"The Clones of Channel 3000"

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jul 26, 2017 19:20:35 GMT drakeborough said:

Jul 26, 2017 18:15:26 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

As far as I know, we Frenchment didn't really have home-grown Disney comics in 1962, so I'd say we just copied from our translated Italian stories.

Indeed, I see from Inducks that there are only 21 French-produced stories with Eega Beeva, the first one being from 1979, and the last one from 2010.

Also, I just noticed a curious thing: in the first Italian printing of "The Blot's Double Mystery" (Martina/Scarpa, 1955) Eega Beeva says that he came from his underground country, but in some later reprints (which have many dialogues altered for various reasons) that line was changed so that he says he came from his country in the future. I guess this was done to fit the fact that he comes from the future, which is true given what we see in the original story... but the fact that he comes from the underground is also true, since the original story showed that too!

Now that I think about it, do these two things support each other, or do they exclude each other? I never really wondered about that since I first read the original Eega Beeva story in this book, with an introductory article by Alberto Becattini mentioning both facts and explaining that the story implies we are meant to assume that time runs faster at the center of the earth, and that's why the character is "from the future". I have always regarded this as a fact without questioning it too much, but now that I think about it I wonder if this is what Walsh actually meant or if it's just an hypothesis made by some critics decades later. If it's the latter, what was Walsh implying? That is, assuming he was implying something at all, since his stories are often weird, not to mention he seemed to write the continuities with the approach of a writer of gag-a-day strips, i.e. not planning things in advance while writing the earliest strips of a story.

My feeling is that Walsh may not have thought about it too much, but if he did think beyond "this weird guy stumbled out of an unexplored cave and we'll never know any more, that's the joke", or (to be charitable to the "time-traveller" hypothesis) if he didn't mean to make Eega a time-traveller whose time vortex had somehow opened at the end of a cave, his idea was probably that Eega's world was an undeground civilization, kind of like Barks's Terries and Fermies, which had presumably existed for longer than Topsiders' one and was therefore more advanced. The idea that time passes faster undeground through some sort of half-baked relativity is not out of the realm of possibility as a retrospective theory, but I find it unlikely Walsh had any such thing in mind.

So anyway, we have three main hypothesis seen in official print as to where Eega came from:

• He's literally a man from the year 2500, who frequently time-travels to present-day Mouseton.

• He's an extraterrestrial visitor from a distant planet. His civilization is more advanced than Earth's one, and he resembles what scientists assume Earthkind could have become by the year 2500.

• He is some kind of ill-defined Terrie-Fermie style creature form an underground high-tech world, to which the cave Mickey found him in was connected. His species might be a faster-evolving offshoot of mankind, or something else entirely, but either way the underground society resembles a putative version of what 2500 Topside society could become.

These hypotheses can of course easily be combined in various ways. For isntance 

• Advanced Alien Eega from Hypothesis 1 can still possess time-travelling technology, hence why he often brings future Earth technology back to modern-day Mouseton (not to mention the stories where Eega takes Mickey and Goofy on time-jumping jaunts).
  

• The Underground City from Hypothesis 3 could very well be a colony from Hypothesis 2's Planet Beeva.

• Said Underground City could also actually exist in the future, with the cave serving as a time-portal to the Year 2500's underground metropolis.

———

Somewhat unrelateldy, this might be a good time to mention that I'm working on a scanlation of the to-my-knowledge (do you have any other examples) only story to show Alien!Eega's home planet in details, Eta Beta e il Deterrente Atomico, which I have christened Eega Beeva and the Macguffin from Outer Space. 

[Ramapith]

Jul 26, 2017 20:40:05 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

My feeling is that Walsh may not have thought about it too much, but if he did think beyond "this weird guy stumbled out of an unexplored cave and we'll never know any more, that's the joke", or (to be charitable to the "time-traveller" hypothesis) if he didn't mean to make Eega a time-traveller whose time vortex had somehow opened at the end of a cave, his idea was probably that [...]

I've only got a moment to write, but I think Walsh did "mean to make Eega a time-traveler whose time vortex had somehow opened at the end of a cave."

In his first story, Eega is noted as bearing an exact resemblance to the scientists' model of "what man himself will look like 500 years from today."
The same scientists ask Eega to "tell us how life will be 500 years from now," and Mickey adds "Yes, in your age, Eega Beeva!"

Much earlier in the story, when Mickey and Eega are both still lost in the cave, there's also the scene of Mickey looking at Eega's futuristic watch, which gives the year as well as the date, and it reads 2447; i. e. 500 years from the publication date. (In some modern stories, for instance at Egmont, Eega has continued to mention 2447 as the year he comes from.)

[drakeborough]

Jul 26, 2017 20:40:05 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

My feeling is that Walsh may not have thought about it too much, but if he did think beyond "this weird guy stumbled out of an unexplored cave and we'll never know any more, that's the joke", or (to be charitable to the "time-traveller" hypothesis) if he didn't mean to make Eega a time-traveller whose time vortex had somehow opened at the end of a cave, his idea was probably that Eega's world was an undeground civilization, kind of like Barks's Terries and Fermies, which had presumably existed for longer than Topsiders' one and was therefore more advanced.

Walsh surely thought of Eega Beeva as a man from the future. It's not just because the title of his first story is "The Man of Tomorrow", since as far as I know it may have been invented by the newpapers, or by Gladstone when they reprinted the story in 1988. It's that, as Ramapith noted, we are shown the date "9 A.M./ OCT. 3/ 2447" on Eega Beeva's watch, and in the same story scientists notice that he looks like waht Earth's people will look like 500 years in the future. The latter scene could theoretically be an afterthought, since it is shown later in the story, but the former is clearly not, since the watch is shown as early as the 11th strip, while the character first appeared in the 5th strip of the story.

Jul 26, 2017 20:40:05 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

The idea that time passes faster undeground through some sort of half-baked relativity is not out of the realm of possibility as a retrospective theory, but I find it unlikely Walsh had any such thing in mind.

The hypotesis of the time vortex from the time travel opening at the end of the cave makes sense. If my idea was that he instead just lives at the center of the Earth without any actual time travel is because, as I said, I am conditioned by the Becattini article I have read in 2005 as the introduction for the character's debut story. This is my translation of the relevant part the article:



Maybe it's a coincidence, but 1947, the year of the first sighting of a ufo in the American skies, is also the debut, in Disney comics, of what a first sight could seem like an alien. Triangular head, hands and feet with only the thumb and bug toe distinguishable, Eega Beeva was created by writer Bill Walsh and artist Floyd Gottfredson for Mickey Mouse's comic strips published in American newspapers. [...] Eega Beeva quickly reveals to be a man of the future (his strange watch marks the year 2447). But where does he come from? Not from another planet, but rather from the center of the Earth. The fascinating hypothesis of Walsh and Gottfredson is thus that down there, in the bowels of our planet, there is a world where time runs faster, and that Eega is the typical representative of the population that inhabits it. Surely more evolved compared to us (Eega shows he has particular physical and mental powers, and from his kilt he reveals amazing inventions) but always more naive and purer (he doesn't know what to do with money, and often has a childlike behaviour). Eega Beeva, in sum, represents what we human beings could (or should) be like in the 25th century. He is not an alien in the strict sense of the term (on the contrary: he could be defined a quintessential earthling), however in the civilized society in which Mickey and co. live is a fish out of whater, someone "dfferent". [...]



I think the article for the same story in the Italian version of the Gottfredson Library expresses a similar concept.

Jul 26, 2017 20:40:05 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

• Advanced Alien Eega from Hypothesis 1 [...]

I think you meant Hypothesis 2.

Jul 26, 2017 20:40:05 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Somewhat unrelateldy, this might be a good time to mention that I'm working on a scanlation of the to-my-knowledge (do you have any other examples) only story to show Alien!Eega's home planet in details, Eta Beta e il Deterrente Atomico, which I have christened Eega Beeva and the Macguffin from Outer Space.

Where can we see your scanlations/translations?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jul 27, 2017 10:31:58 GMT drakeborough said:

Jul 26, 2017 20:40:05 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Somewhat unrelateldy, this might be a good time to mention that I'm working on a scanlation of the to-my-knowledge (do you have any other examples) only story to show Alien!Eega's home planet in details, Eta Beta e il Deterrente Atomico, which I have christened Eega Beeva and the Macguffin from Outer Space.

Where can we see your scanlations/translations?

I have put up a couple of scanlations here, but I intend to only publish Macguffin when it's finished.

[Zantaf]

Jul 27, 2017 14:16:10 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Jul 27, 2017 10:31:58 GMT drakeborough said:

Where can we see your scanlations/translations?

I have put up a couple of scanlations here, but I intend to only publish Macguffin when it's finished.

This is fantastic! I have a thing for obscure, seldom published stories!
Wait. Are you working on a scanlation of an Andrea Fanton story?! Wow! I find his stories to be so amusingly and hilariously nonsensical that I "like" them in that "it's so bad it's almost good" kind of way. To me stories like this one, or this one are cult classics of pure delirious fun. I totally recommend them to connoisseurs of the genre. Sure, you will almost certainly end up with a few fried brain cells but both stories are so devoid of reason, logic or meaning that it's a liberating, surreal experience! 

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jul 27, 2017 19:23:34 GMT Zantaf said:

Jul 27, 2017 14:16:10 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

I have put up a couple of scanlations here, but I intend to only publish Macguffin when it's finished.

This is fantastic! I have a thing for obscure, seldom published stories!
Wait. Are you working on a scanlation of an Andrea Fanton story?! Wow! I find his stories to be so amusingly and hilariously nonsensical that I "like" them in that "it's so bad it's almost good" kind of way. To me stories like this one, or this one are cult classics of pure delirious fun. I totally recommend them to connoisseurs of the genre. Sure, you will almost certainly end up with a few fried brain cells but both stories are so devoid of reason, logic or meaning that it's a liberating, surreal experience! 

I agree. The title I chose for the one I'm working on reflects the fast-and-loose quality of these stories, and I remember liking scalpello elettronico as a kid as well, though, for lack of French printing, I know nothing of Faccenda del C-14.

By the way, if you like the translations I already put up, be sure to comment in more details over there! I love feedback.

[Zantaf]

Jul 27, 2017 20:04:52 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Jul 27, 2017 19:23:34 GMT Zantaf said:

This is fantastic! I have a thing for obscure, seldom published stories!
Wait. Are you working on a scanlation of an Andrea Fanton story?! Wow! I find his stories to be so amusingly and hilariously nonsensical that I "like" them in that "it's so bad it's almost good" kind of way. To me stories like this one, or this one are cult classics of pure delirious fun. I totally recommend them to connoisseurs of the genre. Sure, you will almost certainly end up with a few fried brain cells but both stories are so devoid of reason, logic or meaning that it's a liberating, surreal experience! 

I agree. The title I chose for the one I'm working on reflects the fast-and-loose quality of these stories, and I remember liking scalpello elettronico as a kid as well, though, for lack of French printing, I know nothing of Faccenda del C-14.

By the way, if you like the translations I already put up, be sure to comment in more details over there! I love feedback.

I sure will, as soon as I read them! 

[sirtao]

Eega Beeva is from a different planet colonised by humans(therefore an "alien") in the future(year 2500), and the time-vortex did open in the cave.

Timey-Wimey might apply to explain any inconsistency(after all, some time after their first meeting Mickey did meet him before their first meeting)

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jul 28, 2017 0:38:01 GMT sirtao said:

Eega Beeva is from a different planet colonised by humans(therefore an "alien") in the future (year 2500), and the time-vortex did open in the cave.

Timey-Wimey might apply to explain any inconsistency(after all, some time after their first meeting Mickey did meet him before their first meeting)

The explanation's not that far away from what I could cook up, but I don't know… one of the reasons I dislike the "man from 2500" theory is that there's no way mankind could evolve to look like Eega in a mere 500 years.

[sirtao]

Only if one presumes they limited themselves to natural evolution.

Most likely, they used genetic engineering to improve themselves.