Hortense and Matilda / Life of Donald

Darin Reid AREID at MARY.FORDHAM.EDU
Sun Feb 6 14:16:58 CET 1994


>	You were upset that I drew young $crooge to look like HD&L? How
>else should I draw a young Duck?! What choice do I have? And whatsamatta
>with him looking like HD&L, anyhow? 

Well, I wasn't really upset, I was just kidding.  But there must be other ways
to draw young ducks.  


>	There isn't much chance of a "Life and Times of Donald Duck"
>since I don't know what that could involve. I mean, he doesn't have a
>history like $crooge; Donald was just born, grew up and there he was. I
>might (for some reason I don't yet know) do a story about Donald as a
>youth, but the tale couldn't involve any important moment in his life as
>there are none. He's the "Everyman" character.

     Well, he doesn't have an adventurous history like $crooge, but he does 
have one.  What makes Donald Duck the way he is?  What events happened when he
was growing up that made him so clueless? :-)  Maybe a "Life of Donald" series
could include landmark events in his life.  Events such as his first run in
with cousin Gladstone, the first time he met Uncle Scrooge, and so on.  I mean
any excuse to get you to draw more ducks Don. :-)



>	I can also always drop back and do some other stories about
>something that happened to Hortense and Matilda. They are only shown in
>brief spots in the Lo$, and they mysteriously disappear after chapter 11
>by simply telling $crooge that they never want to see him again. After
>that, maybe they move back to Scotland, maybe they die... it doesn't
>really matter, so why deal with it? And even though I COULD tell a story
>of Hortense and Matilda (or Pa and Ma or such), if $crooge is not there
>to be part of it, there would be little reason for the tale and readers
>would not be particularly interested, I shouldn't think.
 
    What happens to them matters to me because I can't stand to see potentially
important characters just fade into nothing.  I mean here you have the two
people who should be the most important part of $crooge's life, but they
disappear?  I think that if you don't do anymore "kid" Hortense and Matilda
stories, then you should do a 1 or 2 part $crooge adventure that re-unites
$crooge with his sisters.  

    If you ever did a Hortense and Matilda story without $crooge I think that
the interest would be there.  Maybe you could show how their lives turned out
after their break with $scrooge.  Maybe they made their own fortunes.  Maybe
they became adventurers.  Maybe they became hermits.  There is any number of
ways they could have gone.  Plus, this is *your* opportunity, Don, to *create*
a branch of Duck lore that is *all* your own.  Unless you only want to do Barks
stuff, which is fine with me.  But you should think about it.  Remember that
Barks created $crooge out of nothing, and made him into one  of the most
popular characters in comics history.  You could use either Hortense, Matilda,
or either to do the same.

--
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