Uncle Scrooge and the Seven Crystal Balls

[Olaf Solstrand]

Quoting Ole R Nielsen <oleroc at tdcspace.dk>:

> I'm looking for a story I thought I remembered from a recent Egmont weekly,
> but can't seem to find - not with COA either.
> If I remember it correctly, it was written by Lars Jensen and drawn by
> Vicar
> and starts off with a scene lifted straight out of the Tintin story "The
> Seven Crystal Balls": Donald and Scrooge discusses the improbability of a
> movie (or is it a comic book?) where the characters talk about a person
> they
> haven't seen for 20 years or so, and of course they bump into him at the
> next corner. I noticed how even the "camera angles" match the original and
> would like to know both where to find this story again and what the story
> behind this cadeau to Hergé is. Lars?

I remember this story very well. Well, I remember it was published right after 
a great vacation I had, so I KNOW it came in July 2001.

A quick INDUCKS check reveals the issue was, in your case, Anders And & Co 
27/01. Story code D 99252.


And the discussion on the cadeau has been up earlier...

November 25th 2002, Lars Jensen wrote:

> [Gilles Maurice:]
> The first page of the story he [Douglas McDuck] appears
> in (D 99252) seems to be a sort of spoof (plagiate?) on the first
> page of Hergé's Tintin-album 'Coke en stock' ('The Red Sea
> Sharks').

It was a homage. Originally, the comic book shop's window didn't have a
display of superheroes - and we were going to get a closer look at the
album Donald was reading. An album strongly reminiscent of "Coke en
stock".
I wanted this particular opening page, partly because I happen to think
Tintin is the greatest comic book ever created and partly because it was
a handy explanation of the incredible coincidence that Scrooge would
happen to run into a relative he hadn't seen for years. By paralleling
the album events with the "real-life" Duckburg events, I hoped the
Scrooge-Douglas meeting would become more believable to the reader. Oh,
and I also wanted this opening page because Scrooge's (idiotic)
criticism of Donald's wasteful ways (in buying that album) would be
paralleled by Douglas' (idiotic) criticism of Scrooge's wasteful ways
over the next 11 pages.
My editor believed we couldn't make that obvious a reference to Tintin
and Haddock and instead had them changed to superheroes named Beakman
and Herring. The opening still worked, though.

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That's my two cents for today. At least for now.


Olaf