Saturday, February 18, 2017

"The Miner's Granddaughter"

Well, it's been a while, but if you think I'm going to let the fact that my country's president is an angry, evil baby stop me from writing about duck comics--and, furthermore, that I'm going to let him thoroughly ruin the good name of our favorite duck--you have another goddamn think coming. This shit just got PERSONAL.  So LET'S FUCKING DO THIS.

Here's a question that you will never, ever answer correctly without looking it up: which character has appeared in more stories with Dickie than any other? Answer, per inducks: the Aracuan bird from The Three Caballeros. Trust those Brazilians to make our lives just that little bit weirder!

ANYWAY, welcome to the entry that everyone, or possibly no one, has been waiting for! It's "The Miner's Granddaughter," also known as the rather uneuphonious "Paperetta Ye-Ye Arrives." Yes, it's the introduction of a not-particularly-popular original Scarpa character, the cringe-inducingly named "Dickie Duck," and can we begin by agreeing that "Dickie Duck" is an absolutely fucking dreadful name for the character? I guess Scarpa came up with his own English-language names for his characters (correct me if I'm wrong about that), and he gets pride of place, but--while I don't know how proficient his English was--he's never done worse than this. I mean, sure, "Jubal Pomp" is kind of nonsensical, and "Trudy von Tubb" is just a fat joke, but JEEZ, "Dickie Duck." You didn't see Carl Barks coming up with the Italian names for Disney characters, so I don't see why Italians should get to provide the English ones! Dammit!

One thing you immediately notice about this story is that it's distinctly unbalanced. The first twelve pages are one thing, and then after that--basically, as soon as Scrooge and Dickie leave for Duckburg--it becomes something else for the next twenty-eight pages. The first part is relatively sedate; the second is more or less nothing but manic action.


Right, so we start with Scrooge receiving this mysterious letter that takes him right back. The art there is pretty good--I like the same images/different costumes set-up which makes it seem like it's some kind of film strip--click click click. It's a good evocation of Scrooge's past; it's hard not to immediately think Rosa! but that's just because Rosa so thoroughly colonized the character's past years later. Not sure what I think about the script including specific Rosa references--I guess I don't mind that much, but it's a little jarring. For all his flaws, Scarpa did come first, so why not give him pride of place?


So in a way, this is kind of interesting; it psychologizes Scrooge in a way that you rarely see from Scarpa, and it's certainly visually striking.


All that wide open space--you can really feel it. But...am I being a bit of a killjoy if I point out that the whole thing is kinda redundant? By which I mean: in the Barksian universe as pioneered in "Only a Poor Old Man," that's the whole point of the Money Bin--to evoke the past. Including a more concrete evocation like this can't help seem thuddingly literal-minded by comparison. Not that it's not good in its own way, but it's just one of those things that goes to show: Scarpa was not the artist that Barks was.


...and all this, of course, isn't even touching the really obvious incongruity here; ie, why is Scrooge trying to relive his time in the Klondike with Goldie in an old-western town? Yes: for reasons that truly surpass understanding, this story infamously relocates Scrooge's history with her to this generic old west. This, we presume, is the reason it's so rarely been printed outside of Italy. Duck comics aren't too concerned with continiuity (as has been discussed here and elsewhere at tedious length), but this little bit of revisonist history is so huge and so blatant that one can easily see how it would be a bridge too far. Seriously, how could this have happened? Glittering Goldie: Star of the NORTH, dammit. It's basically inconceivable that anyone could remember the character yet somehow forget where she was from--which makes one wonder whether there might not have been some truly ill-advised editorial interference with this story. I dunno...I'm not saying it makes a lot of sense, but it's sort of possible, I guess, to imagine some dopey-ass editor deciding that the old west was more, uh, popular than the north, thus mandating the relocating. This hypothetical editor should be ashamed of being so dumb, however. Sheesh.

Thad Komorowski's English script does about as good a job smoothing this over as you could expect, but there are some thing that are just beyond fixing, including the fact that Scrooge is reminiscing about his Klondike days in an old west town. I mean, even if you buy the idea that, oh, Goldie moved there sometime after the Barks story, this is an obvious logical non-starter. Sheesh.


SO, one thing I can't help liking is this...


...it SEEMS like it's going to be an infuriating "laws are for the little people!" thing, but then, BAM, Scrooge is back on the hook (doesn't make me think any more of Goldie, though). What we need from cops is less murderous racism and more willingness to fine gazillionaires. And that is my opinion.

Oh, and I guess here's Goldie or something. Scarpa does a good job of drawing her, for sure; she certainly resembles Barks' original more than Rosa's sexed-up version does. I don't think I have much to say about her here, actually--ironic given her iconic status. Ironic iconic. She's really only here as an excuse to introduce a teenager without having it seem completely out-of-nowhere; beyond that, she doesn't do much.


Even before Rosa ushered in today's continuity mania, you've gotta imagine that anyone's first thought reading this would be, OMG! Is Scrooge the grandfather?!? The question of who the plain ol' parents are would also signify. Scarpa, however, is not even a tiny bit interested in this. Obviously, in a Disney comic, you couldn't do more than very obliquely hint at the situation in any case, but I doubt Scarpa even momentarily considered the implications ("implications" being something he rarely if ever considered). Forget about all this possible history and drama--Goldie's a semi-plausible way to introduce this new character, and THAT IS ALL.


Well...here she is. I'm afraid she gets off to a bad start with me just because I really, really do not like her character design. There's just something about the way she's more human-looking than the other ducks--without even a hint of webbed feet--that just hits my brain synapses the wrong way. Still, we will do our best to suck it up as we move forward.


...oh, before we move on, I just want to note that I find this elder-abuse bit super-unpleasant and off-putting, even if it has an, uh, happy ending.


....also, "I WAS already the custodian, too!" is possibly a joke I'm missing. Doesn't look like a very good one, though.


So BACK TO DUCKBURG we go, and at this point, the story really, well, takes off. That rocket is appropriate, 'cause from here on it's just non-stop forward momentum.


...okay, as calculated as this whole thing may be, that's cute.


The one overriding complaint you can level at this--that it's hard not to--is that all this foofaraw is in the service of trying to make us think, in a bullying sort of way, that Dickie is the GREATEST CHARACTER EVER OMG. If she's ACTUALLY the greatest character ever, you don't need to slam us with all this! Just show us! As it is, it looks as though you're trying to trick us because you're not so confident about the whole thing.


This introduction is in sharp contrast to Scarpa's usual MO--Brigitta and Trudy were both introduced in a very low-key way in stories that weren't specifically about them. No such understatement here, to put it mildly. It's one of the things that I kinda makes me suspect that maybe she wasn't totally Scarpa's idea--that the powers that be decided, hey, we need something to appeal to these weird hippie kids with their incense and their sock hops! Get on it, R-Scar! You've gotta figure his nickname was R-Scar. Only stands to reason.


Note that Dickie does lame impressions of only TWO characters, one of whom is Scarpa's own damn creation. Is Brigitta REALLY the second-most-important or interesting denizen of Duckburg? Really? One cannot help but feel that Scarpa may have been a bit high on his own supply here.


I could do A LOT of carping. You'd best believe I could! And yet...it kinda feels like any criticism would be missing the point. Imagine a scenario where some bow-tied poindexter is painstakingly explaining that hedgehogs are not bipedal, nor do they move at any great speed, and as he's explaining this, in the background Sonic blasts on to the screen, does a loop-de-loop, and disappears off the opposite side. It's not that the lecturer is wrong, it's just that he's kind of irrelevant. Please let's note that this is the sixteen-bit Sonic--the one who was actually cool, unlike the weird, emo-y version that Sega later hit on.


Really, you might as well just go along for the ride and GOOD LORD, this is officially the most sixties thing ever. There's a kind of insane disconnect here that probably results from Scarpa's general establishment stodginess: Dickie's supposed to be this kinda hippie-chick type, yet the whole story has this WESTERN theme, and the band is--APPARENTLY--some sort of country outfit. BUT SHUT UP, ME! STOP MISSING THE POINT! GO GO GO! Is there ANY universe where HDL would be down with this kind of treatment? NEVER MIND! WE'VE GOT PLACES TO GO AND PEOPLE TO BE! I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM LAST NIGHT! INCENSE AND PEPPERMINTS, MEANINGLESS NOUNS!


The conflict of the story, such as it is, is this business where they think she's robbed them blind. Not exactly a lot of suspense, but if you're reading this for a sensible, reasoned plot, sister, you are reading it for the WRONG REASONS. I find that other than this here sentence, I'm not even going to MENTION the Beagle subplot, it being SUCH an insignificant afterthought.


YES! It's ANOTHER Scarpa story (along with "Donald of the Woods" and "Marco Polo") where Clara Cluck appears in one panel, says and does NOTHING, and then vanishes (well, actually, she appears in TWO panels here where she says and does nothing, but the principle is the same). I am unreasonably excited about once again seeing this bizarre quirk of R-Scar's in action!


Fuck it, man. You gotta love it. It is mandated by all of the most important authorities, including Timothy Leary, Wavy Gravy, Robert Anton Wilson, and Dr. Irwin Corey.


You've gotta love Scarpa's eagerness to just casually toss out whatever romantic tension one might imagine to persist between Scrooge and Goldie. Rosa built a whole career around it, but for Scarpa, whatever! That's over and done with! Have some helpful seduction tips! I kind of wonder if he had some sort of "fantasy ending" akin to Rosa's but with Scrooge ending up with Brigitta. Then again...I don't actually wonder about that. He never would've had the temperament to think about the characters in those terms. This just goes back to what I was saying earlier about his total lack of interest in considering the broader implications of the situation. One can, however, maybe sense a li'l effort to establish cultural hegemony: Barks is the past! Rad Romano Scarpa, with his awesome NEW love interest, is the future! I suspect this vision might not meet with universal approbation.


The best is yet to come, eh? No, I'm pretty sure that for Dickie Duck, this is THE best. It's all downhill from here. Certainly, Scarpa didn't show a great deal of interest in establishing the character as a regular--and when he was interested in such things, he was not shy about showing it.

Look, this whole thing seems like a very calculated, cynical attempt at demographic broadening...AND YET, there's an energy and joie de vivre here that means I can't help sorta kinda loving it. Certainly, Scarpa's loose art style and shaky character consistency have never felt more appropriate. DON'T GET ME WRONG: I wouldn't want all duck stories to be like this. Hell, I'm not so sure I'd want any other duck stories to be like this. But...I'm going to give this one a fairly emphatic yes.

Labels:

80 Comments:

Anonymous Elaine said...

WELCOME BACK TO DUCKBURG, GEOX! (I'm just getting into the spirit of the story, here.)

While we all know that I agree heartily that "Dickie Duck" is an absolutely fucking dreadful name, I am going to suck it up and never complain about it again. However, on the subject of names in the news: one change in my life since last year is that now when I search for Donald Duck on eBay or Etsy or the like, I enter the name as "Duck Donald," so that the helpful search engine will not complete the name for me with the last name I clearly must have had in mind NONONOAAAARGH!

While it was a foregone conclusion that Dickie would reappear by the end of the story, I had not guessed that she would bring Goldie along, so that made me very happy. I do wonder how close the Goldie/Brigitta dialogue is to Scarpa's original--I could have dealt with Goldie saying she's content to stay part of Scrooge's past, but the "you're his present" line does feel a bit too self-promoting on Scarpa's part. Even in a world without Rosa (as sad as that is to imagine!) I think I would have read that as "Look how Barks is handing the baton on to ME!" Though part of my resentment there is based on my very thorough dislike of Brigitta as a sexist-trope-disguised-as-a-character. I don't need Goldie to claim Scrooge as hers in the present, but I do NOT want her passing the torch to Brigitta.

Dialoguer Thad not only had to deal with the Klondike/Old West problem, but also had to deal (I am told) with the fact that in the original script Dickie knows about the whole Duckburg gang of family & associates because she's read about them all in Topolino! (The same problem Joe Torcivia ran into in "The Treasure of Marco Topo" where the characters in the comic all read the comic.) That's the comic book she's revealing with a flourish. I thought Thad's solution there was pretty clever, and more or less fits with Dickie's future newspaper career.

I was surprised by your overall yes at the end, given your critique of Dickie as marketing ploy. I did much enjoy the story's denouement, and while this story won't become "real" to me in my headcanon because of the problems with Goldie's present situation, I'm reserving judgment on Dickie as a character. If future stories make her an attractive character, she may come to be real in my personal Duckburg. I'm OK in theory with her being Scrooge's granddaughter, as long as we assume that in order to maintain her independence Goldie didn't inform Scrooge of her pregnancy/motherhood. I'm also OK with the possibility that Dickie's parent is the offspring of Goldie and a later beau--even possibly a husband, who had died before "Back to the Klondike."

February 18, 2017 at 10:28 AM  
Blogger Huwey said...

So, according to Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Poland, the story isn't printed yet because of the finland monthly issue "Roope Setä". In the countries I mentioned, Egmont Denmark is "leading" the monthly pocket books (they're all published by Egmont). They decide whether a story comes in it, or not. In Finland the publisher Sanoma is publishing, but normally they take the Egmont pocket book - and some other stories. Because in the Egmont pocket book all stories have to be initial releases, they can't take a story, that was used by Sanoma in their pocket book. So, if Finland publishes one story, the other countries can't publish it in their main pocket book.

February 18, 2017 at 11:22 AM  
Anonymous Thad Komorowski said...

Hi, gang. Yes, the whole western motif is there because Scarpa transplanted Goldie from the Klondike to Dollar City. But I think his whole western memory lane set-up still works even after I "fixed" the story. Scrooge knew he had to go out west in the present after reading the letter. So he wanted to relive some of his western past - even if it was now a past western life that didn't include Goldie. Simple as that. Or not.

I'm not a Rosa fan, but the man knows how to come up with appealing titles, which is why I appropriated "Master of the Mississippi", "Buck McDuck", and "Hearts of the Yukon."

"I WAS already the custodian, too!" was my joke. I thought it'd be funny if this domineering old bag also had to mop the floors in her downtime.

The dialogue between Goldie and Brigitta is more or less what was in the Italian original - I double checked it because Joe Torcivia asked me the same thing after he read it.

While scripting this one, I had flashes of "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show". ("I have to go. Dawson needs me.") So, I do agree with you that Dickie Duck was obviously a cynical attempt at demographic broadening. Still... It's a mess, but it is a rather endearing mess if you don't try to make sense of it.

February 18, 2017 at 11:30 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

YAYKS! So entire Trump campain was to vilify all the Donalds to ruined our favorite Ducks good name?

HOLLY WAK! Magica DeSell woudn't go this low...


Heh. My first Scrooge fan-fiction had Dickie and Aracuan smoking path in bushesh togeter. See? They are made for each other...


So no comments on Scrooge not only having entrie westrern town reconstructed in his money bin, but an old friend living there?


I'm kind-of not suprised that Italians were prepering english names for new character. From a person who's English isn't first name... Dickie DOSE sound phonetically more like a female name. Like Vickey... I get were the confusion was.


Actually this isn't the first Scrooge story where I've seen a Scrooge/Goldie flash-back set in more traditional Western ("western" as in movies about cowboys) seting.

Noe that this story is THE FIRST NON-BARKSIAN APPERANCE OF GOLDIE!!! So kind-of interesting he broth here up as she wan't recuring character at this point but more of a one-hit wonder.


I do conisder Dickie naming scrooge "Grandpa" a bit of a hint...


Yhe, I found chracter running to great Dickie to much of a "Let's introduce her like she's the best thing since slice breed" (not to mention the odd 4'th wall braking with the comics - Topolino magazine in the oryginal - and making impressions... It's not even "let's highlight Dickie's personality" as much "Let's go out of our way to make her more entertatining then she is"... I would love to see her take on Gyro)


HOWEVER I have to DESEAGREE - My theory is that Dickie wasn't introduce as much to appeal to "them cool kids" (if annything she's more of a mockery of "kids this days") as much to have character that will appeal to GIRLS. Piriot. Like "Hey Scarpa, this Duckburg is to much of a susage fest, let's add noe more girl, but a young one so girls will have a person to relate"

ACUTALLY I've seen some other Dickie stories where she was more fun, tomboyish and... well... cool.

"Paperetta e la leggenda del luna park" (were she refrence HD&L as her cousins...) or Le Fantaleggende sub-series, were she played a part of Merida from Pixars "Brave' type of character. So yhe, it got a bit better from here...



GEOX : "The conflict of the story, such as it is, is this business where they think she's robbed them blind. Not exactly a lot of suspense, but if you're reading this for a sensible, reasoned plot, sister, you are reading it for the WRONG REASONS."


To be honest, the more I think abou it, It WOULD be super funny if they would devoted entire story to introduce Dickie like this and then just have her rob HD&L and be gone forever like this. Like imagine after that panel of boy's standing in shock the next one would just said "THE END" and the story would just end. Don't you think it's funny? I think it's funny as hell!



And yes, I'm amazed by Scarpa's Clara Cluck fetish. Must been he's awnser to Rosa's hidden Mickeys, he predicted from the future. This must explain the un-spoken rivalry between the two we never heard of untill I just mention it. No wonder I confuse their art all the time...


Great review to a very odd story that introduce a character that I honestly like and find an okey adishon... but not for this particular story ;)

February 18, 2017 at 9:10 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

One and only Elaine :
"I'm OK in theory with her being Scrooge's granddaughter, as long as we assume that in order to maintain her independence Goldie didn't inform Scrooge of her pregnancy/motherhood."

Yhe, I love that theory as well. It's quite interesting that in few other Scarpa Dickie stories I read she refered to HD&L as "COUSINS"... Which if Scrooge was her granfather would be correct.

Plus the fact she's a hippie an from Scrooes blod is something I find super ironic anf fuuny... There's something rotten in them genes.



I recenlty read a story where she made Scrooge hire her unemployed friend in the money bin and she "blackmail" him to co-operate by claming she will be playing her radio loud unless he agree. If Donald would do something like this Scrooge would just kick him out of the bin, here Scrooge was helpless agianst her whim. Not very good story btw, but sort of illustarates the diffrance in way Scrooge/Dickie relationship is approche in these stories. She's somebody he have to to tolerate he likes it or not...

February 18, 2017 at 9:22 PM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

I need to start calling Romano Scarpa "R-Scar" now...

"The Miner's Granddaughter" is one of those stories (like Bill Walsh's Mickey Mouse serials, most DuckTales episodes, or some of Willam Van Horn's Donald Duck stories) that is best if you just go with it without thinking about it too much and enjoy the ride.

February 19, 2017 at 1:35 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

Most of what you say resonates with my sentiments, GeoX. There are a couple of things I wanted to say, though.

One, though I tip my hat to That Komorrowsky for handling the whole "Western" issue, I am not happy at all with the fact that the whole "I read about them in Topolino" motif was scrapped. I love this embodied fourth-wall joke that keeps cropping up in Italian Disney comics, of the comics really existing in-universe. It's not a one-time lunacy of a specific author, it's a recurring fact that lots of stories use, sometimes as a major plot point. Why does it keep being erased?

Also, I think one could also have handled the whole Western issue by simply replacing every mention of the West with one of Klondike, and coloring the Dollar City scenes white so they'd look winterish. I don't know. Before this was announced, I'd actually found Italian scans and was going to do my own scanlation, and that's how I planned to handle it.

I would be happy if Dickie was a bit more duckish too, but I'm fine with her.

Clara Cluck's appearance I think I can explain. You see, Clara Cluck, like Horace and Clarabelle, used to be a core member of the cast, but while everyone else eventually got a more fleshed-out characterisation through the comics, Clara did not. This makes using her as an actual character very difficult for any prospective cartoonist. But whenever you have to draw a group picture of the Disney comics cast, of course you stick Clara in there. She feels like a main character, and her design works well in the middle of a diverse crowd. So Scarpa does. Except due to the aforementioned lack of characterization, he can't have her play any meaningful role in the story — what is her personality? The main thing about her in the cartoons was that she has an awful voice and yet thinks she's an opera singer. How do you do that in written form?!?

February 19, 2017 at 3:20 PM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

We do get an implied "I read all about you in your comic books!" moment, even if the dialogue doesn't specifically say so. Dickie is holding up a Donald Duck comic with the current IDW title logo, even if the script is ambiguous about it.

February 19, 2017 at 3:50 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

A couple of additional thoughts:

— Maybe the "yet to come" in the final panel was meant, in the localization, quite literally from our point of view -- meaning that a good Dickie Duck stories is yet to be written.

— The reason the Aracuan Bird is Dickie's number one co-star is that he was a regular (in a more anthropomorphised redesign) in a Brazilian series featuring Dickie Duck and other teenage Disney birds going through college.

February 19, 2017 at 5:27 PM  
Anonymous Thad Komorowski said...

We do get an implied "I read all about you in your comic books!" moment, even if the dialogue doesn't specifically say so. Dickie is holding up a Donald Duck comic with the current IDW title logo, even if the script is ambiguous about it.

Precisely, and that's exactly why we slapped the IDW (re: Western Publishing) DD logo onto the comic.

February 19, 2017 at 9:26 PM  
Anonymous Thad Komorowski said...

One, though I tip my hat to That Komorrowsky for handling the whole "Western" issue, I am not happy at all with the fact that the whole "I read about them in Topolino" motif was scrapped. I love this embodied fourth-wall joke that keeps cropping up in Italian Disney comics, of the comics really existing in-universe. It's not a one-time lunacy of a specific author, it's a recurring fact that lots of stories use, sometimes as a major plot point. Why does it keep being erased?

I'm confused... While this is more in line with your usual complaints about our scripting, you also write:

Also, I think one could also have handled the whole Western issue by simply replacing every mention of the West with one of Klondike, and coloring the Dollar City scenes white so they'd look winterish. I don't know. Before this was announced, I'd actually found Italian scans and was going to do my own scanlation, and that's how I planned to handle it.

Without getting into how costly that kind of alteration is, why is this kind of massive change OK and another relatively minor one (toning down the overt fourth-wall breaking) not?

February 19, 2017 at 9:32 PM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

I apologize for my ignorance, but could this be a multi-part story? That might explain the change in things after the first twelve pages. I'm less familiar with how Scarpa was originally published that... well, scratch that, I'm exactly as familiar as you'd think.

I've got no comment on the story, really, it's the kind of Italian fun people really dig and Scarpa's artwork is pretty solid (I get the feeling I've only ever bought comics with bad Scarpa art). But something about the shilling feels so similar to the Moon Maid's introduction in Dick Tracy... just a passing thought. Anyway, nice to see you back Geo! I'm sorry your computer busted out of protest from last month's historical-tragedy-in-the-making, but I'm glad it didn't stop you. I look forward to more from you in the coming years!

February 19, 2017 at 11:03 PM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@GeoX
"I guess Scarpa came up with his own English-language names for his characters (correct me if I'm wrong about that)": I'm also interested about that. Does anyone know who gets to decide, and how, the English localized names of characters riginating in non-English Disney comics? Anyway, here is Dickie's only animated appearance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSDD-mlxDFU

"Not sure what I think about the script including specific Rosa references--I guess I don't mind that much, but it's a little jarring. For all his flaws, Scarpa did come first, so why not give him pride of place?": while I am not too happy with translators adding things that are not present in the original, this is not really an anachronism since the Dilly Dollar and Scrooge's nickname "The Master of the Mississippi" first appeared in Barks's "Uncle Scrooge Goes to Disneyland" (1957). (The nickname Buck McDuck five pages later, on the other hand, is definitely an anachronism as it is a Rosa creation from decades later.) Anyway, even though the line was not a direct translation, the original did indeed contain a reference to the Mississippi, even though it's very generic and I don't think it was meant to be a Barks reference.

"It's basically inconceivable that anyone could remember the character yet somehow forget where she was from--which makes one wonder whether there might not have been some truly ill-advised editorial interference with this story": I guess we'll never know (unless there was an interview about this), but I find it hard to believe that there was an editorial reference on such a trivial matter. "Back to the Klondike" hadn't been printed for nine years before Scarpa created this tale in 1966, and I think not many Italian people in the 1960's knew that Klondike was in Canada.

"also, "I WAS already the custodian, too!" is possibly a joke I'm missing. Doesn't look like a very good one, though.": I also had trouble understandig the joke. The line in the original Italian translates into "Grunt, I am forced to accept!...I would never found something better!"

@Elaine
"I do wonder how close the Goldie/Brigitta dialogue is to Scarpa's original": that page can be seen in Italian at goo.gl/x2mPHW A literal translation would be:

Brigitta: Ahem...
Goldie: You are Brigitta, eh? I know what you think,... but have not fear! I am too old and only think about coming back to my old-people's home!...
Goldie: Listen to me!... When you want to leave an impression on Scrooge... you must make him believe that you adore his stinginess more than himself!
Brigitta: Oh, thanks, Goldie, my friend!

"Dialoguer Thad not only had to deal with the Klondike/Old West problem, but also had to deal (I am told) with the fact that in the original script Dickie knows about the whole Duckburg gang of family & associates because she's read about them all in Topolino!": exactly. In the original version she says (while jumping) "Make room for me, guys! I couldn't wait to be with you!" followed by (when holding the comic) "You know, I know all of you! I am an assiduous reader of yours" with the word "reader" in boldface. The comic is labelled "TOPOLINO" (the main Italian comic book title about Disney characters), and the title is written with the same lettering of the real comic.

February 20, 2017 at 4:02 AM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@Achille Talon
"I am not happy at all with the fact that the whole "I read about them in Topolino" motif was scrapped. I love this embodied fourth-wall joke that keeps cropping up in Italian Disney comics, of the comics really existing in-universe. It's not a one-time lunacy of a specific author, it's a recurring fact that lots of stories use, sometimes as a major plot point. Why does it keep being erased?": while this is not the only story to include fourth-wall breaking and mention the comics themselves, I am not sure that these lunacies are (or were) that common in Italian stories to the point of being called a recurring fact. And even though I am for faithful translations, I am not much bothered by the fact that this weird aspect was toned down, since I really dislike it.

"Maybe the "yet to come" in the final panel was meant, in the localization, quite literally from our point of view -- meaning that a good Dickie Duck stories is yet to be written": I'm not sure about the real meaning of that line, but I can confirm that it was not present in the original, where they just talk about the theme being "Ride of the Valkyries".

@Review Or Die
"I apologize for my ignorance, but could this be a multi-part story?": it was not. The whole story was printed in Topolino #577.

February 20, 2017 at 4:14 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

@Drakeborough, re that literal translation of the Goldie/Brigitta bit...boy, that does NOT improve my opinion of Scarpa. Condescending as hell, and JEEZ, THERE'S NO EVIDENCE THAT SCROOGE IS ANY YOUNGER THAN GOLDIE, YOU SEXIST WANKER. Crikey.

@Pan Milus
Clearly you're right that Dickie is an effort to reach a female demographic; don't know how this wasn't the first thing that occurred to me. Still, it can be both! Female AND cool!

February 20, 2017 at 5:14 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

@Thad: I'm sorry, I took Elaine's word that the Topolino gag had been erased without checking back in the story. To answer to your question, the key difference is that the "Topolino" thing, as I said, is a recurring element in the Italian continuity, whereas Goldie being misplaced to the Old West goes against continuity. If there's one thing I'm even nuttier about than faithful translations, it's continuity. As for the "costly" counter-argument… could you elaborate? I don't see how it would be especially costly, as (unless I'm very much mistaken) the story received a new coloring anyway.

February 20, 2017 at 7:20 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

The 4'th wall thing with characters being aware of "Topolino" as magazine were their adventures are printed was a comong thing.


There was one long story were the 1000 issue of Topolino is getting printed but get's stolen and we have all the character joing forces to find it and interview all the villians (Beagle Boys, Phantom Blot, Pete, Magica) Oddly enough when it was printed in Poland the translator left the magazine name "Topolino" without much of an explanation of what "Topolino" is from what I recall, which must confuse plenty of local readers.

February 20, 2017 at 8:23 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

I actually was once super curious about this story since it was - as far I know - the only time Goldie meet Brigitta which is is in-itself material for entire tale...

But I kind-off like that Scarpa just have them make this one brief interaction and made them instant friends... kind of cute an unexpected even if off-character for the series.


February 20, 2017 at 8:28 AM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

My biggest question would be "why introduce a granddaughter of Glittering Goldie at all?" as Goldie never really became a reoccurring character, and giving her a granddaughter really raises a lot of questions no one ever intended to answer about Goldie's life after she and Scrooge parted ways.

February 20, 2017 at 9:01 AM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

My biggest question would be "why introduce a granddaughter of Glittering Goldie at all?" as Goldie never really became a reoccurring character, and giving her a granddaughter really raises a lot of questions no one ever intended to answer about Goldie's life after she and Scrooge parted ways.

February 20, 2017 at 9:01 AM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

Drakeborough, thanks for the translationa. Like GeoX I hate the pathetic take on frail old Goldie there. I'm glad we didn't get that version!

Achille Talon, I didn't say that Thad had erased the Topolino reference, just that he dealt with it well. I approve of toning down that fourth-wall-breaking stuff, since like Drakeborough I don't like it. Perhaps I just think about my Duckburg universe too realistically. Not that comics *couldn't* in theory be published in Duckburg about our characters; I actually enjoyed Rosa's conceit that DuckTales might be an in-universe retelling/distortion of the Ducks' real adventures. But if the comics WE know were published in Duckburg, that would surely change things. For instance, Donald would not see himself or be seen by those around him as an ordinary guy, and that is key to his character.

February 20, 2017 at 9:56 AM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@GeoX
"Dickie is an effort to reach a female demographic; don't know how this wasn't the first thing that occurred to me. Still, it can be both! Female AND cool!": my guess is that she is an effort to reach the teen demographic. As far as I know, and unless I am forgetting someone, she is the only recurring character in either the duck universe or the mouse universe to be a teenager.

@Achille Talon
"the "Topolino" thing, as I said, is a recurring element in the Italian continuity": can you list a few examples? I don't doubt that a few authors may have come up with this gag, maybe even indipendently from each other, but your wording suggests it's such a common thing that is even part of a continuity of sorts... How many stories use this element?

"(unless I'm very much mistaken) the story received a new coloring anyway": you are not mistaken, the story received a new coloring.

@Pan Miluś
"The 4'th wall thing with characters being aware of "Topolino" as magazine were their adventures are printed was a comong thing" [...]: thanks for listing one example about the 1000th issue of Topolino. Do you know about other examples?

"I actually was once super curious about this story since it was - as far I know - the only time Goldie meet Brigitta which is is in-itself material for entire tale...": it was, but they met again in a story from a Topolino isuue released this very month, though the events of "The Miner's Granddaughter" are ignored and they meet each other *for the first time*... again. They also appear together, without interacting, in three Italian stories from 1994, 1997 and 2005.

February 20, 2017 at 10:02 AM  
Blogger Huwey said...

"As far as I know, and unless I am forgetting someone, she is the only recurring character in either the duck universe or the mouse universe to be a teenager."
I'm not quite sure, but I think, HDL are teenagers too, I always thought they were about 13/14 years old, aren't they?

February 20, 2017 at 10:30 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Only the Quack Pack versions, and I think we'd all like to forget about then.

But goodness no; HDL are 6-10, depending on author and context.

February 20, 2017 at 10:35 AM  
Blogger Huwey said...

But then, why the heck can they help his uncle, finding the treasury of croesus by learning ancient lydian? If HDL are really about 6-10 years old (and you're right, in some stories like "Christmas on bear mountain" they're acting like 6-10 year olds), how can they be so mature in Rosa-Comics?

February 20, 2017 at 10:47 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

@Debbie Anne
On "Why introduce Dickie as Goldies granddoughter"

I think it was way to tie her to Scrooge in a way she woudn't be just another duck-family member, yet Scrooge had a reason to take care of her/put up with her.

Plus Scarpa was a Barks fan so maybe it was his way to add a "peace of Goldie"/expand on her character without having here comming to stay in Duckburg.

As far I know there was only one more story where Goldie appeared with Dickie together.


@"Drakeborough"
That was the only one specyfic example thata came to my mid but I will try to recall more... but they waren't any big plot point's as thrown in joke, like the one from the Dickie story above.

Yhe, I remember one of the stories you mention (with Goldie and Brigitta appearing at once) which had a female reporter interviewing diffrent women from Scrooges life (including Magica DeSpell for some odd reason)


BTW -> I think I mention this once but There was a recent story which shown that HD&L are all in love in Dickie as a running gag... Yet, I've seen Dickie stories were they refrence her as their "cousin".

I don't like to quote Family Guy but... "What the deuce?"

February 20, 2017 at 11:20 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

@Pan Miluś: Er… actually, marriage between cousins is legal in most European countries. And depending on the continuity, Donald and Daisy may be more-or-less-distant cousins.

@Drakeborough: Beside the aforementioned "1000th issue", I also clearly recall a story where Scrooge was taken to an alternate, Arabian-Nightsish dimension by a verison of Sheherazade who solved her problem by having this universe's version of Gyro build a dimensional portal that allowed her to steal the issue of Topolino every week and tell the sultan stories based on the book. When she fails to steal one week's issue, she is forced to kidnap Scrooge himself to get new stories from the horse's mouth.

February 20, 2017 at 11:42 AM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

If Dickie is Scrooge's granddaughter, then Huey, Dewey and Louie are her *second* cousins (sharing a set of great-grandparents, not sharing a set of grandparents). Nonetheless, I would not like a story where HDL are all in love with her. I want more cross-gender relationships in the Duck world that are *not* romantic.

@Huwey: Rosa's HDL are very *smart* pre-teens, with the added advantage of a source of unfailingly accurate knowledge. They were often portrayed as that competent and mature by Barks as well.

February 20, 2017 at 12:09 PM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

The lack of continuing teenage characters is what led the Brazilians to create a whole bunch of such characters for their "Disney teens" series with Dickie. And I must say, the character designs of those characters are no improvement on Dickie's character design--especially in the case of the female characters.

February 20, 2017 at 12:12 PM  
Anonymous Ray L. said...

I don't know how I feel about "the comics exist inside the Duck universe" as a regular part of continuity, but I did like the way the gag was handled in this Dutch story, where Donald uses the comic books about himself as evidence that he's a true "modern day hero" in order to win a TV competition. There were a lot of fun Barks references in that one, too.

February 20, 2017 at 1:20 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Geox did had this great review of a story [ "The Comic Book Crooks"] were SuperGoof had in-universe comic book series about himslef, which got sabotage by the Beagle Boys... who also sabotage some Mickey Mouse and Scrooge stories. Which is extra odd! I can imagine superheores like Iron-man or Superman being ok with licence book about him being published in-universe but Mickey, Scooge or Beagle Boys...? Why, that's just silly and unrealistic. And no if you excuse I'm off to comic book shop to buy new issue of "Four color : Bil Gates", I heard he finds lostTemplar treasure in this one(!!)

February 20, 2017 at 1:52 PM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@Achille Talon
"And depending on the continuity, Donald and Daisy may be more-or-less-distant cousins": is it true? Which story (or stories) say that Donald and Daisy are cousins?

"Beside the aforementioned "1000th issue", I also clearly recall a story where Scrooge was taken to an alternate, Arabian-Nightsish dimension [...]": can you identify the story? I found five I-coded stories (Inducks list: goo.gl/vbMj6F) based on Arabian Nights, but the descriptions are not detailed enough to tell if the story you described is one of these; there's also the fact that there may be more stories that just have not an Inducks note saying they are based on Arabian nights, thus defying the advanced search. I also have trouble identifying the "1000th issue" story. Anyway, after we identify them we would have three stories to use this gimmick. Three stories out of... how many thousands? I don't know how to use Inducks to check how many I-coded stories are there, but I see that Donald alone has appeared in more than 8600 I-coded stories.

February 20, 2017 at 1:57 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

@Drakeborough: There was also Seventieth Heaven, where the original had the newspaper the characters were working on be part of the regular Dutch book. There was also a whole French series of one-pagers featuring Michel Souris, an in-universe fan of Mickey Mouse, working as a junior editor for "Mickey Parade", a French Mickey book. I recall a couple of stories about the "Journal de Mickey" as well. And let's not forget the story where the whole "Calisota Shore" incident took place.

February 20, 2017 at 2:15 PM  
Blogger Miguel Madeira said...

At some time that I think that the comics existing in-universe is the solution to one of the biggest mysteries from Disney comics (perhaps even more in mices than in ducks): what is their source of income, when almost none of them seems to have a regular job (taking aside the jobs as jornalists of Donald and Fethry in some stories, and the farms of Grandma Duck and Hard Haid Moe; and, of course, the rich capitalists)? Answer: their royalties from the stories are enough to survive, and they made some occasional jobs (that are the plot of some stories) to have some extra-cash, like in a world with an Universal Basic Income (the misery of Shacktown is only because they never had apeared in a story before "A Christmas...", meaning that, at that moment, they were not receiving any kind of royalities yet).

February 20, 2017 at 2:49 PM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@Achille Talon
I remember "70th Heaven": in Italy it was printed in ZIO PAPERONE #100, with the dialogue edited so that the characters are working to publish the ZIO PAPERONE comic itself (maybe they were they working on issue #100? I can't remember). There was even a dialogue in which a nephew suggested they could interview Don Rosa, while another nephew said they did that already many times; many dialogues referred to specific issues of ZIO PAPERONE being harder to find and other real facts etc. Anyway, before the story there was an introductory article explaining which changes were made and that they were made with the author's consent; the article also "justified" the crossover saying that even people who dislike these stores mixing universes could like this one, or something like that.

Anyway, none of these stories is Italian, so we are still at three I-coded stories using the gimmick: too few to say there is a trend.

Michel Souris... his character design is awful, and if the whole point about him is that he is a living 4th wall breaker, then he is like the worse character ever. By the way, what is the "Calisota Shore" incident?

@Miguel Madeira
I think this idea creates much more problem that it solves.

February 20, 2017 at 4:47 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

ARGH! My bad, it was actually "2000 Issue" of "Topolino" not 1000. The reason why baddies where trying to get is was becouse the cover was made of solid goold (sponsor by Scroog of all people)

https://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL+1996-CP

ALSO -> My friend mentioned that there was a story where Magica De Spell was trying to steal the very first Topolin (number one)

February 20, 2017 at 6:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There was a story, in which Scrooge is Meeting Don Rosa:
https://coa.inducks.org/s.php?c=D+2015-226

February 21, 2017 at 1:09 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

MY GOODNESS, I want to read that!

February 21, 2017 at 1:35 AM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@Pan Miluś
"ARGH! My bad, it was actually "2000 Issue" of "Topolino" not 1000 [...]": ah, ok, your link allowed me to find the story, which was printed in issue #1996 of Toplino, that is about a month before the actual issue #2000 was published. The Inducks page has a mistake, however: the Beagle Boys are not listed as appearing in the story even though they appear (at least) in the first page; it was this mistake that prevented me for finding the link myself.

February 21, 2017 at 3:27 AM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@Pan Miluś
"My friend mentioned that there was a story where Magica De Spell was trying to steal the very first Topolin (number one)"

It must be this story from 2009:

https://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL+2784-5

February 21, 2017 at 4:10 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Odd that they not mention The Beagle Boys, they had entrie subplot from what I remember...

February 21, 2017 at 5:54 AM  
Blogger Huwey said...

@Geo: The Story isn't that good. It has some cool Insider-Gags (there is e.g. a panel out of "A matter of some Gravitiy" and Rosa is throwing some of his chilli-peppers in Magica's mouth)), but all in all it's just a promotion comic for a danish comic festival.

February 21, 2017 at 7:39 AM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

I really need to get my hands on the English version of this- I've read the Italian, and a fan scanlation (and scanlated one such myself), so curious to see the changes.

Here's a vague, incomplete, unsourced history of the character, btw.

Dickie gets a few more uses by the Italians (which I like a lot more, even if they're simple stories- one where she's bothering Gideon McDuck about being a reporter which can be read with a certain "man, aren't women annoying" tone but I choose to read it as "man, aren't teens annoying" and inexplicably gives her a one-wheel scooter [and I call attention to the radio ring in this story, too- it really does feel like editorial trying to enforce really hard that she has to be cool, she even gets cool gadgets!], and another where she's doing some cooking contest between characters in Duckburg or something or other, and another where she goes to the south pole, or cameos in it. Been a while.)

She then, much like a few other early Scarpa ideas that didn't quite stick (Gideon McDuck or that other weird cousin of Donald, Sgrizzo) gets less and less and less use.

I have no idea what led the Brazillians to revive her. First stories she's in, when translated to Portuguese, she's named "Yé-Yé Duckling", a literal translation of the Italian. But by the late 80s, they update her name to Pata Lee (Female-Duck Lee, referencing popular singer at the time Rita Lee), give her an expanded cast (including an uncle who never gets used outside of an early pin-up and, for some reason, the Aracuan reinvented as a cooky teen named "Folião", er, "party-goer" - less insane than the film's Aracuan, more a lazy teen with short temper and who just thinks in bizarre ways), ground her a lot from the bizarre energy of the Scarpa stories (she becomes more a normal teen obsessed with music), and put her in an Archie Comics-like setting (including an ice-cream shop they constantly go to!). It's really weird, divorced of previous use, and dunno. I like the stories, they were some of my favs as a kid (although as far as Brazillian output goes Zé Carioca and Fethry still take the cake imo), but it's such a bizarre idea all around. Was it to try and get teenagers in? Because in that case, surely she'd be given her own magazine over HARD HAID MOE, no?

Anyway, like most non-Zé Carioca BR production, this eventually trickled down to nothing throughout the late 90s and 2000s. She had another period of kind-of hiatus (where, much like her first hiatus, she mostly just got use in Italian parody stories when they needed more cast), and recently, writer Vito Stabile seems to have taken to mind to use her more often again- giving her yet another new status quo (now no longer a reporter but also not an average teen, she's in college). Of this set of new stories, I've just read the first one where she goes adventuring with Scrooge, and a later one that's a different setting with Donald as a Noir Detective and Dickie as his secretary.

I wonder how much of all this stuff will get used in the US- the tag at the end of this story seems to indicate already "we're localising more", no?

February 21, 2017 at 7:41 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT INFORMATION! Knowledgeable commenters add a lotta value to this blog. I hope we'll get the Dickie/Gideon thing--you would indeed think "the best is yet to come" would be a reference to SOMETHING. How 'bout it, David?

February 21, 2017 at 7:58 AM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

Thanks for all the pointers, folks! I have ordered for myself the Scarpa Luna Park story (thanks, Pan) in Dutch, and the second-highest-Inducks-rated Vito Stabile Dickie story (thanks, The KKM) in Italian: "Paperetta si fa in due (Dickie splits in two)". (The highest rated Stabile Dickie story is one of the Donald-as-noir-detective stories, and that doesn't feel like it would highlight Dickie as a character in her own right.) Is the one where she goes adventuring with Scrooge "l'ultimo scrigno"? That one I can't find a copy of to buy. Anyway, in a couple weeks I hope to have more to go on in my assessment of what Dickie contributes to the Duckiverse. And, The KKM: I very much appreciate your overview of Dickie's career in comics so far, with its description of the Brazilian Disney Teens series.

February 21, 2017 at 11:06 AM  
Blogger Huwey said...

So, as I see, we're talking a little bit about Vito Stabile. Let me explain, why I like him so much. He is one of "us". He is a big disney-comic fan, who has made it into comic business. His stories are almost all with Scarpa allusions (e. g. that he uses Dickie Duck). Back to teenie-topic: In Vito Stabiles story "Qui, Quo, Qua e lo spettacolo al buio" HDL are acting like teens. They play computer games and are bitching on them uncles. With three teen friends of Dickie too (Melissa, Molly, Wanda) is the series Dai retta a Paperetta.
by the way Vito Stabile, in Germany, we're getting "Il mistero su tela" next month. Also with Dickie Duck.

February 21, 2017 at 11:28 AM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

Regarding Stabile, last interesting note, the man is, IIRC, circa 25 or 26 years old? I don't recall right now if he's younger or older than me, but he's around this age, younger than 30 at least, which makes him, as far as I know, one of the youngest creatives working in Disney Comics worldwide nowadays.

February 21, 2017 at 2:09 PM  
Anonymous Thad Komorowski said...

you would indeed think "the best is yet to come" would be a reference to SOMETHING. How 'bout it, David?

I'm not David, but I can tell you that it means... NOTHING.

It was my way of removing the "Ride of the Valkyries" line that made no goddamn sense and putting in something ambiguous and sappy. Nothing more, nothing less.

February 21, 2017 at 5:09 PM  
Blogger ramapith said...

Thad is right—but that said, we DO have a short Stabile Dickie/Scrooge story scheduled for the fall, and will probably have a longer one soon after.

February 21, 2017 at 9:55 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

So out of curiosity, can someone tell me exactly what this "Ride of the Valkyries" line WAS?

February 22, 2017 at 1:08 AM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

The joke is literally just that the band is playing Ride of the Valkyries. I think the idea is that the playing of the music has been comandeered by the strong women who came marching in, or even, "riding", at the last minute and saved everyone from the Beagles, thus they're the valkyries and are now playing Ride of the Valkyries.

I've a link to an earlier scanlation of this story done on 4chan, the thread archived and images too. That said, random linking to 4chan is certainly... rude, per se, so I'll leave to your discretion whether I should post it or not.

February 22, 2017 at 3:19 AM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@TheKKM
Vito Stabile was born on June 9, 1989.

@GeoX
Here is a scan of the last page in Italian: goo.gl/LW1vXr
Translation of the dialogue:

Silhouette: Can we know which subject did the orchestra start playing?
Silhouette: You smarties! It's... the Ride of the Valkyries!
Scrooge: Eh, eh!
Jubal: Uh, uh!

February 22, 2017 at 8:47 AM  
Blogger ramapith said...

BTW, Geoff, re: Scarpa coming up with his own English names for his characters—

Scarpa named Brigitta MacBridge.
Scarpa named Dickie Duck.

Scarpa named Jubal Pomp "Jubal Cock," but DIsney wouldn't let Gladstone call him this for obvious reasons. When I translated the first story with him in 1998 (not published until 2004), John Clark and I substituted Pomp because a character vaguely resembling Jubal had been named Pomp in this story. (No, I don't think it's really him.)

Atomo Bleep-Bleep is the 1970s British name for that character, which we simply adopted when he came over here.

Rockerduck's butler Jeeves, first drawn by Scarpa, got that name in an S-coded story. (It arguably wasn't the same character there—in early stories, the butler was more elderly—but the name stuck.)

Luca Boschi and Alberto Becattini, in collaboration with Scarpa himself, worked with me in 1998 to invent English names for a few Scarpa characters who hadn't yet appeared in English, because Egmont and Milan needed names for some internal databases. It was then that Gancetto became Ellroy, Plottigat became Portis, Sgrizzo Papero became Kildare Coot, and Trudy (already called Trudy in Italian) got her surname of Van Tubb.

Luca Boschi and I named Quibble De Writ (Cavillo Busillis) when I was translating his first story in 2007. I can't remember the details, but I think it involved his original name being a play on words, so we came up with something equivalent—to quibble the writ means to bicker about the meaning of the law, and it also sounds like "tiddlywink."

February 22, 2017 at 12:11 PM  
Blogger ramapith said...

(...and yes, Portis comes from Portis, Texas, by way of several Warner Bros cartoons. We wanted a name that had the P and T sounds of "Pete" but sounded a little more hifalutin—compare with the Italian analog of "Plottigat" and "Pietro.")

February 22, 2017 at 12:20 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Ha ha, Jubal Cock! I'm twelve years old, btw.

February 22, 2017 at 9:57 PM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

@ramapith--Three cheers for the Stabile Dickie/Scrooge stories coming our way! Maybe it's just as well I couldn't find a copy of "l'ultimo scrigno" to buy.... And thanks for all the info on names.

I think "Jubal Pomp" is a name which fits the character quite well, and sounds both funny and believable as a name, at least in Duckburg.

I do think it's funny that Scarpa's suggested English names included both "Cock" and "Dickie". Even though the slang meaning of dick has nothing to do with why I *used to but don't any more* complain about the name Dickie Duck.

February 22, 2017 at 10:28 PM  
Anonymous Drakeborough said...

@ramapith
Thanks for explaining how English names are chosen.

"Scarpa named Brigitta MacBridge": I'll add that Brigitta was already his Italian name, while if I remember correctly the surname MacBridge first appeared in American translated stories. I wonder why her first name didn't become her American equivalent Brigitte (like Gedeone became Gideon), as I don't se why an American woman would have an Italian name. Even Barks, while drawing her, called her Brigitte.

"Rockerduck's butler Jeeves, first drawn by Scarpa, got that name in an S-coded story. (It arguably wasn't the same character there—in early stories, the butler was more elderly—but the name stuck.)": do you remember which was the S-coded story? Inducks does not list any S-coded story with Lusky, so I guess the character from that story is not indexed as him. By the way, the joke about Rockerduck's secretary Lusky's name is that it sound similar to "losco", meaning "shady, sinister, suspicious"

I guess the only Scarpa character who still has to receive a name is O'Hara's wife Petulia (first appeared in a Pezzin/Scarpa story from 1996). Her only American appearance is in "The Sound-Blot Plot", in IDW's Mickey Mouse #2 (legacy #311), but she only has a cameo and is not called by name.

And speaking of character names: which is the first story to use Quackmore as the name of Scrooge's butler Battista, and why was it decided that he should have the same name as Donald's father?

February 23, 2017 at 5:03 AM  
Anonymous Giuseppe Milianti said...

I am sorry, but you are wrong. Scarpa does NOT choose an english name for his character: he names her "Paperetta Yè Yè", but "Dickie Duck" is an idea of american translaters.
And you are wrong agai, when you write "You didn't see Carl Barks coming up with the Italian names for Disney characters..."
BARKS DID. He names the italian whitch "Magica De Spell". Well, "De Spell" absolutely is NOT an italian name. Maybe German, meybe English, maybe French; surely NOT Italian.

February 24, 2017 at 3:16 AM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

Giuseppe, the man you're replying to is basically the head of any Disney Comics published in English in the past 20 or so years, at the very least. He's not saying Scarpa named her "Dickie Duck" in the italian comics, obviously, he's saying that when asked what was her English name, he said "Dickie Duck". And no he didn't come up with the Italian names for the characters- Magica De Spell is an italian CHARACTER, but her NAME in Italy is Amelia, not Magica de Spell. Magica de Spell is her ENGLISH name. You're mixing a lot of things and misreading everything that was said. Please read with more care.

February 24, 2017 at 3:26 AM  
Anonymous Giuseppe Milianti said...

Thanks, but i sayd Scarpa create the Italian name "Paperetta" (wrong for an american character? Maybe) and the translater called her "Dickie Duck". I think that it is not important if Scarpa or someone other said this, USA Disney might know why it is wrong, and refuse this name. Scarpa is innocent, USA Disney is guilty. (Or, if USA Disney is right, the name is right too).

Instead, Barks named his ITALIAN (from Naples, he said) character whit a non-italian name. Barks was wrong. Italian Disney translate this name, using an italian one.
Barks was wrong, Italy Disney corrected him.

February 24, 2017 at 4:49 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

@Giuseppe: Barks wasn't wrong, he merely wasn't trying. He wasn't trying to come up with a realistic Italian name, he was trying to come up with a play on words that sounded kinda Italian.

Also, the aformentioned "Michel Souris" is set to make his American debut very soon, I believe.

February 24, 2017 at 4:54 AM  
Anonymous Giuseppe Milianti said...

@Achille: you are right.
What i say is the same: Scarpa wasn't wrong, he merely wasn't trying.
He named his character whit an italian name (not only Paperetta, Jubal was named Filo Sganga, and so on) but the american Disney choosed and/or approved the names Dickie, Jubal, and so on.

February 24, 2017 at 5:07 AM  
Anonymous Giuseppe Milianti said...

"I WAS already the custodian, too!" is not a joke, it comes completely from the english translation. In italian, the she-director says: "i must accept, i will never find something better"

February 24, 2017 at 5:30 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

And you are wrong agai, when you write "You didn't see Carl Barks coming up with the Italian names for Disney characters..."
BARKS DID. He names the italian whitch "Magica De Spell". Well, "De Spell" absolutely is NOT an italian name. Maybe German, meybe English, maybe French; surely NOT Italian.


The point IS, Barks didn't decide what names anyone would use for his characters outside the US. The fact that the character is putatively Italian is totally irrelevant. And as for English names of Italian characters...I kind of think ramapith knows what he's talking about here.

February 24, 2017 at 7:50 AM  
Anonymous Giuseppe Milianti said...

Please read again.
I told even Scarpa didn't.

February 24, 2017 at 8:14 AM  
Anonymous Francesco said...

Ok, Giuseppe, mi sembra che qui ci sia stata un po' di incomprensione; quello che stiamo dicendo è che Scarpa stesso ha deciso i nomi che dovevano essere usati nelle traduzioni inglesi delle sue storie e delle sue "creature"; lui ha suggerito che Paperetta venisse chiamata Dickie in America, e Plottigat Portis e Gancetto Ellroy. Sono tutti nomi che ha ideato lui; Scarpa parlava anche l'inglese, e sapeva benissimo quello che faceva.

Allo stesso modo, l'autore di questo blog è un tizio che ne sa più di te e di me messi insieme per quanto riguarda le traduzioni, essendo il responsabile delle traduzioni inglesi delle storie Disney da tutto il mondo.
Spero che la mia spiegazione non ti sia sembrata troppo pedante, ma mi sembrava giusto chiarire il discorso.

February 24, 2017 at 1:12 PM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

(Francesco, I think you mixed a few ideas yourself- GeoX isn't Ramapith, Ramapith is the one who is the head of translations, he's just a commenter here, not the author of the blog :V )

February 24, 2017 at 2:03 PM  
Blogger Huwey said...

Ha ha, Jubal Cock! I'm twelve years old, btw.
Are you still laughing? =)

February 26, 2017 at 1:13 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

HA! Cock Pete! :D (I'm seven and a half!)

February 27, 2017 at 1:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cool review! I enjoyed this one!

February 28, 2017 at 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Giuseppe Milianti said...

Grazie Francesco, se le cose stanno così (cioè Scarpa ha scelto personalmente i nomi americani, e visto che me lo dici non ho motivo di dubitarne), stavo prendendo una cantonata.
Mi rimane un pizzico di dubbio sul perché la Disney America (dove sicuramente sicuramente c'è qualcuno che parla inglese ancor meglio di Scarpa) non lo ha corretto, se i nomi proposti erano ridicoli.
Se poi chi di dovere ha (a suo tempo) valutato che quei nomi non erano ridicoli, beh, allora è lui a non essere d'accordo con l'autore del blog :-)

Grazie comunque q tutti per l'interessante chiacchierata.
Thanks to everybody for the interesting chalk.

March 8, 2017 at 10:48 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

BTW - I recently read a Italian story (which so happened to include Dickie, but that's besid the point) where the Duck family tried to entertain each other and at one point Daisy and Grandmaduck started making impressions of Donald and Scrooge...

...is this something people seriously do? Entertain each other by mocking other people they know? I get pretenting to be cellebreties but family members who are siting in front of you this is just odd to me. Maybe it's a cultural thing, I don't know...

March 10, 2017 at 12:06 PM  
Blogger Lieju said...

I read some Italian comics with Dickie (who was called 'Poppi' in Finnish translations) when I was younger but never knew she was supposed to be related to Goldie or anyone.

I just thought she was a friend of HDL or something... though the stories I best and most fondly recall her from were fantasy AUs.

I think it's a shame how she turned out... Didn't really find her niche in most comics maybe. I could see how Duckburg could have benefitted from a teen girl character who could have been used in stories in ways HDL couldn't have though.

March 11, 2017 at 12:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

All this time, and nobody brought up the roundabout joke?

"Aha! A roundabout. I'LL STEAL IT! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!"

It comes from an old WB cartoon, became a meme for a while. Look up that exact line.

July 5, 2017 at 9:43 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

I just realized that before this story Brigitta only appeard in 16 stories... so promoting here as second most interesting citizen in Duckburg is extra odd!

July 7, 2017 at 4:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Why not show some class and leave politics out of your Duck reviews- which are otherwise good. And by the way- Laws ARE for the little people.

December 30, 2017 at 10:27 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Why not bite me?

December 30, 2017 at 11:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm amused by the one panel ("You're all probably the biggest influence on my creativity!") where Dickie's lower half is miscolored, giving her the pantsless bottom and orange legs look of many of the other main duck characters.

(Her legs are weird anyway - they're white in every panel except for the one where she's imitating Donald, where they're regular duck feet and legs)

August 20, 2018 at 4:17 PM  
Anonymous Sandro said...

Paperetta Ye-Ye was meant to be a character with which the Italian teenagers of the 60s could identify themselves.
It's no a coincidence that it looks like a mixture of Rita Pavone and Caterina Caselli, so not a hippie girl but a girl yéyé.
The story of the comic is similar to the movie "Rita, la figlia americana" in which Rita Pavone played the adopted daughter of Totò, so here is the need to justify a teenage girl who lives with Uncle Scrooge, Scarpa is limited to using Goldie as narrative escamotage.
Even the personality of Dickie is in fact a reafforer of the character of Rita Pavone as it appears in his movies of those years.
The ability to break down the fourth wall instead a very common idea in Italy in those years where metalanguage was experimented in all his forms (Fellini's 8½ came out only three years earlier) in fact in 64 came out the comic Topolinissimo in which Peg- Leg Pete reads the adventures of Mickey Mouse on Topolino comic books.

October 22, 2018 at 1:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And FINALLY tomorrow* this story will FINALY be published in Poland! Will Dickie's rebelius spirit will be just what this country needs to shake up the conservative patriarchy? I know it's a lot of preasure to put on a single comic book story but will It didn't work out with The Beatles or P!NK I think Dickie and her "Take my money and run!" ways still have a fair shot...

GO INTO THE LIGHT!!!

_____________
*Not today but the next day!

March 28, 2019 at 8:19 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home