The other Grandma - still!

Frank Bubacz frankbubacz at hotmail.com
Wed Nov 20 00:00:24 CET 2002


Hi,

Thanks for the replies re "The other Grandma". So Rob seems to be pretty 
sure it's Elvira. I myself, however, am still not quite convinced. It's not 
only her look, it's especially her behaviour that leaves me sceptical. Did 
Elvira ever jump around like a teenager in the Taliaferro strips?
Fact is: Taliaferro used the character only 24 times (if I have counted 
correctly) in his daily and Sunday strips respectively, between September 
1943 and March '44. After that he neglected Grandma for a shocking four and 
a half years. So three possible explanations for the strikingly different 
Grandma in Barks' "Best Christmas" come to my mind:

1. Barks read the Taliaferro strips regularly, but not all of them, and
   maybe missed the existance of Elvira altogether. As I said, she
   hadn't been used very often at the time (1945).
2. Barks knew of her existance, but didn't consider her an important
   character, because she only had appeared 24 times in the strips, and
   had disappeared completely for one and a half year, when he drew
   "Best Christmas" in August 1945. She also wasn't a character in the
   cartoons, which may have added to her "unimportance". So Barks
   thought to himself: "So what, I'll create my own Grandma."
3. Barks had read the strips featuring Grandma, but showed an
   extraordinary bad memory for both her looks and two of her most
   important character traits: discipline and dignity.

1. and 2. seem to be more plausible to me, that's why I herewith claim:
The Grandma we see in "Best Christmas" is another one! Hopefully, one or two 
of you will agree, especially after Gilles was so kind to put a scan 
online...  ;-)

Frank





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