The fake bird
(Information (socialistic danish newspaper) 17th march 1998)
Carl Barks' duckstories have started an inner picture production in millions of children and adults. But his pupil Don Rosa leaves nothing to fantasy.
Comics - Written by Inger Holst
Uncle $crooge earned his first dime when he was young in Scotland by polishing shoes in Scotland. But why did he emigrate? How did it go for him year by year, in all details, in the new world while he worked himself from the bottom to it's top? And what about his family? How many actually know that Donald's mother was named Hortense, that she had an extremely hot temper - and that she was Uncle $crooge's sister?
None of the secrets of the duck universe stand unsolved when you've finished reading "This is your life Uncle $crooge" [wrong title], a collection of stories that the Comic Publisher [Serieforlaget, a part of Egmont, the biggest comic publisher and holder of licenses to publish Disney in several countries] published this winter on occasion of the rich duck's 50th birthday.
It is a deluxe work in contents and cover, so even the yearly goldbook with stories by Carl Barks fade in comparrisson. [The goldbook is gold, so I don't think she's right]. It also costs 50 kroner more! [app. 7 $] It looks stunning and it is expensive. When you see the book in the store, how the golden brown cover cover shines in the light, you have to think of what Marx (no Barks) said about the nature of goods: They lie on the shelves sending love glances to the buyers. Things which are for sale have their own life in capitalism. If you want to know how and why - you have to read the Capital.
Back to Uncle $crooge: Why did Serieforlaget choose to drive Don Rosa forth in a golden coach on occasion of a jubilee where carl barks hsould have been honnored and none other. That is an enigma that isn't solved within this publication.
Maybe another fairy-tale-teller can lead us on the track: I Hans Christian Andersens "The nightingale" a nightingale-expert stands forward the emperor's court in China and explains the difference between the real nightingale and the false artificial gemstudded nightingale: "with the real nightingale you can never calculate what will come, but with the artificial bird all is decided beforehand. that's how and not different. You can show it by ripping it up and show the human thinking, how the Waltzes lie, how they go, and how one follows the other..."
By that explanation the emperial court became so pleased "as if they had drunken themselves happy in teewater ... but the poor fishermen who had heard the real nightingale said: 'It rings beautifully enough and it sounds like [the old bird], but Something is missing, I don't know what!"
This 'Something' - it is exactly the difference between the real and the artificial bird. And between Carl Barks and Don Rosa: The one sings with the heart, the other goes waltzing.
A punnet of eggs.
Don Rosa belongs to the generation who got Donald Duck in with the conflakes. He is born in USA in 1951. he became a citizen in Duckburg as millions of other kids, and he drawed after Barks, as hundreds of comic creators, when they were small. But while the others grew up and went their own way without forgetting what they learned Don Rosa carries on in the master's footsteps: He wants not only to imitate after him, he wants to do it better!
Everything that Barks left to the fantasy of the readers Don Rosa has decided to get control of. Thanks to him the duckfamily's history is now fixed, with family tree, years, and causes of reasons. All build on "Barksian facts"as he allows himself to call it. Elements and fragments from thousands of dreams put together as a cogwheel in a piece of mechanics.
It works satisfactory. But it is not funny. "I wish he hadn't done it" Carl Barks says as the only comment to Don Rosas work. Overmore he thinks himself that Donald Duck came from a punnet in the supermarket. I suppose Uncle $crooge does too.
* Selected stories by Carl Barks, 1-14, pr. book 195 kroner [30 $]. Egmont Serieforlaget A/S
*Joakim von And. Her er dit lic ($crooge Mc Duck, this is your life] Selected stories by Don Rosa. 245 kroner. [40 $]
Egmont Serieforlaget A/S
This is how Uncle $crooge looked in 1877 if you believe Don Rosa
I object to the negative saying in this articles and you should believe none of it! On the other hand it deserved to be shown.
feel free to visit the paper, and send some (awfully big) mails to them