Reply to John Crocker

lgiver@postoffice.pacbell.net lgiver at postoffice.pacbell.net
Thu May 1 08:38:22 CEST 2003


Hi John:
                Barks' little 5 page backup story to "Back to the Klondike"
(March, 1953) called "Something Fishy Here" is this type of story.
Donald tricks Scrooge into believing that the American government
declared money worthless, and instituted fish as the new American money.
After bemoaning his fate, Scrooge accepts that he has become
instantly poor, and vows to start anew.  He goes to get a job at the
fishing docks.  He gets a few fish as pay for a day's work.  He makes
some trades, and soon he has a small mountain of fish.  
              But his fish are not refrigerated, and start to smell bad.
Fish lack the "easy to store" property that economists find necessary
for money.   Scrooge decides he doesn't want to be rich in this new
money; he'd rather not swim in fish.  So he gives his fortune to
Donald; in the last panel a mountain of fish covers Donald's house,
and HDL tell him "your trick (on Scrooge) backfired".
                Barks composed this 5 page story because the editors
cut out 5 pages of "Back to the Klondike" in its first printing.  So
Barks has to recuperate from the disappointment of the editors
cutting out the panels about Scrooge's goose-egg nugget, etc,
and then he had to do the extra work to fill that empty space.  I
think it's remarkable he was able to compose this neat 5-page
story under those circumstances.
                                            Best wishes,   Larry Giver.



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