Yesterday and Today in Duckburg

[jeanmarcbano]

Duckburg is a multiple dimension place : this is a static place for vaudeville, comical and ludicrous stories; this is also a place that people quit for coming back after tremendous adventures; the city-world (a city-world because the imaginary of Duckburg goes through the limits of the city) has some recognizable places : The club of billionaires : a place where Scrooge search for recognition (the desire of recognition for Scrooge is in the character's personality and is put in relief by a hint of snobbery, this trait of his character appears evidently in the old italian stories, but also in Carl Barks (Oncle picsou et les gens qui The status seeker 1962); this trait of personality is reinforced by a predominant ego (Picsou contre Lord Hambar where the beginning of the chore of the plot starts...at the billionaires club); apart from the billionaire club, other characteristic places amongst another in Duckburg are : the money bin, the house of Donald in the suburbs, the farm of Grandma Duck, the old house of the Beagle Boys, Gyro's workshop.
Gyro Gearloose : science as an another form of magic : Gyro can be consider as a 'good Magica De Spell' as he practices science on its magical side; his inventions are extraordinary and we can consider his own science as a kind of magical practice on the elements; despite of that, despite Magica and some Gyro's inventions, Duckburg can be affiliated to a naturalistic universe; the basis, the roots of Duckburg being at the beginning Donald's daily problem's of money, for finding a job and so forth...; in fact there has been three directions for Duckburg contained in the Barks' stories : 
1 - A vaudeville direction which has been put in relief and exploited above all by the italian stories of the sixties with remarkable stories and remarkable drawings.
2 - A dimension of adventure symbolized by numerous stories and which has been blended inevitably with a dimension of time and biographical since the origin in the C.Barks stories; why?, because we can consider that the time is a form of distance and journey : a lot of the journeys of Scrooge when he is travelling reminds him a moment of his past (for example the story Back to the klondyke); that was the meaning of a part of my comments in 'Scrooge in Europe'; this kind of trips in memory in the areas of the past is reinforced by a certain nostalghia of C.Barks for the past that we can see for example in the excellent 'In Old California' 1951; this story is in fact an another story of ghosts, the tourists can laugh about what they don't see at the end of the story, but for Donald and the Kids this house of the gold rush is full of memory; sure, the past is certainly a little bit idealized in the plot but this latter one concentrates a big part of what is told about memory and trips in the stories of C.Barks; an another example of this nostalgia for the past can be found in the space stories where the characters of Duckburg go through the universe or exceptionally in other dimensions (which remains the same); here the space can be assimilated to a new gold rush : The Micro Ducks from outer space with a small trading between Scrooge and micro-inhabitants from an another planet which can remind me of some of the old fashion trading that people have been doing since a while, on the contrary of the industrial world of today; in le Rêve d'or d'Oncle Picsou Zio paperone e il regno dell'oro 1969, the story ends hopefully with the victory of nature against a development of the gold into the bodies of the ducks due to the desire of Scrooge; so is the Barks' story la lune en or massif The twenty-four carats moon 1958, written at a moment in time where the space was an important matter for the nations technically the most advanced; in this story too Scrooge regrets keeping his golden moon instead of a grassy planet with water at the end ; the story seems to discredit the golden desire in favour of  a more valuable nature; the italian stories Le blouson spatial de Donald Paperino e la guibba spaziale 1966 pencils Luciano Gatto and Donald dans l'espace sidéral Paperino e il tandem spaziale 1965 Luciano Gatto are more poetic and sending back at a more marvelous way in the space travel due to the progress of the technique  (the cosmic bicycle of the extraterrestrials used by Donald, Scrooge, Gyro and the kids for fleeing away from the danger); i can think here particurlarly to Gyro, one of the source of the situation of the plot; the italian vaudeville doesn't imply in general this time dimension, in a lot of their stories the action stays in the limits of Duckburg and grabs our attention with the chacterization of the personalites which are a source of intrigues and competitions between each other of the characters : problems of Donald to pay the bill, to pay Scrooge, for finding a job, competition of Scrooge due to dangerous competitors in the millionaire club etc...here the time dimension is lacking because the time is not materialized in the distance, the time is not the distance, the place of the action is static, the characterization is strong; so three directions from the original stuff of C.Barks were able to be taken : the vaudeville (italian stories of the 50's, 60's, 70's... - the latter period , the 70's..., has less good drawings in general compared with the 60's period), adventure...
3 -  and ... time (Don Rosa) - this last dimension is linked with the adventures stories as i said above; We can also see a hint of the future that will never be in 'Paperino anno 2001' since Duckburg is either a world of yesterday or today for the characters but certainly not a world of their future. 
Duckburg and Donaldville : the name and the meaning : one of the differences of the meaning after the translation of Duckburg into Donaldville for France could consist of this one : Duckburg can be considered, according to its meaning, as the city of the Ducks, Donaldville is basically the city of Donald, the other Ducks have not the privilege to be parts of the name of the city; according to this consideration, could we think that Donald in France is considered as the main character in Duckburg; i wouldn't say that, Scrooge is obviously very popular here, however, when i read the recent Picsou Magazine, i find a predominance of Donald as the lead character - perhaps because of the barks' stories released in it; Carl Barks seems to prefer Donald, and i personally think the character of Scrooge was better used in the best italian stories of the sixties than in the C.Barks ones; maybe because, in my opinion, Scrooge is a more vaudevillesque character than an adventurer; so is the vaudeville spirit in such stories as the one of Guido Martina, Guilio Chierchini called L'oncle Picsou et le billiards aux milliards Zio paperone e il billiardi de un milliardo 1967, or Giovan Battista Carpi for the drawings of Donald et l'affaire des terres rares Paperino e l'affare delle terre rare 1965.
Nowadays in France, Donad turns out to be Donald Duck; here too a small change about the name, the add of the second name Duck in many stories could be a sign of a certain retreat of the italian creation about the duck stories ? that could be also the result of more translations of Carl Barks in the recent years in Picsou magazine, the desire of keeping the american/ a part of the american name like this is more usual nowadays for the comics characters in an overall picture,  or a desire to locate Donald and Duckburg in America definitely in the imagination of the readers; that also could consist of a more characterization of the ducks into a human being profile, continuing this process present since the creation of Donald, after all there is little to compare between the duck of the first stories in both the animated cartoons and comics, or even in stories like 'Mickey Journaliste' by F.Gottfredson, and the Donald of today : less animal and more human in fact, with the time; one of the aims of the comics was evidently to separate the comic stories from this form of animation/cartoon, so the stories should not be cartoons anymore and the characters could exist with a finer attitude.
The attitude in a more modern side of the existence can be reflected in the character of Daisy; in the old italian stories, apart from whether my memory fails a little, i don't remember seeing her working; in the recent Jounal de Mickey, in the story 'Le Journal de Donald', Daisy has a job, she is reporter and she must interview a celebrity at a party; i add that the story is related with her point of view, not Donald's one.
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