My favorite Egmont stories

David A Gerstein David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu
Tue Mar 8 03:04:42 CET 1994


	Dear Folks,

	In response to Geir's comments of late I now present a list of
my favorite Egmont stories.

	D 8098 (in America in DD 265):  "That's the Ticket."  Donald's
escalating attempts to secure tickets to a concert given by famous
tenor, Oscar Lasagna.  Taking the superb dialogue as part and parcel
of this, I'd say this was a masterful Branca-job.  Particularly Donald
floating down the highroads, asleep on a rubber raft, and singing --
one of the truly twisted images to appear in a Duck story.

	D 5864 (DD 272):  "A House Divided."  Donald has been warring
with Gladstone and, when they are forced to be roommates in a most
unlikely situation, each tries to arrange it to his own financial
advantage.  This was completely unique.

	D 8294 (DDA 10):  "The Ersatz Earl."  This was absolutely
super.  Donald becomes the Earl of Enthouse (Duckburg in Germany is
Entenhausen, and then there's the P. G. Wodehouse allusion) in a
superb tale.  Donald getting challenged to a duel by some stuffy
nobleman... boy, I loved it!

	D 9614 (DDAD 32-33):  "Return to Bear Mountain."  Masterfully
handled.  The Duck family -- ALL of them -- being stuck in the cabin,
and the way that everyone's relationship to Uncle Scrooge causes them
to get more and more irritable, was superb.  And the gnome idea, while
it could have been a travesty, was superbly done.

	D 5952 (GCA 14):  "The Quest for the Curious Constable."
This is my favorite out of all Danish "adventure" stories.  Just
masterfully done -- and no small part of that is what Gladstone's
personell did to it.  Super wordplay, wonderful concept at the core.
Pip, pip.

	D 6830 (US 210):  "The Robot Raiders of Magica De Spell."

	D 7080 (US 218):  "Robbin' the Rails."  A Beagle Boys story.
Like Geir, I think these are some of the finest Egmont items.  Barks
never did solo stories with the Beagles, and the Western-produced ones
were abominations.  This, meanwhile, was pure -- stolen! -- gold!

	D 7126 (US 220):  "An Honest Mistake."  My favorite Danish
Beagle Boys story.  The Beagles actually try to go honest, with
ludicrous results.

	D 3624 (US 230):  "Break In Breakdown."  Donald bets Scrooge
that he can break into the money bin three times... and he succeeds,
and the tricks he uses are just perfect.  Expert dialog this time too.

	D 7214 (US 238):  "A Witch in Crime."  While Scrooge is away
and Donald sleeps, Magica and the Beagles approach the bin from
opposite sides, and in a matter of minutes have each decided to
outsmart the other before going after their real goal.  The battle is
memorable and the final panel an all-time classic.

	D 8584 (US 240 and 264):  "Con Job for a Snob" was so good
that it was picked to be dialogued TWICE -- Disney blew it and didn't
remember that Gladstone had done it before.  And as a testament to the
greatness of this superb U$-vs.-Beagles story, both dialogs were
equally superb.

	D 9590 (US 263):  "Cutbacks."  One of the few Vicar stories on
this list -- Vicar usually gets poorer scripts.  But this was a superb
idea.  Actually a little like the earlier "A Matter of Security" (US
281), although this handled the concept much better.

	D 5198 (US 272):  "Canute the Brute's Battle Axe."  For the
only time, Chisel McSue returns.  In these pre-LO$ days, this was the
closest we got to any previously-undisclosed bits of McDuck history,
and it is done masterfully here as we learn how the McDucks gained the
land on which their castle was later built.  How about names like
"Fayodor McDuck" and "Finagle McSue"?  This is my other favorite
Danish story.

	There, a lucky 13 favorites.  A few opinions:  I find that the
Danish long stories don't have many greats in their ranks;  I like the
time travel trio, but I have not seen the English versions, so can't
really judge.  I'm not saying there are not a few good ones -- I love
"Canute the Brute" and "The Curious Constable."  As for the short
stories, the Scrooge ones are generally better than the Donald ones.
And Magica De Spell and the Beagle Boys usually mean above-average
short stories, if somewhat formula-bound at times.

	So long, folks.

	David Gerstein
	<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>




More information about the DCML mailing list