DCML Digest Issue 19

[Don Rosa]

From: Larry Giver <lgiver at pacbell.net>
Subject: Scrooge's feet wrapped in cloth strips
>>>>>The new story "Prisoner of White Agony Creek" incorporates several
panels from Barks' originally censored flashback portion of "Back to the
Klondike", and Scrooge was barefoot in all the flashback portion of Barks' 
Klondike story, despite the snow.  So Rosa had to leave Scrooge barefoot in
order to be faithful to the original Barks' story he was elaborating.  So
what is the origin of Scrooge's foot wrappings?  It's not anywhere in Barks'
"Back to the Klondike".  Indeed, it's in Barks' first long Scrooge story,
"Only a Poor Old Man", page 7 panel 8.  As far as I know, that one flashback
panel is the only time Barks showed Scrooge wearing foot-wrappings in a
comic story.
			
Funny -- I replied to this on Sept. 21 but I've yet to see that reply appear
on DCML... guess it's lost in cyberspace. I'll try to remember what I wrote:

You are correct in all of that. But why did $crooge have those distinctive
foot wrappings in the flashback in "Only a Poor Old Man" story (one of the
greatest comic stories of all time!)? My theory is that the look was
inspired by Charlie Chaplain's footwear in THE GOLD RUSH film where he wears
similar foot wrappings. Remember, Barks' era goes back to silent movies  --
he was born in 1901. And THE GOLD RUSH was a major film of that era that
everyone would have seen. I suspect it influenced the Barks flashback panel
in "Only a Poor Old Man". And as a movie buff, I've always liked that image.
Makes it look like real poverty & suffering for either Chaplain or young
$crooge.

...and that is a last moment transmission, as I leave on Wednesday for a
signing tour of Germany (including a quick jaunt to Switzerland) with a "big
finish" at the Frankfurt Book Fair... or as they call it, the Buchmesse,
which is an even better name -- a bigger mess a' books you won't see on the
planet. Fills about 8 convention halls when I was last there 5 or 6 years
back. I mention the trip since sometimes folks here fuss at me for not
warning them when I will be in their area. So, in case anyone cares,
apparently my signing schedule can be found on the website of the comics-guy
who invited me on this tour he arranged: http://www.comic-spielzeug.de/ ...
I assume all the info is there, even though I'm too stupid to read it.