Nephews' origin

[Petri Kanninen]

Frank Bubacz:
> That must have been the first really interesting post in about a dozen
> digests mainly consisting of flame wars. So can anybody tell me now
> where it was first claimed that it was Taliaferro's idea to add nephews
> to the lonely Donald, and if the source is as trustable as Barks?

Nobody seems to have answered this yet (I might have missed an answer in
the message flood, so sorry if I'm repeating someone). There is an
interview of Floyd Gottfredson in the book Mickey Mouse in Color. I don't
if it's the first claim for Taliaferro, but it's definately a claim. There
Gottfredson says:

"The only thing I know in the Comic Strip Department that was adopted in
the pictures was [Al Taliaferro's] creation of Donald's nephews in the
Donald Duck daily strip. Al's widow, Lucy, called me recently to read me a
memo she had found while cleaning up Al's stuff at home. It was from
someone in the Story Department, thanking Al for having created the
nephews and telling him that they were going to use them in a short and
since he created them, they not only wanted to go on recordas
acknowledging the fact that he had, but also wanted to recognize it with a
check, which they sent him.
[...]
When Al introduced the Duck nephews, he did it emulating the three
nephews in Happy Hooligan that Opper had done."

So a lot of contradictory information going around. Nephews' birth might
remain a mystery until end of times.

--
Petri Kanninen (pkannine at cc.hut.fi)
Aku Ankan taskukirja -tietokanta: http://www.perunamaa.net/taskarit/

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