Articles from KOMIX #154

[Kriton Kyrimis]

I am posting the translation of an article from last month's issue of
Komix, as well as the translation of a letter and the editor's reply
from that issue, where they admit that they mistranslated something Don
said in an interview published in a previous issue.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BARKS AND COMICS
I read with interest Don Rosa's interview in _Komix_ #150. However,
the point where he claims that Barks did not particularly love comics
sounds a bit strange. How is it possible for such a great creator not
to love the art which he serves?
  --Andreas Coliopoulos, Faliro

We must admit that we did not translate accurately this controversial
phrase.  Rosa talked about _comic books_ ("I don't think he loved comic
books"), i.e., American comics magazines, which, indeed, did not exist
when barks was young, and not about comics in general. Besides, the Duck
Man has admitted that although he had been impressed by the comics of
his time, he was not a fanatical reader of the work of his colleagues:
"I spent a lot of time learning from the work of others, however, when
I began writing stories for comic books, I stopped reading their work,
mainly comic book work. I had to work exclusively with Donald and his
nephews and I had found a good recipe for using them. I did not want to
assimilate unconsciously other methods of working. There was a chance of
confusing myself. I was fascinated by heroes like Superman, but I was
rather afraid of the influence they might have had on me. I would have
ended up writing stories for Marvel, instead of writing Duck stories."

[Caption of accompanying photograph]
Barks appears to be having fun leafing through one of the first issues
of the Howard the Duck series. Photograph by E. B. Boatner published in
an American fanzine.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Life And Times of Scrooge McDuck: The Missing Episodes
                 Unknown Pages, New Adventures

  Don Rosa completes Scrooge McDuck's biography with new adventures
  from the past.

When Carl Barks decided to promote Scrooge McDuck to a central hero of
his work, he took care to give him not only a complex character, but a
story-like past as well. The Duckburg croesus was not just an extremely
rich tycoon who had lived countless adventures in the four corners of
the world...


BIOGRAPHY MATERIAL

Apart from rare cases, Barks' references to his central hero's past
are fragmentary and circumstantial. The great master simply wanted to
set up a background for his new adventures, a background which would
convert Donald's extremely rich uncle to a figure of almost mythical
dimensions. However, the readers of uncle Scrooge's adventures could not
resist the temptation to reconstruct with their imagination a coherent
biography based on these scattered references. Don Rosa, perhaps the most
talented of Barks' old readers, undertook the task of making true the
dream of all the friends of the Ducks and to tell, at last, all these
adventures which were mentioned in a single panel... After a careful
rereading of Barks' classic adventures, he gathered and classified
carefully all the data on Scrooge's past. This material formed the
basis for the *Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck*. In the twelve episodes
of this series, which were first published between August 1993 and May
1994 in the Danish weekly magazine _Anders and Co._ [sic], Don recounts
Scrooge McDuck's life from the years of his youth in Glasgow, Scotland,
till Christmas night in 1947, the night when Carl Barks' first story
with the richest duck in the world takes place.


THE NEW CHAPTERS

Already from the time he was writing the twelve chapters of the *Life
and Times*, Rosa had realized that the gaps, which such a retelling
would unavoidably leave, could form the starting point for a new cycle of
stories.  Besides, he had already written a story referring to Scrooge's
past. In *Last Sled to Dawson* (_Komix_ #137), Scrooge was returning to
the Klondike to settle some open accounts with his own past. Since that
time, Don has often been returning to Scrooge's past to recount some
forgotten adventure of the richest duck in the world. For the heroic
crew of _Komix_, 2001 will be a year full of adventure. Starting with
the issue that you hold in your hands, we begin the publication of the
first five Lost Episodes of the *Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck*.


EPISODE 0 - OF DUCKS, DIMES, AND DESTINIES

"The next issue of _Uncle Scrooge_ magazine will contain a story which
I wrote four years ago, a little before beginning the *Life and Times
of Scrooge McDuck*. This story reveals what exactly happened that
day in 1877, when Scrooge earned his first dime... We could say, in
publishers' language, that this is episode 0". With these lines ended
Don Rosa's introductory note to the last episode of the *Life and Times*
in February 1996.


A FRIEND FROM THE FUTURE

A definitive role in the story of earning Scrooge's first dime is played
by his ruthless opponent, Magica de Spell. Who could have imagined
that the charming Italian sorceress with the explosive temperament,
who made her first appearance in the story *The Midas Touch* (_Komix_
#70), would be the one to put the precious dime in the hand of the ten
year old Scrooge!


MY ENEMY'S FATHER IS MY FRIEND!

The slightly show-off American is none other than Howard Rockerduck,
the father of one more ruthless opponent of Scrooge McDuck. The young
Scrooge will meet Howard Rockerduck on the fourth episode of the *Life
and Times* (*Raider of the Copper Mine*, _Komix_ #103). The extremely
rich business man will be moved by the young miner's efforts, and will
give him a few useful lessons on mineral prospecting and the backstage
of the world of finance... In The young John Rockerduck also makes his
appearance in this episode. Unlike the self-made Scrooge, little John
is just a spoiled rich kid. His father will try to correct his son,
but it would seem that he did not succeed much...


THE SUCCESSION OF THE LOST EPISODES

_Komix_ will publish the Lost Episodes of the Life and Times of Scrooge
McDuck, not in the order in which they were written, but in the order
of their place in the biography of the Duckburg tycoon.

*Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies*
Episode 0 - Komix #154
*Glasgow 1887* Unforeseen revelations about the way in which the ten
year old Scrooge McDuck earned his first dime. As it would seem, the
story of this coin is unimaginably more story-like than we had thought!

*The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark*
Episode 3B - Komix #156
*Indian Ocean, 1883* The young Scrooge is a stock breeder in the Wild
West. An adventurous business trip with the historic sailboat Cutty Sark,
with the great explosion of the Krakatoa volcano as a background.

*The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff*
Episode 6B - Komix #158
*Far West, 1890* Back to the Far West. Scrooge McDuck meets some of the
most legendary people of the Wild West. At the side of Buffalo Bill and
Ann Oakley, he faces the terrible Daltons!

*The Dutchman's Secret*
Episode 6C - Komix #160
In the French and Italian edition appears part of the Life and Times.
It is essentially the sequel of the story _The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff_
[which they translate as "the avenger of Pizen Bluff", while in the
previous paragraph they had translated it as "gunfight at Pizen Bluff"],
and can not be directly placed in the Scroogean epic.

*Hearts of the Yukon*
Episode 8B - Komix #162
*Dawson, 1898* An unknown aspect of Scrooge's acquaintance with Goldie. In
smaller parts, Colonel Samuel Benfield Steele, who managed to enforce
law in the area, and the writer Jack London.

[And what about the Panama story, which they mention in the news column?]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Kriton	(e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
	      	(WWW:    http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
-----
"Can you get us down?"
"Down is not the problem!"
-----