Post by Scrooge MacDuck on May 29, 2016 13:42:38 GMT
About Jaq and Gus… As you may have noticed, I am on the totally opposite end of the spectrum: I love these kinds of crossovers. I recognize that many stories including them were very flawed in other ways, but I like the principle a lot. "if a vodoo witch doctor was going to do something that will shrink you, would you still think "There's some good tension here, but the stake seems kind of ridiculous in comparison. I mean, you're gonna be shrunk to the size of a mouse. I can see why it would be unpleasant, but there's nothing to be too tragic (for Donald) or sadistic (for Foola) about. It's nothing too deadly or harmful"?" —> My point, considering the existence of mice like Jaq and Gus, was that it would not be the same thing for Donald than it would be for me, because in Donald's world, there are perfectly normal people who are naturally this size. That was my whole point. Thus, me being in an equivalent situation would be, I don't know, being turned into a woman or something like that.
As for the size of Donald in the panel… I'll try that perhaps, but a thing you fail to consider in your proposed method is perspective: Donald is farther from us than the human bloke.
I knew about your idea on crossovers from other things you wrote, and I totally disagree with it as my headcanon totally excludes characters like Jaq and Gus. Well, to each his own headcanon, though the comparison between Donald's situation and Jaq & Gas is a moot point since they didn't even exist yet at the time of "Vodoo Hodoo". Actually, with a bit of cynicism I could say: do you see where this idea of mixing the universes has brought you? There is a situation that is clearly tragic, but because of your idea you think it's not a big deal at all and cannot appreciate the tension. Plus, Jaq and Gus are not normal people, they are clearly animals, not to mention a shrunk Donald would have a hard time relating with his nephews, his girlfriend etc.
"Donald is farther from us than the human bloke", he is, but not much, maybe a couple of meters. In my opinion, he has his usual height.
Last Edit: May 29, 2016 15:12:55 GMT by drakeborough
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on May 29, 2016 15:49:56 GMT
Alright, I get that. But even without these concerns, I still find the tension to be debatable. It's not a problem that this story is alone to have, but… why does Foola Zoola bother making this weird, complicated potion instead of just, you know, killing Donald/Scrooge? Especially considering that, as Professor McCobb demonstrating, shrunken people are free to go.
How does Scrooge know that the doll will curse the person who touches it into shrinking to the size of a mouse?
Well, Foola Zoola told Scrooge "You'd best depart, infidel, before a nutshell serves you as a hat!" when they first met. And after Scrooge tricked him, Foola said "You have incurred the wrath of the vodoo gods! They will shrink you to the size of the rat you are!" In fact, on the Titanic Scrooge thinks "Bombie wants to shrink me!". It's also possible Crnelius McCobb isn't the only person who was later shrunk by Foola Zoola's vodoo magic, and Scrooge would have hears rumors of these shrunk men by the employees of his rubber plantation.
So, Don Rosa deliberately didn't mention the "shrinking" thing and only implied it in the story so that it wouldn't come off as... silly? To make it more... threatening? Okayy...
Funny thing is, I didn't read the original Voodoo Hoodoo story for years until I was 23. I had only read the Don Rosa story when it came out in France around 1996, only remembering that touching the doll would give a terrifying curse. And a few years later, I also read a kid book about supernatural monsters that mentioned the Voodoo Hoodoo story, saying that Donald, after getting the doll from Bombie, was "sent to a dark and evil voodoo land", which sounded really creepy.
So, when I read the original Carl Barks story, I was a bit underwhelmed. Just shrinking?
Paul Halas and Don Rota also reused the "Donald gets cursed by a voodoo object and shrinks" plot!! In The Incredible Shrinking Duck that I read back in 1994!
Because of this, I felt a sense of "déjà vu" when I read Voodoo Hoodoo.
Yeah, it's not Barks's fault, I know. France has rarely printed this story.
By the way, I think this story had kind of a disappointing ending...
{SPOILER; click to reveal} Donald and HDL just leave Bombie to bounce away, alone and lonely, even though they became friends and Bombie was shown as a sympathetic victim... Scrooge's conflict with Foola Zoola is still unconcluded. After all, Don Rosa has "retconned" this conflict as Scrooge's bottom-down action, and the start of his true darkness. It is an important thing that I think could be developed much more...
But I guess it is as likely as seeing what happened for real to Hortense and Della, or even seeing them interacting with their children!!
Why does Foola Zoola plan of shrinking Donald and not killing him, you say? I don't know, but there isn't the need of a particular reason. Maybe he simply prefer to torture his enemies instead of killing them, and I'd say being shrunk to a few centimeters for the rest of your life without any chance of turning back to your normal size is big enough for a torture. If you still think that there is not tension and that you wouldn't mind being forever shrunk to a few centimeters, I don't know how to argue against that.
Orora I said Don Rosa implied the shrinking, but I didn't say why he did it because I don't know it. If you want a definite answer on this point, you should ask Don.
It has been many years since I first read (in this order) "Life and Times" and "Voodoo Hoodoo", but I don't remember being disappointed of the latter for the shrinking idea, which seemed (and still seems) very scary to me.
I don't have much memory of the Halas/Rota story, though I remember reading it in the same issue of ZIO PAPERONE that printed Don Rosa's "The Incredible Shrinking Tightwad". However, "Voodoo Hoodoo" didn't give me a deja vu because at the time I hadn't bought yet that ZIO PAPERONE issue.
Are you disappointed that Donald and HDL left Bombie in Africa? Why? Wasn't it clear from the beginning that they would do that ("Whanna go back to Africa, Bombie? Whanna go back to your voodoo people?", "Come on, Bombie! We'll fix you some breakfast, then we'll see about getting you back to Africa" etc.).
I too would have loved to see a Don Rosa sequel of "Voodoo Hoodoo", since like you say the conflict between Scrooge and Foola Zoola is still unconcluded, and since the tone of a story with such a conflict would have matched the tone of Rosa's later tales like "A Letter From Home" and "The Prisoner of White Agony Creek". Sadly, that's another "what could have been" that we won't see due to his early retirement.