Keno Korner - A Review Series

[That Duckfan]

May 15, 2019 10:24:54 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

May 14, 2019 23:19:03 GMT That Duckfan said:

(with a more recent layer of "if you don't like it then don't read it" that I find troubling).

What's so troubling about it? “Don't like don't read” is an old philosophy and one that seems pretty healthy to me. 

May 15, 2019 0:32:56 GMT That Duckfan said:

And that doesn't even take into account that the museum director doesn't seem the recognize Donald in The Son of the Sun, or the fact that Donald applies to work in the museum in The Duck Who Never Was, which is way at the very end of his character journey!

Unless memoyr deceives me, I believe The Duck Who Never Was represents a different stint by Donald as curator, as he seems moments away from mentioning "that adventure with that drakkar there" (e.g. The Golden Helmet, presumably) when something interrupts him, indicating this takes place post-Helmet.

1. I guess so, it comes off as a little defensive to me in the context he mentions it. But again, I can absolutely understand that it's hard to distance yourself from fan reactions as a professional artist, and fan reactions can be pretty intense.

2. You're right on that mark, thankfully. That leaves the characterization of the curator, but honestly he's so different from his character in The Golden Helmet that he seems like a different character altogether. Still, The Son of the Sun is one of those stories that holds everything in its place. Very, very tenuously.

In other news: I've started to check all the Barks stories Rosa references (or conspicuously avoids), and I've come across the first Barks story that definitely does not happen in the Rosa canon! In An Eye for Detail, Donald remarks that he cannot be hypnotized (before being hypnotized almost immediately). Therefore, all stories in which Donald is hypnotized happen afterwards. Of these stories, Back to Long Ago! is the only one directly referenced in Rosa stories (in that he reuses one of the hypnotists from that story). Other stories like Going Ape could happen later, but we have no way of knowing.
Now, Back to Long Ago! is one of the rare Barks stories that can be dated fairly precisely: the hypnotic sequence Scrooge and Donald dream of happens on December 6, 1564, and Scrooge references this event as taking place 392 years ago. That's too specific a reckoning to set the story anywhere but 1956, when it first came out. The problem? Scrooge dreams about learning of the long-lost mines of King Solomon (which Barks wrote in 1957) and the treasury of Croesus, two treasures proudly displayed in... The Son of the Sun! And again we come back to the problem that it's one of the earliest Glomgold appearances, happening before Return to Plain Awful, which I don't want to stray too far from Lost in the Andes!. If The Mines of King Solomon and The Treasury of Croesus happen after 1956, with The Son of the Sun even later... I can't make that work!
At that point it's easier to reconcile Scrooge already knowing the hypnotist (since they don't meet in Back to Long Ago!), and relegate the Barks story to another universe.

I've seen the Rosa universe referred to as the Barks-Rosa universe, but that sounds more like mutual cooperation than what we can actually accomplish. I'm sure there's a Barks universe out there where many Rosa stories didn't happen, but this ain't it.

[That Duckfan]

May 15, 2019 1:30:06 GMT TheMidgetMoose said:

May 14, 2019 23:19:03 GMT That Duckfan said:

Also, people who possess the later volumes of the Fantagraphics collection, I may have to call on you for sources sometimes... my inner completist can't justify buying a single volume, and those double-volume collections run out of stock fast!

You hit on a lot of good points. What's interesting is that Rosa seems to picture the early 1950s as his era, when Barks was at his height and all that... But he grew up reading his older sister's comics, and it shows. There's a lot of late '50s, early '60s pop culture references in his stories that's impossible to ignore. The latest date mentioned in an in-universe publication is August 31, 1953 (and I'll leave you nerds to figure out what story that's in), but there are some other publications that are easily dateable to later years and it's a slippery slope from there. I've decided to ignore the Island in the Sky approach and approach technology the same way I approach pop culture references, which puts stories with satellites (like the Sputnik from The Curse of Nostrildamus, or the satellite that sets Island at the Edge of the World in motion) past 1957 for instance. You could argue that the march of science is a slippery slope with Gyro around, but that just makes everything even messier and since the past is portrayed accurately, I don't see why that would change in the present. (Though you could approach the Rosa universe as being an alternate timeline, with the POD being 1947 or 1952 or whatever. I just don't see why you would want to.*)

I own copies of Fantagraphics' Don Rosa Library Volumes 9 and 10, so if I can be of any assistance, let me know. However, I do have a busy few weeks ahead of me, so I can't promise I'll see the requests right away or be able to respond as soon as I'd like.

As for the second emboldened point, I believe the story you're referring to is The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut, though I had always read it as August 21 instead of August 31. I doubt it makes a big difference in the timeline either way, though.

I'm going to have to put this project on hold pretty soon anyway, so maybe it's best to wait until I have some more time in the summer.

Right first time! I'll have to get my copy out to check the date though, it's pretty hard to read. Apart from The Richest Duck in the World, newspapers are the most reliable source of pinpointing exact dates. Not too many stories, though: The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark, the famous bar fight at the Blackjack Saloon, and the story within The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut are the only ones you can reliably date within a couple of days, rather than months or years.

[LP]

May 15, 2019 0:32:56 GMT That Duckfan said:

I'm curious about how you've reached these conclusions. It's not that I don't trust you - it's just been a long time since I read these stories.
What makes the placement of The Son of the Sun so conclusive? And why isn't Barks' third and final Flintheart story, So Far and No Safari, the third time we meet him?
What makes you so sure that The Golden Helmet is a pre-Junior Woodchuck story? 
There doesn't seem to be any indication whether the museum director recognizes Donald or not in The Son of the Sun, so it could easily go after The Golden Helmet.

Edit: Well, it seems that the quote box won't show what I'm quoting. But it was this from page 2:

The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan! (1956), The Flying Dutchman (1959), and Crown of the Mayas (1963) are all referenced. We see these items on display in The Son of the Sun. The Son of the Sun simply cannot be set in 1963 or later due to it being one of the most deeply rooted of Rosa's stories. It's pretty conclusively the third time we meet Flintheart Glomgold, after The Second-Richest Duck and The Money Champ, and before any other of Rosa's Glomgold stories. These include Return to Plain Awful, the very next Glomgold story, which is a pretty direct sequel to Lost in the Andes!, which takes place while Donald works at the Duckburg Museum as in The Golden Helmet, which is pretty evidently a pre-Junior Woodchuck adventure... And that doesn't even take into account that the museum director doesn't seem the recognize Donald in The Son of the Sun, or the fact that Donald applies to work in the museum in The Duck Who Never Was, which is way at the very end of his character journey!

[TheMidgetMoose]

May 15, 2019 13:26:37 GMT That Duckfan said:

May 15, 2019 10:24:54 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

In other news: I've started to check all the Barks stories Rosa references (or conspicuously avoids), and I've come across the first Barks story that definitely does not happen in the Rosa canon! In An Eye for Detail, Donald remarks that he cannot be hypnotized (before being hypnotized almost immediately). Therefore, all stories in which Donald is hypnotized happen afterwards. Of these stories, Back to Long Ago! is the only one directly referenced in Rosa stories (in that he reuses one of the hypnotists from that story). Other stories like Going Ape could happen later, but we have no way of knowing.
Now, Back to Long Ago! is one of the rare Barks stories that can be dated fairly precisely: the hypnotic sequence Scrooge and Donald dream of happens on December 6, 1564, and Scrooge references this event as taking place 392 years ago. That's too specific a reckoning to set the story anywhere but 1956, when it first came out. The problem? Scrooge dreams about learning of the long-lost mines of King Solomon (which Barks wrote in 1957) and the treasury of Croesus, two treasures proudly displayed in... The Son of the Sun! And again we come back to the problem that it's one of the earliest Glomgold appearances, happening before Return to Plain Awful, which I don't want to stray too far from Lost in the Andes!. If The Mines of King Solomon and The Treasury of Croesus happen after 1956, with The Son of the Sun even later... I can't make that work!
At that point it's easier to reconcile Scrooge already knowing the hypnotist (since they don't meet in Back to Long Ago!), and relegate the Barks story to another universe.

Perhaps Scrooge's math was a little off in Back to Long Ago!? It wouldn't be the first time, seeing as how the Rosaverse already has him referencing an event in 1949 as having happened 70 years ago when it really only happened 40-42 years beforehand. Also, how do we know that The Son of the Sun is one of the earliest Glomgold appearances? If it is, it obviously causes problems as it means that it most likely takes place before 1952, since Glomgold seems to be a well-established and old nemesis of Scrooge's in A Little Something Special, which is meant to take place in 1952. If, however, The Son of the Sun doesn't have to be one of the earliest Glomgold stories, I think that solves most of the problems we have here. Combine that with Scrooge's math being a little off, and it's easy to make a more compact, less confusing timeline.

[That Duckfan]

May 15, 2019 15:55:18 GMT LP said:

I'm curious about how you've reached these conclusions. It's not that I don't trust you - it's just been a long time since I read these stories.
What makes the placement of The Son of the Sun so conclusive? And why isn't Barks' third and final Flintheart story, So Far and No Safari, the third time we meet him?
What makes you so sure that The Golden Helmet is a pre-Junior Woodchuck story? 
There doesn't seem to be any indication whether the museum director recognizes Donald or not in The Son of the Sun, so it could easily go after The Golden Helmet.

No, I get that. And it's your right to ask questions. But believe me when I say it's a rabbit hole and it's best to get into it when we get there. That's why I wanted to do with chronologically: because it allows me to show references to stories that have already passed (and which ones would have to be in the future).

The Son of the Sun

2.5
Donald: "Oh, please, Flintheart! Don't start something! I don't think I could stand another contest to prove which of you is the richest! Anyway, your fortunes are too extensive to measure!"
Glomgold: "Humphh! Stuff and nonsense!"
2.6
Glomgold: "No matter how those silly contests came out, I've always been the money champ! And I earned my fortune instead of finding it lying about in dusty caves and musty temples!"
2.7
Scrooge: "Just a darn minute! Are you implying that it was easy to find these treasures!"
Glomgold: "In a word, yes, you old faker! What's so tough about finding other people's fortunes?"
2.8
Scrooge: "I'd like to see you try it, you web-footed four-flusher!"
Glomgold: "Well, if I ever did, I certainly wouldn't waste time on small potato 'treasures' like these!"

That implies to me that Scrooge and Glomgold have had no interactions other than their money-measuring contests in The Second-Richest Duck and The Money Champ. (They don't outright meet in So Far and No Safari, right? You could stick that story anywhere you like.)
It also implicitly rules out other stories where they fight to claim a treasure, like Island at the Edge of Time and The Last Lord of Eldorado (which Rosa believes to be the story where Scrooge 'defeats' Glomgold).

Return to Plain Awful is more ambiguous in that regard, but references The Son of the Sun:
4.7
Glomgold: "Jeeves! Tell my pilot to fuel up! We're off the Lake Titicoocoo in Peru! Immediately!"
Jeeves: "Again, sir?"

That leaves us with The Terror of the Transvaal, which is fairly self-explanatory, The Duck Who Never Was, in which Glomgold appears only briefly in a flashback, gloating in the aftermath of an alternative Magic Touch, and A Little Something Special. And that story is one of the biggest problem-makers, acting like Scrooge has known Glomgold and Magica since forever when they only met at most four years prior. And you can't argue with the dating of A Little Something Special without throwing out the premise of the story. Interestingly, the way I have things now, A Little Something Special is one of the earliest Rosa stories, but not one of the earliest Scrooge stories by a long shot! I've got all of 1948-51 to fill up with Barks stories.

The Golden Helmet

10.2
Donald: "Get your heavy coats, kids! We're going to Labrador!"
10.3
HDL: "We are? Why do we need heavy coats?"
10.4
Donald: "Because we're going to Labrador!"
HDL: "Well?"
10.5
HDL: "What's Labrador --- a movie?"
10.6
*Donald boings his head against the wall*
10.7
That evening!
Donald: "Here! Read these geographies and find out where we're going! A swell viking crew you ignorant lugs are going to make!"

Come on. You can't convince me those are the ten-star generals we know and love. In fact, I'd like to imagine that many of the early Barks adventures may have gotten the kids subconsciously interested in this sort of thing, before they actually joined the Woodchucks. (That way I have an easier time placing them.)

The curator

He's so odds with the Duck family in The Son of the Sun. After Glomgold pushes Donald into the exhibit:

3.9
Curator: "You blockhead! You've broken an ancient Incan funerary urn from Mr. McDuck's exhibit!"

He doesn't take a moment to recognize Donald and is angry that the Junior Woodchucks know more than he does, but he's probably distracted with the new find. Somehow I can't imagine him hiring Donald after a blunder like that, even if his breaking another museum exhibit at the start of Lost in the Andes! ends up pretty positively for him. It could go either way, really, but I prefer to have The Golden Helmet out of the way early for the reasons above, and tying together Donald's stint at the museum seems a natural thing to do.

[That Duckfan]

May 15, 2019 18:23:53 GMT TheMidgetMoose said:

May 15, 2019 13:26:37 GMT That Duckfan said:

In other news: I've started to check all the Barks stories Rosa references (or conspicuously avoids), and I've come across the first Barks story that definitely does not happen in the Rosa canon! In An Eye for Detail, Donald remarks that he cannot be hypnotized (before being hypnotized almost immediately). Therefore, all stories in which Donald is hypnotized happen afterwards. Of these stories, Back to Long Ago! is the only one directly referenced in Rosa stories (in that he reuses one of the hypnotists from that story). Other stories like Going Ape could happen later, but we have no way of knowing.
Now, Back to Long Ago! is one of the rare Barks stories that can be dated fairly precisely: the hypnotic sequence Scrooge and Donald dream of happens on December 6, 1564, and Scrooge references this event as taking place 392 years ago. That's too specific a reckoning to set the story anywhere but 1956, when it first came out. The problem? Scrooge dreams about learning of the long-lost mines of King Solomon (which Barks wrote in 1957) and the treasury of Croesus, two treasures proudly displayed in... The Son of the Sun! And again we come back to the problem that it's one of the earliest Glomgold appearances, happening before Return to Plain Awful, which I don't want to stray too far from Lost in the Andes!. If The Mines of King Solomon and The Treasury of Croesus happen after 1956, with The Son of the Sun even later... I can't make that work!
At that point it's easier to reconcile Scrooge already knowing the hypnotist (since they don't meet in Back to Long Ago!), and relegate the Barks story to another universe.

Perhaps Scrooge's math was a little off in Back to Long Ago!? It wouldn't be the first time, seeing as how the Rosaverse already has him referencing an event in 1949 as having happened 70 years ago when it really only happened 40-42 years beforehand. Also, how do we know that The Son of the Sun is one of the earliest Glomgold appearances? If it is, it obviously causes problems as it means that it most likely takes place before 1952, since Glomgold seems to be a well-established and old nemesis of Scrooge's in A Little Something Special, which is meant to take place in 1952. If, however, The Son of the Sun doesn't have to be one of the earliest Glomgold stories, I think that solves most of the problems we have here. Combine that with Scrooge's math being a little off, and it's easy to make a more compact, less confusing timeline.

True, there are times when Scrooge has memory problems, but the dates given in Back to Long Ago! are way too specific for this to be one of them.

Barks just isn't consistent. There are times when the bin is brand new, there are times when it's been standing in Duckburg for seventy years! Barks had a thing with 'seventy years' for a while, it's in Voodoo Hoodoo and I believe in The Magic Hourglass, also.

The Son of the Sun isn't as big of a problem as it seems, but it is pretty dear to the spirit of my chronology. Also, given the way Rosa and Barks characterize the Ducks, having most Rosa stories take place after most Barks stories also just makes sense. The Ducks are much more knowing in the latter, knowledge of the world and of one another, knowledge of metafictional logic. A Little Something Special is arguably the bigger problem, purely character-wise.

Besides, Voodoo Hoodoo definitely does not take place in Rosa's 1949iverse.

25.3
Donald: "Good-by, Foola Zoola! Come on, kids! We've got a swell story to tell Uncle Scrooge!"
25.4
Foola Zoola: "UNCLE?"
25.5
Foola Zoola: "Is Scrooge McDuck your uncle?"
Donald: "Sure is! I'm his nearest living relative!"
25.7
Foola Zoola: "Throw him in the bull pen! It is the law of voodoo that the nearest of kin can atone for the sins of a wrongdoer!"

Donald is Scrooge's nearest living relative? His nephew? Not his sister Mathilda?

If you want to set Voodoo Hoodoo somewhere, you have to set it after Mathilda's death. In other words, after A Letter from Home and The Crown of the Crusader Kings, two of the very latest stories in the chronology for yet other reasons (most of them character-driven). 1949 is right out, no matter what Rosa says.
We can try setting Voodoo Hoodoo in 1979. That wouldn't necessarily contradict anything other than Rosa's idea that Scrooge ages naturally and dies in 1967. Or we could just ignore Voodoo Hoodoo and its unfortunate colonialist overtones. (I'd rather do that instead, to be honest!)

Barks's Scrooge can be pretty on point with his dates, too. I said earlier that he refers to the gold rush as having been forty years earlier, but I reread Back to the Klondike and it's not in there: fifty years is the timeline Scrooge points to, which in this case is absolutely right.

[TheMidgetMoose]

May 16, 2019 15:49:58 GMT That Duckfan said:

May 15, 2019 18:23:53 GMT TheMidgetMoose said:

Perhaps Scrooge's math was a little off in Back to Long Ago!? It wouldn't be the first time, seeing as how the Rosaverse already has him referencing an event in 1949 as having happened 70 years ago when it really only happened 40-42 years beforehand. Also, how do we know that The Son of the Sun is one of the earliest Glomgold appearances? If it is, it obviously causes problems as it means that it most likely takes place before 1952, since Glomgold seems to be a well-established and old nemesis of Scrooge's in A Little Something Special, which is meant to take place in 1952. If, however, The Son of the Sun doesn't have to be one of the earliest Glomgold stories, I think that solves most of the problems we have here. Combine that with Scrooge's math being a little off, and it's easy to make a more compact, less confusing timeline.

True, there are times when Scrooge has memory problems, but the dates given in Back to Long Ago! are way too specific for this to be one of them.

Barks just isn't consistent. There are times when the bin is brand new, there are times when it's been standing in Duckburg for seventy years! Barks had a thing with 'seventy years' for a while, it's in Voodoo Hoodoo and I believe in The Magic Hourglass, also.

The Son of the Sun isn't as big of a problem as it seems, but it is pretty dear to the spirit of my chronology. Also, given the way Rosa and Barks characterize the Ducks, having most Rosa stories take place after most Barks stories also just makes sense. The Ducks are much more knowing in the latter, knowledge of the world and of one another, knowledge of metafictional logic. A Little Something Special is arguably the bigger problem, purely character-wise.

Besides, Voodoo Hoodoo definitely does not take place in Rosa's 1949iverse.

25.3
Donald: "Good-by, Foola Zoola! Come on, kids! We've got a swell story to tell Uncle Scrooge!"
25.4
Foola Zoola: "UNCLE?"
25.5
Foola Zoola: "Is Scrooge McDuck your uncle?"
Donald: "Sure is! I'm his nearest living relative!"
25.7
Foola Zoola: "Throw him in the bull pen! It is the law of voodoo that the nearest of kin can atone for the sins of a wrongdoer!"

Donald is Scrooge's nearest living relative? His nephew? Not his sister Mathilda?

If you want to set Voodoo Hoodoo somewhere, you have to set it after Mathilda's death. In other words, after A Letter from Home and The Crown of the Crusader Kings, two of the very latest stories in the chronology for yet other reasons (most of them character-driven). 1949 is right out, no matter what Rosa says.
We can try setting Voodoo Hoodoo in 1979. That wouldn't necessarily contradict anything other than Rosa's idea that Scrooge ages naturally and dies in 1967. Or we could just ignore Voodoo Hoodoo and its unfortunate colonialist overtones. (I'd rather do that instead, to be honest!)

Barks's Scrooge can be pretty on point with his dates, too. I said earlier that he refers to the gold rush as having been forty years earlier, but I reread Back to the Klondike and it's not in there: fifty years is the timeline Scrooge points to, which in this case is absolutely right.

I've always seen Scrooge's characterization in Voodoo Hoodoo to point towards it being at the beginning of the timeline, since he seems to pretty happy about what he did to Foola Zoola's village. In connection to the Rosaverse, I've seen that as a sign of how much Scrooge has hardened between the events of The Empire-Builder from Calisota and The Richest Duck in the World. Contrast his view of his actions in Voodoo Hoodoo with that of his view of same actions in the Titanic-portion of The Empire-Builder from Calisota, which takes pace in 1912, where says it was his "one foul deed." My impression has always been that Scrooge hardened so much between 1912 and 1949 that he what he once saw as a shameful thing, he now looks back on with pride. Presumably, after spending enough time around Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, he softens up a bit. In other words, I doubt the Scrooge of 1979 would feel the same way about things as the Scrooge of 1949.

As far as the whole "nearest living relative" thing goes, A Letter from Home could reasonably be read as Scrooge learning of Matilda's existence, perhaps having assumed that she had died. Before the events of Voodoo Hoodoo, he may have said something to Donald along the lines of, "You know, I think you may very well be my nearest living relative." To say one is Scrooge McDuck's nearest living relative would surely be something to brag about, so Donald takes to it and gets into the habit of proclaiming himself to be Scrooge's nearest relative, without even taking into account the existence of Aunt Matilda. In other words, Donald may have just been repeating what Scrooge told him without putting much thought into how the family tree worked and the fact that Matilda would be genealogically closer to Scrooge.

[muggyruglugg]

May 16, 2019 16:47:44 GMT TheMidgetMoose said:

May 16, 2019 15:49:58 GMT That Duckfan said:

True, there are times when Scrooge has memory problems, but the dates given in Back to Long Ago! are way too specific for this to be one of them.

Barks just isn't consistent. There are times when the bin is brand new, there are times when it's been standing in Duckburg for seventy years! Barks had a thing with 'seventy years' for a while, it's in Voodoo Hoodoo and I believe in The Magic Hourglass, also.

The Son of the Sun isn't as big of a problem as it seems, but it is pretty dear to the spirit of my chronology. Also, given the way Rosa and Barks characterize the Ducks, having most Rosa stories take place after most Barks stories also just makes sense. The Ducks are much more knowing in the latter, knowledge of the world and of one another, knowledge of metafictional logic. A Little Something Special is arguably the bigger problem, purely character-wise.

Besides, Voodoo Hoodoo definitely does not take place in Rosa's 1949iverse.

25.3
Donald: "Good-by, Foola Zoola! Come on, kids! We've got a swell story to tell Uncle Scrooge!"
25.4
Foola Zoola: "UNCLE?"
25.5
Foola Zoola: "Is Scrooge McDuck your uncle?"
Donald: "Sure is! I'm his nearest living relative!"
25.7
Foola Zoola: "Throw him in the bull pen! It is the law of voodoo that the nearest of kin can atone for the sins of a wrongdoer!"

Donald is Scrooge's nearest living relative? His nephew? Not his sister Mathilda?

If you want to set Voodoo Hoodoo somewhere, you have to set it after Mathilda's death. In other words, after A Letter from Home and The Crown of the Crusader Kings, two of the very latest stories in the chronology for yet other reasons (most of them character-driven). 1949 is right out, no matter what Rosa says.
We can try setting Voodoo Hoodoo in 1979. That wouldn't necessarily contradict anything other than Rosa's idea that Scrooge ages naturally and dies in 1967. Or we could just ignore Voodoo Hoodoo and its unfortunate colonialist overtones. (I'd rather do that instead, to be honest!)

Barks's Scrooge can be pretty on point with his dates, too. I said earlier that he refers to the gold rush as having been forty years earlier, but I reread Back to the Klondike and it's not in there: fifty years is the timeline Scrooge points to, which in this case is absolutely right.

I've always seen Scrooge's characterization in Voodoo Hoodoo to point towards it being at the beginning of the timeline, since he seems to pretty happy about what he did to Foola Zoola's village. In connection to the Rosaverse, I've seen that as a sign of how much Scrooge has hardened between the events of The Empire-Builder from Calisota and The Richest Duck in the World. Contrast his view of his actions in Voodoo Hoodoo with that of his view of same actions in the Titanic-portion of The Empire-Builder from Calisota, which takes pace in 1912, where says it was his "one foul deed." My impression has always been that Scrooge hardened so much between 1912 and 1949 that he what he once saw as a shameful thing, he now looks back on with pride. Presumably, after spending enough time around Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, he softens up a bit. In other words, I doubt the Scrooge of 1979 would feel the same way about things as the Scrooge of 1949.

As far as the whole "nearest living relative" thing goes, A Letter from Home could reasonably be read as Scrooge learning of Matilda's existence, perhaps having assumed that she had died. Before the events of Voodoo Hoodoo, he may have said something to Donald along the lines of, "You know, I think you may very well be my nearest living relative." To say one is Scrooge McDuck's nearest living relative would surely be something to brag about, so Donald takes to it and gets into the habit of proclaiming himself to be Scrooge's nearest relative, without even taking into account the existence of Aunt Matilda. In other words, Donald may have just been repeating what Scrooge told him without putting much thought into how the family tree worked and the fact that Matilda would be genealogically closer to Scrooge.

Maybe, but Donald forgetting that a sister is genealogically closer than a nephew is stupid even for his standards.

[That Duckfan]

Yeah you could interpret it as him being Scrooge's "nearest and dearest", but that's clearly not what Barks what going for and it's also very unlikely to come out of Scrooge's mouth, regardless of whose version you pick.

Let's just agree that it's an abberation either way. I made the mistake of going through an edition with the 1949 artwork. I think I'd prefer to forget the whole thing...

[TheMidgetMoose]

May 16, 2019 21:46:39 GMT That Duckfan said:

Yeah you could interpret it as him being Scrooge's "nearest and dearest", but that's clearly not what Barks what going for and it's also very unlikely to come out of Scrooge's mouth, regardless of whose version you pick.

Let's just agree that it's an abberation either way. I made the mistake of going through an edition with the 1949 artwork. I think I'd prefer to forget the whole thing...

If you want to ignore the story, you have all the right in the world to! However, I think Voodoo Hoodoo is almost definitely a part of Rosa's canon. I don't think all that buildup in The Empire-Builder from Calisota was for nothing. I stand by my belief that, on the Rosa timeline, Voodoo Hoodo belongs in 1948/1949 due to Scrooge's character evolution. Do we still have the "70 years" and "nearest living relative" things to deal with? Yes, but I think explanations, even if they be unsatisfactory ones, can be found to make sense, even if it's only a little sense, of these problems.

[LP]

Since Rosa has explained that he chose to ignore the "seventy years" line in Voodoo Hoodoo, why shouldn't we? I mean, this is about trying to figure out the Rosa-timeline of Rosa canon, right? Since Rosa ignored the "seventy years", it wasn't 70 years in Rosa's universe. In "Rosa's version of Voodoo Hoodoo", Scrooge likely said the event happened 40 or 50 years ago. In order to craft a timeline where everything makes sense, retcons are bound to be necessary at some time. 
I'd also argue that just because something is racist and makes people uncomfortable, doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

[That Duckfan]

May 17, 2019 11:53:51 GMT LP said:

Since Rosa has explained that he chose to ignore the "seventy years" line in Voodoo Hoodoo, why shouldn't we? I mean, this is about trying to figure out the Rosa-timeline of Rosa canon, right? Since Rosa ignored the "seventy years", it wasn't 70 years in Rosa's universe. In "Rosa's version of Voodoo Hoodoo", Scrooge likely said the event happened 40 or 50 years ago. In order to craft a timeline where everything makes sense, retcons are bound to be necessary at some time. 
I'd also argue that just because something is racist and makes people uncomfortable, doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

If we were talking about real life, I'd be with you 100%. It's important to be inclusive of all part of history, even if they make us uncomfortable. I'd love to look at Voodoo Hoodoo in detail, as well as Rosa's reimagining of the events in The Empire-Builder of Calisota. And maybe we will, when we get there. I mean, the latter story is still something I'm hoping to cover.

Maybe it's worth pointing out what I'm doing here. When Barks was telling stories, he occasionally dropped some backstory to make the characters come to life more. In the Life of Scrooge, Rosa sifted through that backstory to serve as the background for his interpretation of Scrooge, and pretended to set the stories in the 1950s for his own amusement. Barks never had any Grand Design in his head apart from some storytelling notions he wanted to pursue, but Rosa went to the trouble of making one anyway -- even if he had to ignore some things in the process. Sometimes Barksian 'facts', sometimes entire stories, sometimes Barks's characterizations. Because Rosa was trying to tell his own story in the end.
Now I'm not interested in individual stories. I'm not interested in Rosa's ideas on what belongs where, except when it doesn't contradict anything else. No, I'm looking at the facts Rosa left behind and reassembling a timeline out of that. Now, Rosa didn't have any Grand Design for his stories either apart from some storytelling notions he wanted to pursue, but I can still try and reconstruct one. But Rosa went a different route than what Barks would have done (or did), and the same goes for me. I'm not concerned with how Rosa sees his universe because the idea behind this thread is not to regurgitate his ideas. I'm also telling my own story, in my own way, with Rosa's stories as a starting point.

Just as Rosa has always said, you may disagree with my conclusions and come up with your own timeline. I don't think we'll ever be able to come to a conclusion on how it all fits together, and we shouldn't. It's art, we all take away different things from it. There's no "wrong" way to interpret it. In fact, I have another timeline that takes elements from Scrooge's life, but where he's a minor character -- and it looks again very different.

The easy way would be ignore anachronisms and dump all of Rosa's stories between 1947 and 1955. No doubt that's what he had in mind. But I don't think that's entirely truthful. I'm taking his stories at their word: it would be presumptious of me to change someone else's text like that. I can see why Rosa did what he did, but I don't want to it myself. If Barks made a story where Scrooge makes his second billion in 1879, then sure. I can believe that within the confines of the story. It contradicts basically everything we learn about Scrooge later, so in that sense it exists on its own. In its own universe very similar to the ones we know, in a Rick and Morty kind of way. Just not this one I'm building right now.

Does that make sense?

[LP]

I understand what you're saying, Duckfan. But by your reasoning, as soon as one Rosa story contradicts another, we suddenly have more than one Rosa-universe. And every time the Money Bin changes shape, every time the geography of Duckburg changes, every time Donald finds out that Scrooge has kept the first coin he ever earned... well, you get my point.

I don't I agree with the way you do it 100%, but I guess that's the point - this is your way of doing it. And I'll still be interested in seeing how this project of yours turns out!

[TheMidgetMoose]

Hey, That Duckfan, I just wanted to let you know that I, for one, am still interested in this series! I'm perfectly fine waiting longer for updates, so there's no need to be in a rush. I just want you to know that I am still interested and that this project hasn't been forgotten.

[LP]

I agree with Midget Moose.
There's a lot of content to go through, so I completely understand that this takes a lot of time. And there's also the fact that life gets in the way of hobbies. I get it.