DCML digest #1260

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Tue Feb 18 14:20:56 CET 2003


From: "Cord Wiljes" <cord at wiljes.de>
> http://duckman.pettho.com/tree/american.html
>>>>Yes, as valid as the tree I could invent myself.

Well, yeah, if you consider yourself as more of an authority on Barks' Ducks
than Barks. But you are free to do so.

>>>Don: I view the family relationships between the Ducks more from their
behaviour -

I view the family relationships between the Ducks as they appear in Barks'
Family Tree of same, which is what I based my Tree on, and which I had
checked and approved by Barks. In fact, in all my correspondence with him,
this was the one topic that interested in the most, perhaps because it held
the essence of his creation of this "Universe". He even redrew the Tree for
me with annotations, specifically citing lines of dialogue in "Race for the
South Seas" where he had correctly stated Gladstone's relationship to Donald
and the fact that Gladstone is NOT related to $crooge except by marriage
(and also citing where he (Barks) had an error in that "South Seas"
dialogue.
I diverged from Barks only in the addition (at Egmont's insistence) of
Fethry and (at my choice) the linkage of Ludwig Von Drake (whom I had my own
childhood desire to include, just as you refer to your childhood decisions
based on "behaviors"). All other additions to the Tree were only new
characters necessary to link the various Barks characters together (giving
spouses to spouses and brothers to sisters where they obviously had to be).
I did not remove any characters from Barks' version.

>>>Grandma and Scrooge for
example act like older sister and younger brother.

I'm not sure exactly how that would be different from older non-sister to
younger non-brother on two sides of a close family.

>>>Grandma acts like HD&Ls grandmother.

But nothing like a Great Grandmother....? (???)

>>> And I also believe she acts like Donald's mother - or
at least someone who educated him in his younger years.

And that's the case. This is how it's been said to have been ever since the
Dell comics of the 1950's, even if the fact was never used in a Barks story.
And though I can't read them, there seems to be a very nice current series
of stories about Donald being raised by Grandma Duck in the current Egmont
issues. Which brings a question to me for those who can read these stories:
does the young Donald call the lady "Mom" or "Grandma"? Or "hey, you!"? (But
even if he's calling her "Momma" in those stories, that wouldn't change the
relationship as Barks defined it in his notes.)

>>>And of course I can enjoy stories which assume other family
connections.

Of course!

>>> Maybe the Ducks lost track themselves? Or the matter is not
as important for them as it is for us humans?

No, I think it's because they don't have Internet websites to discuss it.
(...since the stories take place in the 1950's! Wait. Stop while we're
ahead!)

>>>Considering the coins in the money bin: Did not Barks himself depict the
coins in his beauterribleful oil paintings in (mainly) gold?

Nonono, we've had that discussion before as to why Barks colored the coins
in the oil paintings as gold. You can hunt that down in the archives. It's
fun to have these discussions, but not the same ones overandoverandover.
(I like your word "beauterribleful"!)




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