Duckburg and the Masquerade

[jeanmarcbano]

I define here the notion of Masquerade by a universe where the appearances can be wrong with a fake construction of reality.
1) The dreams: a part of the plots which happen in Duckburg happens in the world of the dreams; the dreams stories exist in many italian ones but also in Carl Barks (in old California, Cave of Ali Baba, Back to long ago, in these stories the frontier between the dreams and reality is blurred).
2)Double identities: the double personalities play a substantial role in Duckburg (piège pour le sou fétiche d'oncle picsou mickey parade 1199bis, all the content of the mickey parade 1301 bis, see also Topolino, the gothic horror story The golden fleecing Carl Barks 1955); sometimes this double personality appears to be the work of Magica De Spell (for old dime's sake 1962, Magica is used to taking a lot of different personalities), sometimes the double comes from the magic powers of the witch Carabosse (Donald paladin de Picsou VI, mickey parade 951 bis, 1971); the double appears to be a substitute of the comics super-heros of the sixties (the character of super-duck). In a story of Carl Barks, some unknow strangers play the part of guardians of a lighthouse on a coast where a lot of Scrooge's boats crash; these guardians prove to be the Beagles Boys; sometimes this is the time dimension which is responsable of a splitted personality (paperino anno 2001 - Donald De Picsou en l'an 2001 - a story where Scrooge is both everywhere and nowhere, everywhere because his image goes through the entire story and people talk constantly about him, everywhere too through the Donald of the future as well as in the video screen of the beginning; nowhere because his real personality is materialized nowhere, so, the best representation that we can have of him in this story is the representation of a ghost, here and nowhere at once; for summarizing, paperino anno 2001 or the art of talking about Scrooge without Scrooge); other italian stories play with the double and the ambiguity of the personalities: l'antipaperone, in the excellent ludicrous story of the sixties Zio Paperone e il richiamo turistico this is the own secretary of Scrooge who plays the masquerade in order to fool Rockerduck (Flairsou) for selling him an unproductive Scrooge's hotel lost in the mountains and inhabited by no one.
3)The money bin: a real fortress? One thing which seems to be interesting about the money bin is that it seems to have accelerated the solitude and misanthropist side of Scrooge; in the Carl Barks' pre-money bin stories, we are still seeing a lot of people agitated around him: his numerous employees; following these stories, and later, in the italian stories, we are seeing Scrooge rather alone in his fortress; in the sixties italian stories, we often see him with just a secretary and a majordomo (this consideration is a generality, the contrary is proved by a fifties Scarpa's story Picsou et le sage de Ulah Ulah, mickey parade 30, where the money bin contains an army of accountants); however, the money bin isn't the impregnable place which is supposed to be; in some stories this is almost an open place where people -strangers- go and come; a lot of villains succeed in reaching Scrooge easily, and sometimes thanks to the help of brillant disguises (Magica De Spell, the beagles boys in many stories); an another analogy in the game of the masquerade: there is an important number of stories where the things don't work quite well for the characters or are simply illusion: onc picsou au pays d'Alkali, repetitive failures in the Gyro's inventions, quests for some money or treasures which end badly and without success (the surprisingly bitter end of The Seven Cities of Cibola Carl barks 1954).
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