Stranger Than Fiction

[Gerd Syllwasschy]

> From: "Frank Bubacz" <frankbubacz at hotmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 15:57:13 +0200
> 
> >From: Alecto
> >
> >Anyone care to suggest where the cuts were made in the story?
> 
> BarksBase suggests that the lower half of page 8 and the upper half of page
> 9 were possibly spliced together from two original pages.
> But that's just speculation, as Barks never gave a hint himself, AFAIK.

Let's call it "educated guesswork". There do not seem to be any obvious
gaps in the story line or in the dialog, so I looked for traces in the
artwork. These may not be very striking in Alecto's scans or in any
small-sized reprint on cheap paper, but they are visible in the Carl
Barks Library of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in Color (issue #42).

Take a close look at the upper half of page 9. The panels do not quite
align, they are of different height. The text in the speech balloons in
the 3rd panel looks a little crammed against the frame, so this panel
was likely cut in width. It's not quite so obvious in the lower half of
page 8, but the 6th panel looks cut too, and the last panel is even
rotated a little, as if someone did some careless pasting. Plus, two
captions ("Soon..." in the 6th panel of page 8 and "So..." in the 5th
panel of page 9) look as if they were inserted afterwards, which would
indicate that they are stand-ins for some omitted panels.

Of course I may just be seeing things. Any comments are welcome!

Gerd