duck is called Elvira Coot
As for Chief O'Hara's age: in the story Topolino e la minaccia dello spettro (2007) we see his old friends of the college and they seem pretty young.
Indeed, the only Italian (and, more generally, the only non-Rosa) story that I recall in which Rockerduck is said to have inherited his fortune is the recent Tutto per un budino (2012), in which there's the following scene:
Indeed, the only Italian (and, more generally, the only non-Rosa) story that I recall in which Rockerduck is said to have inherited his fortune is the recent Tutto per un budino (2012), in which there's the following scene:
As with other things being nearer to Barks\Rosa canon, it's something quite recent. They are trying to make a more coherent universe, it seems-
I don't think they are really trying to build a coherent universe, as these are more like just little continuity references, though it's true that many official character profiles for Rockerduck list as a fact that he inherited his money. At any rate, I am building a list of such continuity references, which I will also make public.
I figured HDL are about ten years old in the 'present'. They were a little younger when they first came to live with Donald (e.g. the early Taliaferro strips and early Barks ten-pagers). They're old enough to be reasonably independent, and sort of on the brink of the onset of puberty (as evidenced by their wildly varrying attitudes to girls in the comics). Donald I've got down as about 30. I know some people who think he's much younger, only in his twenties, but I always saw Donald as an adult, not a young adult. That said, he's also clearly nowhere near middle-age. Actually, given his relationship with Daisy and how there seems to be no pressure of marriage, I might actually take a few years off of that number. Just as long as he doesn't get too close in age to HDL, it's fine. Because I like the idea that he was in class together with Mickey and Goofy, I have them down as exactly the same age -- maybe even a year younger, because Donald seems like the kind of student who would have been held back a year. Logically, Daisy and Gladstone would be around the same age. Daisy might be Donald's exact age or a few years younger, it's hard to say. However, I do think Gyro's a few years older. About 40, maybe? He's not too far removed from his first grey and balding hairs, I'd say. Maybe it's because he's taller, or seems more down to earth? Fethry is probably quite a bit younger than Donald -- about 22? He reminds me of quite a few people at college. He could be as young as 20.
Horace and Clarabelle feel like an 'older couple' to me, but that's down to reading a lot of Dutch comics. They're probably pushing 50 -- though she is older than he is. Magica's in her 40s. I've never liked the idea of Magica as a super old magic being, because it just doesn't fit her character. Consider she talks to Scrooge as his equal -- and they are a match, in many ways -- I do feel that she's older than Donald. (The make-up, I suspect, is to hide her first signs of old age.) She hasn't greyed yet -- but I don't put past her for that to be hair dye. I know Barks initially envisioned her as young and glamorous, but beauty isn't really an attribute that she uses often apart from those very early stories. That leaves me with Scrooge and Grandma, who I find very hard to place. The age Scrooge is written as varies wildly, but he's a very active fellow. I wouldn't go beyond his early seventies. Grandma is older, perhaps by quite a bit. She's probably pushing eighty, possibly more. (It's hard to say, because she's so healthy for her age.)
Let's see, who else have we got?
Brigitta and Jubal Pomp. Very hard to put an age on these two. I feel like Brigitta is quite a bit younger than Scrooge, probably somewhere in her fifties? No way she's as old as he is. Pomp is somewhere around there, too. Dickie Duck is sixteen, isn't she? Fifteen might do as well. Goldie is a few years older than Scrooge, probably around 77-78 or so. I also place Rockerduck as younger than Scrooge and Glomgold, who are the same age. 60-65? The art style makes it hard to guess, but in my headcanon he's got that kind of Danny De Vito look. The Beagles are in their forties, I think -- about 47? 42? They might be a few years younger, like Jones, but you need a certain amount of time to cultivate that 'beer gut' physique that they have. Their Grandpa, he's probably older than Scrooge, right? He's probably about eighty years old -- though that doesn't leave a whole lot of time between generations.
Actually, I want to get back to Mickey, because his age seems to shift a whole lot. Hat-and-trousers Mickey has to be at least twenty years older than button-eyed, button-pants'd Mickey. Maybe his 'adventures' with Morty and Ferdie take place a few years 'into the future', so to speak?
If Jake McDuck's alive (which seems to be the consensus on this thread, but I feel like 1951 Scrooge isn't the kind of character to keep tabs on the vital state of his faraway relatives), he'd be in his 90s. I'm not quite ready to put any character as being over a hundred years old unless they really, really act like it. Miss Quackfaster is about 60. She hasn't quite reached retirement age yet, but she's not far from it. Gyro's helper... now there's an interesting question. I never thought he was very old (pets his size usually don't live very long), but there's a lot of potential here. Gyro could have created him as far back as high school, in which case he'd be about Donald's age. That nasty pig villain guy, how old could he be? I'd say he's older than he looks, and is in Rockerduck's age range. Ludwig von Drake is somewhere between 65 and 75. He's a senior academic, but he's not quite ancient, you know?
Last Edit: Jul 8, 2017 18:49:36 GMT by That Duckfan
Gyro's helper... now there's an interesting question. I never thought he was very old (pets his size usually don't live very long), but there's a lot of potential here. Gyro could have created him as far back as high school, in which case he'd be about Donald's age.
Being a robot, Gyro's helper is functionally immortal. One heartbreaking, possibly "what-if" story by Marco Rota showed him outliving Gyro by centuries, except his batteries went dead for decades, and he wakes up to discover that in the utopian future, Gyro is honored as a visionary — Leonardo Da Vinci and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one, basically.
As for when he was created… I like the idea of him having been created by Gyro when he was a teenager, but Don Rosa's Gyro's First Invention shows Gyro making the Helper (half by accident) shortly after the events of A Chrismtas for Shacktown, in what seems to be 1951 or 1952. But perhaps, like Robb, you disregard Rosa stories in your headcanon?
Gyro's helper... now there's an interesting question. I never thought he was very old (pets his size usually don't live very long), but there's a lot of potential here. Gyro could have created him as far back as high school, in which case he'd be about Donald's age.
Being a robot, Gyro's helper is functionally immortal. One heartbreaking, possibly "what-if" story by Marco Rota showed him outliving Gyro by centuries, except his batteries went dead for decades, and he wakes up to discover that in the utopian future, Gyro is honored as a visionary — Leonardo Da Vinci and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one, basically.
As for when he was created… I like the idea of him having been created by Gyro when he was a teenager, but Don Rosa's Gyro's First Invention shows Gyro making the Helper (half by accident) shortly after the events of A Chrismtas for Shacktown, in what seems to be 1951 or 1952. But perhaps, like Robb, you disregard Rosa stories in your headcanon?
The thing with Don Rosa stories is that they're so inextricably linked to his headcanon, and so explicitly exclude just about every other writer of Disney comics. It's a lot of fun to explore the logical conclusion of his ideas, but that's not what this thread is about. I'm a fan of the multiverse theory from superhero comics, so you could consider Don Rosa's comics to be taking place in another universe. I have many headcanons, but in this context I suppose it's a kind of composite picture of as many Disney comics I read as a child. I'm going soft on the details here (and I love me some details), because there's just too much contradictory stuff written in those stories. Just the question of 'when does this all take place?' is an insurmountable one. So here I'm assuming a floating timeline (like in The Simpsons), where the adventures start out in the 1920s/30s, the character age very slowly and then sort of stop. That said, I've also got a headcanon where I try to follow the Rosa timeline as well as possible, and add to it with some ideas of my own (including the 'they're all Hollywood actors' continuity you see in 1930s promotional material), but that's a story for a whole other time. Why can't there be multiple headcanons?
If you want Rosa's stories, you go to his headcanon and he's got it all spelled out for you. But then, this thread would become pointless.
Most italian stories give off the feeling that Scrooge is a middle aged man. In a story, he even met a teacher of his from when he attended grade school.
Most italian stories give off the feeling that Scrooge is a middle aged man. In a story, he even met a teacher of his from when he attended grade school.
I don't know which is the story in which he met his old teacher, but in most Italian stories Scrooge calls himself an old man and/old is referred to as an old man by other characters.
I don't really care that much for how old Donald/Mickey are, but I guess I deviate via focusing on him being fairly young. 30 is too old for my views, but sure, he's not 18 either. Something around 25 for each, their girlfriends at least one year younger. Goofy's probably older by virtue of months only. Horace & Clarabelle are not much older, but they are knocking on the 35 soon. Mortimer's probably that age level too, being at least older than Minnie by a few years.
Gladstone's older than Donald for sure, one or two years. Fethry's around the same age, especially in stories that don't focus so much on him being wacky. M&F, HDL and AMJ aren't quite teenagers, probably doing stuff a bit above their age rate, but they're definitely older than Dugan. Glória's older than Fethry a bit. Most of Fethry's brothers and sisters are alive and doing well, though they 'went away' for good [IE never call him anymore].
Pata Lee depends on the story. 15 or so in the Adolescentes age group, 17-20 in the Italian stories where she's in college. Her friends are generally a bit older in the former and same age on the latter, at least enough that she doesn't need to be a driver of anything past a scooter. Grandma Duck is in her 60s to 70s, while Gus is somewhere between same age as Donald and five years younger. Gyro is older than Donald by a few years. Ludwig has already hit 60 for sure.
Scrooge's definitely an old man. More spry than 80 but definitely past 'middle age'. Technically takes care of himself, so he behaves enough like he's in his 40s, but there's points where realism would take precedence. His family has relatively same ages as the Don Rosa portrayal, but Hortense legit died early [from stressing herself to death], while Matilda is probably a bit older. Brigitta is somewhere between 30s and 40s depending on how she is supposed to be written, borderline 50. Glomgold might be a couple years older than Scrooge, to be honest, and still work out fine for the mirror nonetheless [if, like me, one doesn't mind it being a little tarnished]. Rockerduck is in his late 30s.
Zé Carioca depends a lot on the version in mind. He's probably Donald's age in stories where they interact, but also a little younger once he ditched the suit and hat for a cap and shorts. Definitely too young to be considered responsible but old enough that people expect him to. His friends are about the same age rank too.
Pete is older than Mickey for sure, something like being on his 40s. The Phantom Blot certainly takes better care of himself, but might as well be on the same age. Magica looks like she's 27 or something, but depending on the story, is way older. Magali/Minima is same age as the nephews. Madam Mim is younger than Witch Hazel and both are older than Magica. [No problems with them being immortal/long-lived because witches, though I also have no problems with the idea that they're just descendants/reincarnations of the same witches' magic either.] The current Beagle Boys are older than Donald by at least five years. Emil Eagle is older than Gyro but younger than Ludwig. Neighbor Jones is older than Donald by a couple of years.
I think that's really it? Most of the other characters I can think about seem to be one-offs or non-canon to comics.
Most italian stories give off the feeling that Scrooge is a middle aged man. In a story, he even met a teacher of his from when he attended grade school.
Sounds like an interesting story. Do you know the title of the story (or perhaps the issue in which it was printed?).
I don't really care that much for how old Donald/Mickey are, but I guess I deviate via focusing on him being fairly young. 30 is too old for my views, but sure, he's not 18 either. Something around 25 for each, their girlfriends at least one year younger. Goofy's probably older by virtue of months only. Horace & Clarabelle are not much older, but they are knocking on the 35 soon.
I've always got the impression that Goofy is older than Mickey by more than just moths. Indeed, in Gottfredson's "The Black Crow Mystery" it is explicitly said that Goofy is older, though their age difference is not stated. I'd say it's at least five years.
Even Horace and Clarabelle are clearly older than Mickey in Gottfredson's stories, and there are several jokes about Clarabelle not being so young anymore. In "The Plumber's Helper" Horace even wears glasses while reading. Like Goofy, I think they are on the same generation as Mickey, but they are older than him (maybe they are even a bit older than Goofy).
Scrooge's definitely an old man. More spry than 80 but definitely past 'middle age'. Technically takes care of himself, so he behaves enough like he's in his 40s, but there's points where realism would take precedence. His family has relatively same ages as the Don Rosa portrayal, but Hortense legit died early [from stressing herself to death], while Matilda is probably a bit older.
"Matilda is probably a bit older": do you mean older than Hortense, or older than Scrooge? Since Matilda and Hortense are basically Rosa-only characters, we can saferly say that Matilda is 4 years younger than Scrooge, and Hortense is 5 years younger than Matilda.
(But please do not take me too seriously, sometimes I write without thinking too much...)
