DCML digest #1257

[Don Rosa]

Okay, a number of observations:

First, let's get this outta the way since it's off-topic. What Norwegians
call "kålrabi", we call the very same. Only since we don't have those nutty
'å' dealies, we spell it kohlrabi. It's a sortuva cabbage-turnip... a
medium-sized white root-ball with long tendrils... looking like the 1957
Sputnik with its trailing antennae. Anyway, any questions concerning this
sort of thing you can send my way. My wife and I are avid gardeners and
cooks. And students and makers of wines. And cookbook collectors. And... but
enough of that -- I'm making myself hungry.

from Jørn Egil Opdahl (jol at spray.no)
Subject: Re: About how the Ducks in Duckburg was born
 >>>I can't understand this obsession on "how old are they", "when do they
die",
or "how were they born"? By doing that you take away the magic ! I lost
Santa Claus, I lost Jesus by
starting to ask for those answers. Darn if I will loose Donald and Unca
$crooge by starting to ponder on that.

Jørn then goes on to say some *very* nice things about my work -- so nice
that I might drop his message into my "Very Flattering Messages" save-file!
So when I disagree with him, it's in the most gracious terms.
But as we say, "one man's meat is another man's poison" (no, I'm not a
poison gourmet also). Though overanalyzing clearly spoils some people's
enjoyment of their interests or hobbies, for others of us (and I am in that
forefront!) overanalysis is what makes it *more* fun. I'm actually surprised
that a fan who dislikes overanalysis would like my purposely overly-serious,
overly complex story-telling -- usually that's the only criticism people
have for me (which feels good as I consider it a compliment).
Anyway, even though I enjoy the long discussions as Bob Klein's, I prefer my
own attitude to these matters of character species or timelines, since (in
this rare case) my view takes the ultra-simple approach:
These characters are not hatched from eggs, they don't have any trouble with
inter-species marriage or procreation, they don't have problems with their
differing physical appearances..... because they are all caricatures of
normal humans. It's as simple as that. And $crooge can have made his fortune
in the Yukon and still be alive as an octogenarian in "current" stories
because, simply, the "current" stories are not happening in the present. No
problems with fairy tale creatures or frozen space-time continuums or
immortal beings... it's simply the same as reading an authentically done
story about Nero Wolf or Philip Marlowe whose era was the 1930's-50's... or
Sherlock Holmes whose stories take place in Victorian times. One approach is
that you simply set the stories in their appropriate time, as with virtually
all Holmes stories and with the Nero Wolf series on A&E. But another
approach is to set the stories in the "future" of those characters... such
as was done when Universal Pictures had Sherlock fight Nazis in WWII (in
movies made in those years) and as with Philip Marlowe in 1973's "The Long
Goodbye" that had him interacting with LA hippies rather than Hollywood
flappers or bobby-soxers. Some people would never accept a Sherlock who did
not work for Queen Victoria or a Marlowe who might not run into Garbo on
Sunset Boulevard... but others dislike "period pieces" and can't relate to a
story unless it's taking place in their own time and world with which they
are familiar. I think that good stories can be told in either fashion,
though I know the style I prefer which seems truer to the characters as I
know them. But how do the viewers of the Universal Holmes films explain his
presence in 1945? Is he 90 years old? Is he living in a fairy tale world? Or
did those classic Victorian adventures which made him famous just never take
place?! I can't tolerate any of those attitudes when it's infinitely simpler
to have any new Holmes or Wolf or Marlowe adventure take place in the past,
or decide (for myself alone) that my BarksDuck stories are taking place in
some unspecified 1950's year.
Anyway, all views are valid if it's what makes you happy. But anytime you
are reading one of my particular BarksDuck stories, know that you are
reading a story of *human beings* set in the 1950's.

As for what people interpret Barks as saying or implying about his
characters, we can even decide for ourselves as to what he means for us. His
answers to these questions changed a bit from time to time or interviewer to
interviewer (and "filter" to "filter", if you take my meaning). He made
jokes about "eggs", not because he regarded these characters as birds (since
he has clearly said on other occasions that they were people), but simply
because the remark about the egg was *funny* at the time. I don't think
Donald really has feathers, but sometimes I'll show an errant feather being
slapped off his butt simply *because it's funny*. And Barks drew different
"Ducks" in different ways (as with the Trala la Ducks) because he didn't
really want to be drawing the adventures of funny animals .. he really
wanted to be doing comedy/adventure strips like "Captain Easy" or "Ally Oop"
with human characters, and I believe that's how he viewed his works, but his
job was to tell stories of Disney's Donald Duck. We know that he was shoved
by his editors back from the edge he'd reached with "Dangerous Disguise"
where Donald was in the real world with *authentic* humans. But thereafter
you could still see the human qualities creeping back into his
character-caricatures, as with the Trala La folks and their duck heads on
completely human bodies, or the Duckburg "dogs" who eventually became humans
with black noses, or the Duckburg characters of later stories who had
duckbills and *human ears* (something that really creeps me out!). Anyway,
all I'm saying is that I can interpret Barks' works and words to fit my own
view of his Universe. The view that makes me happy. And so can you. So go
for it.