Rosa's approach to inconsistencies

Wilmer Rivers rivers at seismo.CSS.GOV
Wed Aug 18 16:18:31 CEST 1993


Don Rosa writes:
>	Let me at least hear someone admit that it IS impossible to make
> perfect sense out of every one of Barks' $crooge stories when put all
> together. Do we at least realize that there ARE blatant contradictions
> since Barks never intended for there to be any continuity?
>
O.K., I'll be that someone to admit it's impossible.

The problem has always been that some stories do require, or at least
benefit from, familiarity with a certain collective memory of duck lore,
but most of the stories have to be considered independently or else
they would be contradictory.  The approach which Don Rosa has described,
as I understand it, is to (1) try to codify the critical elements of
the history to which reference is made in the stories as being a
genuine time-line of past events, and (2) have each "modern" story
happen around 1955, after which it vanishes from memory so that the next
story can happen in 1955 too with no effect of the previous one.  (Is
this in fact the scheme?)  Treating the stories as alternate possible
realities, but all drawing on the same history, is probably the best
way to consider them.  (You can compare this to the many-worlds inter-
pretation of quantum mechanics, if you wish, but why bother.)  I would
endorse this approach rather than following DC comics' approach to
resolving all continuity conflicts by imposing a Crisis in Infinite
Duckburgs, or some other unsatisfactory tinkering with the plot lines.

Wilmer Rivers
rivers at seismo.css.gov



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