Miss Paperett/Miss Quackfaster

[Matilda]

Does anyone know the history/origins of the Italian Miss Paperett? We're talking on another thread about whether it's possible to see the usual contemporary Italian Miss Paperett as being the same character as Miss Quackfaster (Barks/other American/Egmont). Does anyone know when and why the character design of Miss Paperett was developed?

When I look at the "Miss Quackfaster" gallery on her character page on Inducks, there are three instances drawn by Perego where the secretary looks more like the Barks etc. Miss Q: bun on the back of head, glasses--though the hair is colored yellow. She is, though, considerably taller and skinnier than the Miss Q I know. So was this a step in the gradual evolution of the Italian Miss P from a character who looked like Miss Q into someone who looked quite different? When did the contemporary Miss Paperett first appear?

I'm wondering whether people just wanted to give Scrooge a younger-looking, more "fun" secretary, and used the same name because that's the name for Scrooge's secretary, but were really basically creating a new character. Of course, there wasn't all that much established about Miss Q's personality, other than efficiency and willingness to work for a pretty meager salary, even though she's working for a gazillionaire. So it's not easy to determine whether it's the same person by the nature of her character.

How does this relate to the two versions of Scrooge's butler Battista in Italian comics? Is it a similar story, of the same name being used for a character who holds a certain job in Scrooge's operation even though the characters look quite different? (If I've got that correct, that there was the usual Battista and the Battista, as Inducks says, in Cimino scripts. I always get confused anyway about the various butlers, DuckTales' Duckworth and Battista/Quackmore/Albert.)

[Scrooge MacDuck]

May 8, 2019 14:33:15 GMT Matilda said:

and the Battista, as Inducks says, in Cimino scripts

Honestly, since the difference between the two Battistas is one of design, I've always thought it weird that INDUCKS differentiates them by writer. Seems most likely to me that it's a Witch Child or Gotrocks situation where the artist told to write a story with a butler named Battista hadn't read the earlier ones, assumed it was a new character, and made up a new design. 

For Quackfaster, yeah, I've always assumed it was a gradual evolution in the way you describe more than a desire to invent a new character altogether. 

[Matilda]

Ah, yes, Witch Child, there's another example of two entirely different character designs with the same name. I agree, your assumption on those cases seems the most likely scenario.

Can anyone attest to the development of Miss Paperett's current design? Was there a gradual evolution from the Barks/American design, with Perego's tall Miss P the first step? Or was there more of a leap from Perego's tall-but-still-recognizable Miss P to the contemporary Miss P?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Tony Strobl would, as early as the 1970's, sometimes draw a taller and shapelier Quackfaster:


This stuck, though not with everyone: here's Antoni Gil-Baoe in 1982, one of many instances of a tall Quackfaster who still resembles the Strobl (consider the shape of the beak and hairbun: Strobl had his own design for Quackfaster, not exactly like Barks's) version of Quackfaster, but is much taller:


Here's Sandro Del Conte in 1979, clearly a variation of the tall, small-beaked, hair-bun-sporting Quackfaster of Strobl, but rejuvenated a bit and given blond hair:


Alberico Motta in 1983: this still looks like Barks's Quackfaster, blond hair aside, but the beak appears longer, and the hair is bigger and fluffier, like with the later Italian Quackfaster:



Romano Scarpa in 1987, giving us a Quackfaster with the same kind of hair as the Italian Quackfaster, but the proportions, beak and glasses of the Barks one:


It's worth noting that by then, Giorgio Cavazzano had already designed "his" Quackfaster fully: she appears to debut in 1983, going by INDUCKS.

So as you can see, throughout the 1970's and 1980's, there were many designs for Quackfaster ranging anywhere between the Barks/Strobl model and the later Cavazzano model (and Brazil's a wholly other story; I know of at least one story where she had a pointy, Gyro-style beak! though it's not on the INDUCKS gallery). To my mind, none of these people were specifically trying for a new character, there just was a very loose idea of what Scrooge's Secretary looked like and artists pilfered from one another without holding themselves to a particular design. Cavazzano was just going along with this, mixing and matching, and somehow his specific combination stuck in people's minds more than others until it became the dominant Italian strain of Quackfasters. 

Even in the 2000's, people were still kind of doing what they wanted with Quackfaster. Here's what Del Conte wrings out of the Cavazzano-style Quackfaster:

[Matilda]

Ah, I can see why, if a person is holding all these versions of Miss P/Q in his/her memory, it would be possible to smush them all together and think of them as a single character who morphs over time. I still hold that if one only sees the current Miss Paperett and the current Egmont Miss Quackfaster, one really can't see them as the same character, no matter what the hair color! The designs really are quite incommensurable.

[Mesterius]

May 8, 2019 19:33:15 GMT Matilda said:

Ah, I can see why, if a person is holding all these versions of Miss P/Q in his/her memory, it would be possible to smush them all together and think of them as a single character who morphs over time. I still hold that if one only sees the current Miss Paperett and the current Egmont Miss Quackfaster, one really can't see them as the same character, no matter what the hair color! The designs really are quite incommensurable.

Yeah, I have to say I was surprised to see all these samples too! I hadn't thought when I posted my comment in the other thread that so many versions/designs of Scrooge's secretary was out there. The 1970s Strobl version looks particularly weird for me. Seeing Barks's Quackfaster with those shapes (and legs!) just feels wrong somehow.

But there sure are a ton of different Italian versions. It's still hard for me to see the modern Miss Paperett as Miss Quackfaster, but it's easier to see where Scrooge MacDuck is coming from now.

I wonder, is there a similar "morphing" history for Donald's neighbor in the Italian comics (the thin guy with the bowler hat who seems to have replaced Barks's Mr. Jones)?

[The KKM]

I wouldn't really consider the blonde hair when looking at how the designs evolved, it was just a default for Italian printing when they needed a colour for hair. Consider how some prints even gave Scrooge blond sideburns.